Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/522

 178 THE BHITISH EMPIRE :^ — THE STRAITS SETTLEMEKTS

Japanese yen, each weighing 416 grains (or 26*957 grammes), "900 fine, are also legal tender, the least currency weight being in each case 411 grains (or 26 '633 grammes). Subsidiary silver coins are 50, 20, 10, and 5 cent pieces, which are legal tender for sums not exceeding two dollars ; copper coins are cents, half-cents, and quarter-cents, legal tender for any sum not exceeding one dollar.

The measures of length in use in the Settlements is the English yard, with its divisions and multiples, and land is measured by the English acre. The native terms are, however, still in use. Commercial weights are : — 1 Kati = 16 Tahil= Ig lb. avoirdupois. 1 Picul =100 Kati = 133Ubs, „

1 Koyan= 40 Picul = 5, 333^ „ „

The kati of Ig lb. is known as the Chinese kati. Another weight, known as the Malay kati, and still in partial use in Penang, is equal to the weight of 24 Spanish dollars, or 9 984 grains. This gives 142*628 lbs. as the weight of the picul, and 5,705143 lbs. as the weight of the koyan. The measures of capacity throughout the colony are the gantang or gallon, and chupak or quart.

The State of Johore (area 9,000 square miles, estimated population 200,000), at the southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula, is, in its foreign relations, controlled by Great Britain, in virtue of a treaty of 1885. The Sultan is H.H. Ibrahim, under whom the country is administered by district headmen. The revenue is chiefly from import and export duties. Imports are opium, spirits, tobacco, rice, hardware, Manchester goods, &c. Exports are gambler, pepper, sago, tea, coffee, gutta percha, &c. The population is chiefly Malay and Chinese. Chief Town, Johore Bahru, 15 miles N. of Singapore.

KeeUng or Cocos Islands, group of about 20 small coral islands, about 700 miles S.W. of Sumatra, and 1,200 miles S.W. of Singapore. Population (1891), 554. The islands were formally annexed to England in 1857, and placed under the Governor of the Straits Settlements by Letters Patent in 1886. Large quantities of copra, coco-nuts, and oil are exported.

Christmas Island is 200 miles S.W. of Java, and 700 miles E. of Keeling Islands. It is 9 miles long and about the same wide. It was added to the colony by Letters Patent in January 1889, and a settlement from the Cocos Islands has since been made on it.

Books of Reference concerning the Straits Settlements.

Colonial Otnco List. Annual. London.

Statistical Abstract for the Colonial and other Possessions of the United Kingdom Annual. London.

Blue Book for the Straits Settlements. Annual. Singapore.

Annual Reports on the Protected Malay States. London.

Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom with Foreign Coiintrii-s and British Possessions. London.

Perak Handbook and Civil List. Singapore, lb07.

Precis of Information concerning the Straits Settlements and Malay Peninsula. Pre- pared in the Intelligence Division, War Office. 8. London, 1892.

Papers relating to the Cocos-Keeling and Christmas Islands. London, 1897.

Andrews (C. W.), A Description of Cluistmas Island (Indian Ocean). In Geographical JournalWol. XIII., 1. (January, 1898). London.

Bird (Isabella L.), The Golden Chersonese. London, 1883.

Boulger (D. C.) Life of Sir Stamford Raffles. London, 1897.