WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES  173
The  foreign  merchant  knows  as  the  unit  of  length  the  chili,
commonly  called  “  foot,”  imposed  by  tieaty,  accepted  by
the  Customs,  and  measuring  14' 1  English  inches  ,  this  finds
no  exact  counterpart  at  Canton,  where  the  carpenter  s
foot  is  13-8  inches  and  the  tailor’s  foot  is  14  8  inches.
Land  is  sometimes  measured  by  a  special  standard,  but
usually  throughout  China  by  the  carpenter  s  foot  :  Canton
is  divided  into  two  magistracies  (hsien)  by  a  line  running
through  the  middle  of  the  city  ;  on  the  west  of  this  line,
land  is  measured  by  a  foot  of  147  inches,  and  on  the  east  by
a  foot  of  14  8  inches,  which  is  the  tailor’s  foot  of  Canton.
At  Shanghai  the  tailor’s  foot  is  13  8$  inches  and  the  carpenter’s ­
  foot  is  ir  i  inches  ;  the  official  land  foot  is  12  1
inches,  but  the  foot  in  ordinary  use  for  transfers  of  land  is
13  2  inches.  At  Nanking  the  carpenter’s  foot  is  12  6  inches,
but  the  foot  for  measurement  of  timber  is  13  $  inches.  At
Soochow  the  tailor’s  foot  is  13  43  inches,  but  that  used  for
the  measurement  of  cloth  is  il  l  inches.  At  Shiuhing
carpenters  use  a  foot  of  14  inches,  but  masons  working  on
the  same  building  use  a  foot  of  13  6  inches,  and  flooring
tiles  are  made  by  a  foot  of  il  l  inches.  These  instances  of
inconsistency  might  be  amplified  indefinitely  ;  suffice  it
to  say  that  in  China  local  standards  of  the  foot  range  from
8  6  to  27  8  inches.

Distance
The  Chinese  do  not  much  trouble  themselves  with  the
accurate  measurement  of  distance,  and  would  sympathise
fully  with  the  Dutch  measurement  of  canal  boat-runs  by
the  number  of  pipes  smoked.  A  theoretic  unit  exists,  the
li,  measuring  1,800  of  the  land  foot  ;  but,  as  the  latter
varies  throughout  the  Empire,  so  would  the  li  vary,  if  any
one  cared  to  measure  it.  Based  on  a  foot  of  141  English
inches  it  would  measure  705  yards,  or  four-tenths  of  a
statute  mile.  In  practice  it  is  one-hundredth  of  the  distance
a  laden  porter  will  cover  in  a  day  of  ten  hours  marching  ;
on  the  plain  this  would  represent  a  third  of  a  mile,  a  halfkilometre, ­
  more  or  less,  but  in  hilly  country  it  varies  con-