192 THE EVOLUTION OF 



jeopardized by their close approach to barter. Just so. 

 In my view, in illustrating by examples a natural develop- 

 ment, this is inevitable. It is a phenomenon of Nature, 

 of which the explanation I offer is that just given. 



Bearing this law always in mind, let us commence 

 our investigation of the borderland between Currency 

 and Money, between the employment of a domestically 

 usable article and the employment of a domestically non- 

 usable article as the medium of exchange, by a consider- 

 ation of roughly measured articles as the medium. In 

 the fourteenth century Friar Odoric tells us of a rich 

 man's revenue in China being stated in sacks, i.e. 'heavy 

 ass-loads' of rice, revenues there being, until quite 

 lately and perhaps still, estimated in sacks of rice. In 

 Burma under the native Government they were always 

 reckoned in baskets of rice, just as they were in Kash- 

 mir in the sixteenth century in the days of Akbar the 

 Great. All this is on the same principle as the use of 

 the rolls of tobacco with which the young Virginian paid 

 for his bride's passage out from England, though the 

 measuring is not, owing to the comparative civilization 

 of the parties concerned, so accurate or regular. In the 

 same category should be placed the well-known currency 

 in skins in Ancient Russia, North America, and China. 



From a roughly measured currency to a carefully 

 measured and, so far as regards measurement, regulated 

 currency is an almost imperceptible step. Of this the 

 tobacco rolls of Old Virginia are equally as much an 

 example as they are of roughly measured currency, 

 giving an idea of the difficulty in some cases of arriving 

 at a distinct attribution to class in the case of natural 

 phenomena. The tubeteika is, however, a clear instance. 

 Forty-five tubeteikas, or mulberry cakes, make by local 

 law or custom a batman or standard measure. And 



