CURRENCY AND COINAGE 211 



used as royal playthings in a popular pitch and toss 

 game, passed lately as money, because of their constant 

 weight and fineness. 



The next step in evolution is taken quite naturally. 

 Weighing and assaying lead directly to marking for 

 identification. When all money is vague and requires 

 testing by both weight and assay before use it is natural 

 to put a recognizable mark on any particular piece one 

 knows. It saves so much trouble. The first move in 

 this direction was to mark lumps of silver for fineness. 

 It saved working out that troublesome point every time 

 they came into use. The best known instance of this is 

 the famous sycee silver of China, all of which is stamped 

 for fineness, but not for weight, by private Chinese firms, 

 the Easterlings of the East, with characters very widely 

 recognized. Others are the larins of Persia and west 

 coast of India and the ' fish-hooks ' of Ceylon, which both 

 consisted of silver wire bent and stamped for fineness, 

 and the ticals of Siam, which were bars of silver ham- 

 mered double and similarly stamped. 



By this process, however, we have only arrived at 

 a mark for fineness, but it is necessary to know both 

 fineness and weight. The ' chopped ' dollar of China is 

 a well-known instance of the first in this direction. The 

 dollar, being an actual European coin found by the 

 Chinese merchants to be of constant weight, they have 

 acquired a habit of accepting its weight, but their old 

 instincts, or perhaps unfortunate experience, have in- 

 duced them to 'chop,' i.e. stamp not cut, for fineness, 

 every dollar that passes through their hands and with 

 which they are satisfied, so as to recognize it. In this 

 way dollars have become stamped all over till it requires 

 some skill in the users to pick out their own mark, for 

 they will accept no others, including the European marks. 



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