1870-1875
Glass photonegative
On Gay owned a drapery and general store in Clarke Street, Hill End. In his memoirs, Remembered with Pride, miner Mark Hammond observed that ‘The appearance of some of the Chinese had considerably altered from what it was … many of them were now adopting European costumes’.
There are crowds of Chinese men, almost all under the middle size, in uncommonly wide trowsers of a most rude cut and flimsy material, often the thinnest blue calico; and with the sallow, flat faces which you see on their tea-pots. They are many of them brought over as coolies are carried to the Mauritius, into a sort of slavery. They are bound for four years, during which time they work for their masters, only receiving their maintenance. Others come on their own account; and a very worthless class of immigrants they appear to me. If they come to gather gold only to return with it, they to that extent rob the English subject; if they settle they are not a race that are very likely to amalgamate well with the rest of the population; and as to their present labour, that cannot be very valuable, for they appear of a very inferior physique, and not inclined to hurt themselves with hard work. [William Howlitt, Land, Labour, and Gold, p285]
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