LANGUAGE-PEOPLE-MONEY 13 



are settled with the three metals are in 

 China settled with copper only ; and this 

 quaint coin is one of the most important of 

 the links which bind the Empire together. 

 Even in this coin the Chinaman shows his 

 inevitable tendency to create differences. 

 With the exception of one spot, Peking, the 

 coinage is uniform throughout China ; but 

 in the northern provinces, of which Shang- 

 hai and the metropolitan province, Chihli, 

 may be taken as examples, each coin counts 

 as two. The housekeeper does her market- 

 ing with six pounds weight of coppers ; in 

 mid-China and the south she calls this 

 amount one tiao (or 1,000 cash), and in 

 north China she calls it two tiao ; in the 

 south she will be asked 50 and in the north 

 100 cash for the same article, but in both 

 she will pay out 50 coins. The capital, 

 Peking, possibly from patriotic motives, 

 possibly because it was under the eye of the 

 government, was alone in accepting, and 

 continues to this day to use the token 

 coinage issued during the Taiping rebellion 

 (1856-63) ; of these coins of a nominal value 

 of 10 cash, it would take 100 to make the 

 tiao of 1000, but being in the north each 



