214 THE BRONZE AXE. 



the one leaves off and the other begins— where the 

 implement merges into the medium of exchange, and 

 settles down finally into the root of all evil. 



Here is how^ this curious pedigree first worked itself 

 out. In early times, before coin was invented, barter 

 was usually conducted between producer and consumer 

 with metal implements, as it still is in Central Africa at 

 the present day with Venetian glass beads and rolls of 

 red calico. Payments were all made in kind, and bronze 

 was the commonest form of specie. A gentleman de- 

 sirous of effecting purchases in foreign parts went about 

 the world with a number of bronze axes in his pocket (or 

 its substitute), which he exchanged for other goods with 

 the native traffickers in the country where he did his 

 primitive business. At first, the early Chinese in that 

 unsophisticated age were content to uso real hatchets 

 for this commercial purpose ; but, after a time, with the 

 profound mercantile instinct of their race, it occurred to 

 some of them that when a man wanted half a hatchet's 

 worth of goods he might as well pay for them with half a 

 hatchet. Still, as it would be a pity to spoil a good 

 working implement by cutting it in two, the worthy Ah 

 Sin ingeniously compromised the matter by making thin 

 hatchets, of the usual size and shape, but far too slender 

 for practical usage. By so doing he invented coin : and, 

 what is more, he invented it far earlier than the rival 

 claimants to that proud distinction, the Lydians, whose 

 electrum staters were first struck in the seventh century, 

 B.C. But, according to Professor Terrieu de la Couperie, 

 some of the fancy Chinese hatchets which we still retain 

 date back as far as the year 1000 (a good round number), 



