Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. IV.pdf/39

 lands; but they deal fairly because they find it pays. This applies with greater force to the Chinese commercial classes, and will be borne out by the experience of our own merchants, who have colossal interests at stake in China.

Plate No. 29 is a type of a Pekingese costermonger, one of the lower orders. This man carries his shop on his shoulders; and we see him here informing the dwellers in a narrow lane that he has brought to their doors the choicest grapes of the season. When he succeeds in getting a customer, the latter accosts him, armed with a stick resembling a yard measure, but in reality a portable lever weighing-machine, and with this he secures his fair weight of the fruit. This rod is in common use all over the land, so that light weights are but little known there.