Hence the convenience and safety of making payments at places remote
from each other, through the medium of a banker, is almost unknown in
China.

Within certain limits, the large bankers undertake mercantile
exchanges; they also refine the sycee, or silver, for the receivers of
taxes. The government will take no silver under a standard quality;
the collector delivers his sycee to the banker, who weighs, refines,
and casts it into ingots, for a consideration, giving a receipt, which
is handed to the treasurer of the department, who calls for the amount
when required.

The small banks transact their business on an extremely petty scale.
On first starting in business, their notes are seldom in circulation
above a few hours, and they have always to be watchful to avoid a
'run.' It is among this class that failures most frequently occur, the
time of the crash being the end of the year, owing to the demand for
specie which then arises. As a precautionary measure, some of them
mostly circulate the notes of the large banks, which do not return to
them as their own would. Their own are sure to come back once at least
in the twenty-four hours, as the large banks make a rule of sending
all petty bank-notes to their issuers every day, and exchanging them
for specie or larger notes. The petty establishments resort to various
expedients for the sake of profit; one is, to locate themselves in a
good situation: if far from a large bank, they charge a higher rate of
discount on notes presented for payment, than is charged by their more
powerful competitor; and the people who live in the neighbourhood
submit to this charge, rather than take the trouble of going to the
large bank. On the contrary, if the great and the small are near
together, the latter charge lower, and make their profit by placing
base coin among the strings of copper _cash_ which they pay to their
customers in exchange for notes. The inferior cash is manufactured for
the purpose, in the same way as Birmingham halfpence used to be for
distribution by the keepers of toll-gates.

'Such petty chicanery is not viewed, as with us, in the light of an
offence, since, from the exceeding low value of the Chinese
cash--twenty-seven being only equivalent to a penny--those must be bad
indeed which will not pass current with the rest; and, accordingly,
the inferior sorts, when used in moderation, are accepted along with
the better in all the ordinary transactions of life. The