Note 128 — XV.

In Shanghai the medium of exchange in common use is not as at Hong-kong reckoned in dollars, but in taels, an imaginary currency of the value of about $1.33, so that 100 taels = $133 1⁄3, or about £27 15s. Most accounts are rendered in taels, whence they are reduced into Mexican dollars, the only foreign silver that is current. When European merchants first came in contact with the children of the Flowery Land, the latter used to pay a sort of premium for American dollars, while for those bearing the effigies of Charles III. (known as the Karolus dollar), quite a special price was paid. Gradually, however, the value sank till, as already mentioned, 75 taels = $100. What has so often been reported of a special Shanghai dollar coinage is quite erroneous. There are neither gold nor silver coins struck in China, but solely of copper, and in some provinces of iron. The term Shanghai dollar is equivalent to tael, which, as already remarked, is, like the guinea in England, unknown to commerce. 1 tael=5s. 7d. English, but in trade it is taken as 6s. It occasionally rises as high as 6s. 6d., when the proportion between the dollar and the tael is as 100 to 72.