Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/156

106 converting them into household utensils you immediately increase its value. It will, of course, be asked how it is, if this be so, that the whole of the cash of the empire has not been melted down long since and converted into kettles, pots, and pans? The difficulty was got over by the enactment of stringent laws, under which the penalty for melting down cash is death. Some effort to improve the currency system is now being made, and a silver dollar for Ssŭch'uan is being minted in Ch'êngtu. It bears on its face a superscription which says that it is equal in value to 72 cents, though for what inscrutable reason the number 72 has been selected, instead of the obvious 100, I am at a loss to understand. So deeply rooted in the Chinese character, however, is the dislike of allowing things to be what they seem, that no one—not even a Chinaman—has so far succeeded in changing one for more than 71 cents.

Needless to say, I did not attempt to compete with the Ch'ung-k'ing money-changers in arriving at a solution of the various calculations which had to be worked out before I