CHAP. XXVII. 



CHINA. 333 



By a recent account, which appears worthy of 

 credit, " the whole revenue of China amounts to 

 eighty-four million ounces of silver. Of this, 

 about thirty-three millions are paid in metal, and 

 about fifty-one millions in grain and other com- 

 modities, consumed for the most part by the local 

 administration of the several provinces ; a portion 

 only, to the amount of six million ounces, is 

 annually remitted to Pekin V 



No money, either of gold or silver, is coined in 

 China. The money in use there is the dollars of 

 Spain or of her late colonies, which, either whole 

 or divided into halves or quarters, are very general 

 on the sea-coast, or sheets of silver rolled thin so 

 as to be easily divided into the portion required for 

 payment. The coined as well as the rolled silver 

 passes by weight, and every trader carries with him 

 scales for weighing, and a touchstone to test the 

 degree of purity of the metal. The only money 

 current in China of native fabrication is a small 

 brass coin, known by the name of the cash, which, 

 though one hundred and fifty of them are only 

 worth one shilling sterling, are well adapted to 

 the use of a country where money is dear, or, 

 what is the same, where all other commodities are 

 cheap, in order to facilitate the exchanges of one 

 description of common articles with others. 



In the contraband trade carried on in the out- 



1 Bulletin des Sciences, No. 5, May, 1829. 



