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having been graciously pleased to accept Looty, it forms one of the Royal collection of dogs. Looty is considered by everyone who has seen it the smallest and by far the most beautiful little animal that has appeared in this country."63
While compassionating the plight of the prisoners and stirred by the brave example of Private Phipps of the King's Dragoon Guards, many British readers must have felt shock and dismay at the burning and looting of the Summer Palace. While many must have responded with particular interest to the information about China and the Chinese people which was being carried in British publications (including The Illustrated London News, discussed in this article), some must have ruefully contrasted and compared what was happening in China with English activities in Ireland and Scotland a century or more earlier.
Following the sustained, detailed and circumstantial coverage of Chinese affairs and British interventions in China at this time, of which The Illustrated London News gives us a taste, it is not surprising that when advertisements for “A Gentleman of suitable Literary and Moral qualifications” to fill the new post of Headmaster and Inspector of Schools in the British crown colony of Hong Kong appeared in four British newspapers in August 1861, hundreds of respondents applied.
Hong Kong, China
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In spite of its full coverage of China and events in China, there had been little mention of Hong Kong in The Illustrated London News at this time. One rare mention was of a comparatively frivolous nature. An illustration of "The Barrister's Cup", which the "chief legal gentlemen of the colony" had decided to present, had appeared on 23 February 1861 with the accompanying narrative: “In spite of war and war's rumours, our countrymen at Hong-Kong are still as fond of home sports as ever. One of the principal English institutions imported into that distant island is that of racing, and English colonist or Chinese resident seem equally to enjoy the sport.
"65
In early to mid-September 1861, interviews were held in Britain66 for the educational position in Hong Kong which had recently been established at least partly to address the task of creating mutual understanding and goodwill between British and Chinese in the colony. Some