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Updated: May 31, 2025
"Eight of them," rejoined lady Feng, "but there are at present only seven; the other one is Hsi Jen." "Quite right," assented Madame Wang. "But your cousin Pao-yue hasn't any maid at one tael; for Hsi Jen is still a servant belonging to old lady Chia's household."
Coal comes from a mine two or three days inland; white-wax trees provide an important industry; the hills to the west contain the most celebrated copper mines in the empire. The cash of Tongchuan are very small and inferior, 2000 being equivalent to one tael, whereas in Chaotong, 110 miles away, the cash vary from 1260 to 1640 the tael.
"Choose a piece out of those big ones and give it to him, and have done," he said. "We don't go in for buying and selling, so what's the use of minding such trifles!" She Yueeh, upon hearing this, dropped the steelyard, and selected a piece, which she weighed in her hand. "This piece," she smiled, "must, I fancy, be a tael. But it would be better to let him have a little more.
The silver is in lumps of one tael or more each, the tael being a Chinese ounce and equivalent roughly to between 1400 and 1500 cash. Speaking generally a tael was worth, during my journey, three shillings, that is to say, forty cash were equivalent to one penny. There are bankers in every town, and the Chinese methods of banking, it is well known, are but little inferior to our own.
When payments hitherto were effected outside, what month were they not short of money? And did they ever, on any single instance, obtain their pay at the proper time and date?" Having heard this explanation, Madame Wang kept silent for a while. Next, she proceeded to ask, how many girls there were with dowager lady Chia drawing one tael.
To make things worse, the weight of the sheng had been reduced with the times from twelve catties to five catties, and at the same time the relation of cash to silver had fallen from 1640 to 1250 cash the tael. The selling of its female children into slavery is the chief sorrow of this famine-stricken district.
Hearing this reproach, Chia Ch'iang of a sudden sprang to his feet with alacrity and vehemently endeavoured by vowing and swearing to establish his innocence. "How ever could I have been such a fool to-day," he proceeded, "as to go and throw away a tael or two to purchase this bird? I really did it in the hope that it would afford you amusement.
It is better, however, to consider such statistics in taels, because currency fluctuations make the results deceptive when reckoned in sterling. The tael is not a coin, but a certain weight of silver, and therefore its value fluctuates with the value of silver.
Before the present Prefect took office the cash were more debased still, no less than 4000 being then counted as one tael, but the Prefect caused all these cash to be withdrawn from circulation.
"When Sen beheld the size and the silk-hung magnificence of the camp into which his guide led him, he was filled with astonishment, and at the same time recognized that he had acted in an injudicious and hasty manner by so readily accepting the offer of a tael; whereas, if he had been in possession of the true facts of the case, as they now appeared, he would certainly have endeavoured to obtain double that amount before consenting.
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