less a class as that of the
south, and has borne this character since Europeans have been at all
acquainted with the Chinese.

The three kinds of shops to which allusion has been made, those of the
cooks, the barbers, and the undertakers, comprise more than one half of
all in Shanghai; but besides these are almost as many varieties of
trades as we are accustomed to in other more civilized countries.
Bankers sit behind their counters, keeping watch over tons of copper
cash, neatly threaded in strings of one thousand each, and pay checks
and make loans with the same regularity as in cities boasting their
superior civilization. Nor are the resources of these native bankers to
be despised. On proper security native and foreign merchants have been
known to obtain loans of several hundred thousand dollars from one
banker. Many of their daily operations are for very considerable
amounts, and are adjusted in credits or in silver. Although they are
cursed with as abominable a currency as any nation in the world, they
do not appear to experience any great difficulty in settlements, every
merchant having his balance, and weighing off the proper amount of
silver, larger payments being made in sycee. This want of a currency
arises from their utter lack of confidence in the coinage of their own
country. No currency that the Imperial Government might issue, not like
the copper cash, or tsien, incapable of adulteration, would be above
suspicion; and while the shameless system of mandarin plunder and fraud
continues, it is hopeless to expect a proper currency in China, unless
the foreigners interfere or obtain the control in this part of the
national affairs which they already have over the customs and the army.
A uniform currency, superior to the wretched, worthless cash, is the
crying need of China. The Mexican, or chop dollar, becomes sadly
depreciated after long circulation, by the clippings and innumerable
marks put upon it, so that it will not pass outside of China, nor does
it long remain out of the pot of the sycee melter. The American half
dollar and quarter and the English shilling are daily becoming more
popular for the smaller transactions of the shops, and the notes of the
local banks possess considerable circulation in their respective cities;
but what is needed more than anything else is an abundance of small
silver coinage for the daily ordinary transactions. The Mexican mint is
quite inadequate to supply so vast and ins