Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1878 — Chinese Money. [ARTICLE]

Chinese Money.

Coined money wrh Jmown among the Chiilf se as early as the eleventh century before flhriat, hut their inability to comprehend the principles upon which a currency should be based has led them into all sorts of extravagances, which have been attended by disorder, famine, and bloodshed. Coins came at last to be made so thin that 1,000 of them piled together were only three inches high; then gold and silver were abandoned ; and copper, tin, shells, skins, stones, and paper were given a fixed value, and used until, by abuse, all the. advantages to be derived from the use of money were lost, and there was nothing left for the people to do but to go back to barter, and this they did "more than once. They cannot be said pow to have a coinage; 2,900 years ago they made round coins with a square hole in the middle, and they have made no advance beyond that since. The well-known cash is a cast-brass coin of that description, and, although it is valued at one mill and a half of our money, and has to be strung in lots of 1,000 to be computed with any ease, it is the sole measure of value and legal tender of the country. Spanish, Mexican, and our new trade dollars are employed in China; they pass because they are necessary for larger operations. —Popular Science Monthly for March.