422 Voyage of the Novara. 



the streets of Shanghai, we came upon hospitals for children 

 and foundlinojs /=ici P,^ '^ \ of the latter of which the one 

 we visited was founded by voluntary contribution so far back 

 as 1710. This humane institution has a landed property of 

 about 30 acres, by the produce of which, as well as frequent 

 public collections, it is supported. In 1783, this orj)han 

 hospital was amalgamated with an asylum for old and de- 

 crepit persons, and others incapacitated for labour, and one 

 wealthy Chinese gentleman provided 3000 taels* for this 

 praiseworthy object, but somewhat later this joint plan was 

 abandoned, and the Orphan Asylum remains to this day 

 self-supporting, while the poor, the sick, and the aged are 

 relieved every month at the Custom-house out of funds 

 specially set apart. 



. At the period of our visit we found thirty infants in the 

 building, who had been deposited by their mothers in a 



* In Shanghai the medium of exchange in common use is not as at Hong-kong 

 reckoned in dollars, but in taels, an imaginary currency of the value of about 

 $133, so that 100 taels=$i33^, or about £27 15s. Most accounts are rendered in 

 taels, whence they are reduced into Mexican dollars, the only foreign silver that is 

 current. When European merchants first came in contact with the children of the 

 Flowery Land, the latter used to pay a sort of premium for American dollars, while 

 for those bearing the effigies of Charles III. (known as the Karolus dollar), quite a 

 special price was paid. Gradually, however, the value sank tiU, as already mentioned, 

 75 taels=$100. What has so often been reported of a special Shanghai dollar coin- 

 age is quite erroneous. There are neither gold nor silver coins struck in China, but 

 solely of copper, and in some provinces of iron. The term Shanghai dollar is 

 equivalent to tael, which, as already remarked, is, like the guinea in England, unknown 

 to commerce. 1 tael=5s. 7d. English, but in trade it is taken as 6s. It occasionally 

 rises as high as 6s. 6d, when the proportion between the dollar and the tael is as 

 100 to 72. 



