2-982-421 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches in Canton - Appearance of a Busy Street in Canton after a Visit from "The Barbarians" on their burning and plundering raid, 1858. Destruction caused by British forces. 'They have been destroying, looting, and burning, and are loaded with all manner of property, and all are delighted with their morning's fun, as everything in the fighting or destroying line is humorously called...In a very short time this busy suburb, which three days before was teeming with life and an industrious, hardworking population, presented a scene of really awful desolation: nothing but gutted and broken shells of houses remained, from which presently large, heavy masses of rolling smoke began to ascend; from house to house the avenging Fanquis went, piled their wood and fired it, and then a dead silence reigned, followed by the crackling of thousands of houses on fire at once'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.