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Title
A French perspective on the Chinese
Description

The French Consul’s wife, Céleste de Chabrillan, observed the tensions between existing between the Chinese and the English on the gold fields.

Published Source
Clancy, Patricia and Allen, Jeanne (eds), The French Consul’s wife: memoirs of Céleste de Chabrillan in gold-rush Australia, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1998. Details

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Transcript

While my house was being unloaded at a great cost, I went with my husband to take a horse-ride around the mines. We stopped in a village of Chinese emigrants and were nearly given a less than warm reception. These miserable souls are exasperated by the English who treat them like harmful animals. Indeed the children of Albion beat them and chase them on the pretext that they don’t spend all that they earn and because they eat rice. One of their interpreters having assured them they had no reproach to make against the French, they presented me with very pretty handcrafts that they had made.

Created: 17 March 2006, Last modified: 24 August 2006