Page:Ningpo to Shanghai.djvu/117

Rh extraordinary difference in export is not effected on increase of produc tion so much as on the inability, (for want of means,) or the carelessness of the Chinese to indulge in the luxury, either as tsien for the tail, bands for the waist, or other form of indulgence; and our ruminations have led us to make the following calculation. Allowing the population of China to be 300 millions (doubtful,&mdash;See Note on population) and that each man, woman, and child uses a quarter of a pound of silk cord a year for a plait to the end of the tail (a quarter of a pound, be it remembered, being a minimum quantity,&mdash;some of the richer classes plaiting in several new tsien in the course of a year, these again using half a pound, and even a pound at a time) we find that the total quantity used, 75 millions of pounds, equals the weight of 750,000 bales. Estimating the price again at four pounds for a Sovereign, we have, in the shape of a tax to carry out a whim imposed by the Tartars on their subjugation of the country, a total sum of nearly Nineteen millions of pounds Sterling per annum&mdash;not far short of the interest on the debt created by our forefathers in England to carry on the wars

Whilst on the subject of China-men's tails, we may remark that the region in which we found the peculiar head dress educing this note is that in which the natives exhibited for a lengthened period the firmest determination not to submit to the degradation of a tail; and that this feeling still rankles in the minds of the people was clear from the questions of several of them. Being taken for rebels in disguise, as a feeler, one said&mdash;"Why do you not wear a tail?" (the rebels have discarded it)&mdash;Answer "Because it is not the custom in our western country&mdash;Why do you?&mdash;"Answer, 