Page:Inside Canton.djvu/46

Rh of Arcet and Laurent has no need either of a lamp-stove, nor of a coppel in order to test the money; touch, sight, and smell are sufficient for him. The Chinese tester can easily dispense with taste, but the loss of any other sense would render him unfit for his trade. When he doubts the genuineness of a piece of money, he passes it slowly between his forefinger and thumb, examines it with care, smells it, and then placing it on his left thumb-nail, which is inordinately long, tosses it suddenly in the air, and catching it again on this horny projection, listens attentively to the sound. This last experiment is generally decisive, and the piastre is either accepted or rejected. In the former case he marks it with a puncheon, which bears a Chinese character adopted by the merchant who puts it into his coffers. This mark is sufficient to cause the acceptance of the piece by the retail dealers; and when it is thus stamped, if it is afterwards discovered to be false, it can be given back to the last merchant, who has guaranteed its genuineness. But it can be understood to what inconveniences such a system must give rise; those Chinese who are not very scrupulous, imitate the marks of the most honourable English and American houses, and then take them the false money which is thus fraudulently stamped. Then the tester is called for again, and decides finally as to the lawfulness of the demand.