i 4 6  THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE
however,  a  modification  of  the  scale  is  provided  for,  de
pending  in  some  cases  upon  the  place  from  w  ic
merchant  comes  or  with  which  he  trades,  and  in  °
upon  the  goods  in  which  he  deals.  A  merchant  coming  10
Kweichow,  or  trading  with  that  place,  will  probaby,  u
not  certainly,  use  a  scale  on  which  the  tael  weig  is  54  ^
grains  ;  a  merchant  from  Kweifu,  a  town  on  the  Yang  z  ,
a  hundred  miles  from  Chungking,  will  buy  and  se  wi
a  tael  5627  grains  ;  and  between  these  two  extremes  ai
at  least  ten  topical  weights  of  tael,  all  “  current  at  un &amp;,
king.  In  addition  to  these  twelve  topical  currencies,
there  are  others  connected  with  commodities.  One  °
most  important  products  of  Szechwan  is  salt,  and  ea  m
in  this  are  settled  by  a  tael  of  556*4  grains,  unless  it  ^  sa
from  the  Tzeliu  well,  in  which  case  the  standard  is  557
grains.  A  transaction  in  cotton  cloth  is  settled  wi
tael  of  555*0  grains,  but  for  cotton  yarn  the  tael  is  55
grains,  and  for  raw  cotton  the  tael  is  547*7  grains.
This  seems  confusion,  but  we  are  not  yet  at  the  enc  •
Up  to  this  point  we  have  dealt  only  with  the  weig'i  OI *
the  scale,  but  now  comes  in  the  question  of  the  fineness  o
the  silver  with  which  payment  is  made.  At  Chung  mg
three  qualities  of  silver  are  in  common  use—“  Ene  si  ver
1,000  fine  current  throughout  the  empire,  *  old  si  ver
about  995  fine,  and  “  trade  silver  ”  between  960  an  97
fine  ;  and  payment  may  be  stipulated  in  any  one  of  t  ese
three  qualities.  Taking  the  score  of  current  tael-weigi  s
in  combination  with  the  three  grades  of  silver,  we  have
at  least  sixty  currencies  possible  in  this  one  town.
This  is  characteristic  of  the  Empire.  The  traveller,
even  a  private  individual,  journeying  from  place  to  place  m
China,  will  be  careful  to  take  with  him  a  small  steel-yar
and  a  string  of  a  few  selected  “  cash,”  the  exact  weight  ot
which  on  his  home  scale  is  known  to  him.  His  first  step
in  cashing  a  draft  or  exchanging  the  silver  he  brough
with  him  is  to  ascertain  the  weight  of  his  string  of  casi
on  the  scales  of  the  strange  bank  in  the  strange  place  ,
and,  having  done  this,  he  is  able  to  work  out  the  parity