e though formerly rated at five
shillings, together with a subsidiary coinage of fifty, twenty, ten
and five-cent silver pieces, as well as coppers of one and two cents
each.

The Chinese standard of value in universal use throughout the Empire
is copper cash. A cash is about the size of a shilling and equivalent
to one eighth of a farthing in value. Through the centre of each coin
is a square hole large enough to admit a thick string. It is usual to
thread cash, first into bundles of one hundred, each bundle being
about the size and shape of a sausage, and then for ten bundles to be
strung together in pairs, so that the full string of a thousand cash
almost exactly corresponds to a double string of ten sausages. The
value of this full string is about half-a-crown, and owing to its
great weight is usually carried slung over the shoulder.

The _tael_, pronounced tale, is not a coin at all, but means simply an
ounce (of silver). There are many kinds of taels, each of a different
value according to the purity or _touch_ of the silver, which is
chiefly determined by the locality in which the metal is mined.

When a Chinaman sells native produce to a European he always keeps in
mind its value in cash, and wants a corresponding value in dollars or
taels, whatever the price of silver may happen to be. The same with
wages of all kinds; the amount required in each case is based on what
each individual requires in cash.

The whole monetary system, or rather lack of system, complicated by
numberless local banks, each with its own issue of paper money, is so
bewildering that European householders seldom bother about anything
beyond dollars and cents, to which standard, for their especial
benefit, all others are reduced, though always at a certain loss in
the exchange.

Some of these concessions, which are in reality little English towns,
have greatly prospered since their inauguration and are now centres of
voluminous and increasing trade; but others, belying their initial
prosperity, have stagnated, and appear to be gradually slipping back
to the Chinese, who, in contravention of treaty ordinances, have been
allowed to acquire property on them and reside there in
rapidly-increasing numbers.

The thriving settlement of Shanghai, which is situated near the mouth
of the River Yangtse, and which possesses a foreign population of six
or seven thousand, may be considered the metropolis of other
treaty-ports in the northern half