The Costume of China / Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese

Chapter 5: Plate IV. A MAN SERVANT.

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About This Book

An illustrated volume presents fifty colored engravings with descriptive text that surveys dress, occupations, and social customs across urban and rural settings. Plates depict court and military attire with insignia indicating rank, everyday laborers, domestic servants, entertainers, religious practitioners and rituals, market and transport scenes, and tools and weapons, often accompanied by explanations of materials, costume elements, and local practices such as fishing methods and funerary observances. The commentary mixes observational notes on appearance and behavior with practical details about trades, ceremonies, and the visual markers of status.

Plate IV.

A MAN SERVANT.

We have little to observe on this figure. His dress is pretty nearly that of the class of people to which he belongs. The Chinese are excellent domestic servants, and when honest, which is a quality not common among them, they are invaluable. They are rather slow, and do not like to be put out of their way, but they do their work well and neatly. Every European resident at Canton and Macao has Chinese servants, which on the whole, are preferable to any other race of Orientals. They are sometimes brought over to England, but are seldom happy till they get back to their own country, which has the same kind of charm to them as the vallies of Switzerland had to the natives of that once happy country.

China—Plate 5