DAVIS. — CERTAIN OLD CHINESE NOTES. 275 



which are of value to the economist to-day, and to express themselves 

 so as to satisfy fully the demands of the modern investigator. We are 

 compelled to take the records as we find them, and interpret them, as 

 best we may, through the test of subsequent historical experiences. 

 We may feel reasonably sure that the translators have given us a fairly 

 accurate version of the Chinese text, especially when Ave find a con- 

 sensus of meaning in the papers of different translators. If we reflect 

 that the records with which we are dealing at the beginning of the 

 Chinese paper money experience cover dates six and a half centuries 

 and perhaps more before Columbus made his first voyage across the 

 Atlantic, we shall not be disposed to demand too much of these Chinese 

 historians and officials in the way of exact statements. 



The several writers who have undertaken to furnish us with knowl- 

 edge of these Chinese records unite with a single exception, in saying 

 that the first experience of the Chinese government in the emission of 

 paper money occurred about 806 A.D. That exception throws the 

 date of the inception of the experience back about one hundred and 

 fifty years. The question whether the true date is 650 A.D. or 806 

 A.D. is of slight consequence to us. There is nothing improbable in 

 the statement that the earlier is the true date, but the later has proved 

 to be the one usually accepted as authentic, for although very little 

 is known of the notes then emitted, the causes which led to the emis- 

 sion have been fully portrayed. Interior troubles, continuous wars, 

 a reduction in the output of the mines, and the amount of copper used 

 by the Buddhists in casting statues, led to the total disparition of the 

 metal itself and of the copper coins. Edicts were issued against the 

 use of copper in the manufacture of domestic utensils. Merchants 

 were ordered to bring their metallic currency to the treasury, in 

 exchange for which so-called bonds or letters of exchange payable at 

 short terms in the principal districts of the empire were given them. 



These obligations were called "light money" or as Klaproth more 

 picturesquely translates it "flying money." They apparently had 

 but a brief life at the capital, but in the provinces continued to circu- 

 late for some time. Other emissions followed under the different 

 emperors, some of which were for the nominal purpose of saving to 

 merchants the transportation from place to place, in settlement of 

 debts, of the copper currency on which the country depended as a 

 measure of value. Most, if not all, of these emissions had names. 

 In one case we have seen that the appropriate designation of " flying 

 money" was given them. In another they were called "convenient 

 money." The fitness of this title will be appreciated when it is stated 



