1893 - Chinese eating of cats and dogs - a letter about

[Guest guest]

The following is extracted from a letter written by an Indian

traveller to Canton. One wonders if the Korean custom was

in vogue then -

10th July, 1893

 

We landed on a strip of ground given by the Chinese Government to foreigners to

live in. Around us on both sides of the river for miles and miles is the big

city- wilderness of human beings, pushing, struggling, surging, roaring. But

with all its population, all its activity, it is the dirtiest town I saw, not in

the sense in which a town is called dirty in India, for as to that not a speck

of filth is allowed by the Chinese to go waste ; but because of the Chinaman,

who has, it seems, taken a vow never to bathe! Every house is a shop, people

living only on the top floor. The streets are very very narrow, so that you

almost touch the shops on both sides as you pass. At every ten paces you find

meat-stalls, and there are shops which sell cat's and dog's meat. Of course,

only the poorest classes of Chinamen eat dog or cat.