CHINESE CASH, CARRIED ON STRINGS. 1,000 = 3s.
The great merchants of the East are the Chinese, and the different forms of money they have brought into use do not strike us as being particularly convenient. The commonest of all Chinese moneys is the cash—a round metal disc with a square hole in the middle, the value of a thousand cash not being much more than three shillings. These cash are carried about in long strings, and the hole in the middle receives the string. This form of currency is developed from what is generally termed "key-money" or "knife-money."
PAPER POSTAGE-MONEY FOR BUYING STAMPS.
Silver is the great medium of exchange in China and elsewhere in the East; and a regular feature of all cities and towns and even villages in China is the money-changer, who in return for so much weight of silver will hand out so many strings of cash. The silver used in these exchanges is called Sycee silver, and is apparently of any shape or size.
Sometimes the silver takes the bar or ingot shape, and is then termed Nen. The specimen on page 643 is an unusually large one, and weighs nearly a pound and a half. It was used as currency in Upper Cambodia, and is stamped on one side with a Chinese inscription which specifies the weight of the silver and also the name of the merchant who weighed it and affirmed how much it was worth.
But besides the ingot shape, this Chinese silver currency is found in many forms, not only in China, but in Singapore, in Ceylon, and wherever the Chinese trader is found, such as Hat-Money, Shoe-Money, Boat-Money, Snailshell-Money, Willow-leaf-Money—terms which are all derived from the actual form the silver has taken after it has come out of the mould and received the stamp of the particular Chinese merchant who makes himself responsible for its quality and weight. Some of these pieces are very small, and consequently are of little value.
THESE SHELLS WERE USED AS MONEY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA.
The oddest of them is certainly the Snailshell-Money, which is really a bubble of silver solidified into the shape of a shell. It is characteristic of this sort of money that the silver shows the marks of the crucible in which it was melted on the side opposite to that which has received the inscription. To the same class of currency belongs the Bullet-Money of Siam—lumps of silver of various sizes stamped on one side. This currency is generally about an ounce in weight, but there are in existence specimens of it as small as fine shot.