(From the Hw Pao, 14th January, 1890}.
During the winter months the Western merchants at Shanghai have a sport which some call pow-peepa others T'iao pan Tien clit or pao clit, literally; 1g (jumping half a creek) others again
or paper-gallop. They make for this purpose, elect a committee, every Saturday afternoon have a hunt, one of the committee going out beforehand and scattering the paper along a track marked by which he erects atthe start and fi A The hunt then, guided by the paper, follows the track from start to finish, across country, jump-creeks and ditches en route and not diverging from the course indicated by the paper.
This sport no doubt is a variation of horse-racing; the latter is regarded as an important business involving heavy gains and losses, and this later development of it asa trifling amusomevt at which much money is not risked.
It is customary to have these hunts in the winter, as then there is no rice or cotton crop in the fields to be damaged by the horses' feet; but there are still vegetables growing everywhere and so there have always been objections on the part of the country people. To meet these, the foreigners announced that they would pay full compensation for any damage done in this mani and this journal inserted an article praising them for the spirit of fair play evinced by such a promise. To make sure that all should know, the paperhunters took the trouble to have a great many numbers of the Hu Pao containing the article distributed among the country Pethis occurred thros or four years ago, but the opposition did not disappear, and has of late shown a marked embitterment. The rustics obliterate the track by romoving the paper, remove the marking flags, or even dig holes across the track or smear the bridges with slippery mud to bring riders and ponies to grief.
All this makes the foreigners very indignant, and what they think about it will appear from the following colloquy which was actually held between one of them addicted to this sport and a Chinese quite latd Ghinese.—The country people have no hatred of paper-hunting, but they hate the damage caused by it to the things growing in their kitchen-gardens and fields. Though promised compensation, they still object can it be that compensation is not really given but only talked about Foreigner.—No, indeed! We have too much esteem for truth, to promise compensation and then not give it. The fact is, the country people are up to a hundred
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.