Surveyor and artist Charles Heaphy sketched 'Night scene in an officer's quarters in New Zealand' in 1850. It shows officers engaged in drunken revelry: with some dancing a war dance, one overturning a table, another emptying a bottle of wine over his friend's head and another vomiting into a basin. When in the presence of ladies these gentlemen would have observed a strict code of manners, but in all-male company they felt free to behave badly.
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Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference:
A-145-013
Ink drawing by Charles Heaphy
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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