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JUNE, 1897.)
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
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silver jewellery, and hence have no need of the metal, except for currency. The art of testing weight by handling is still, howaver, common among the young and old of both sexes.
Mandalay jewellers are of course good judges of silver, but they are also capital judges of the probable amount of silver in a lump of lead. Here is a case in point. In February, 1889, there occurred, in the poor Eastern portion of the town, one of those devastating fires so common there. It destroyed over 700 houses, and I have known worse fires both before and since in that lackless place. Being at that time officially responsible for the welfare of the burnt area, I procured, on this particular occasion, by subscription and otherwise, & sum of money sufficient to start the poorest of the sufferers in life again. Among the recipients of a dole was an old working jeweller, who had been completely ruined. He spent the small capital sapplied him in a speculation in lead. This was against all rules in those times of trouble (lead being valuable for bullets), but I permitted him to do it, to see what would happen. He proceeded to extract the silver that was in it and made a profit on the transaction that was almost what he told me beforehand he expected to get. The lead was subsequently properly disposed of.
Lumps of metal stamped to show 'fineno88, but not waight, were in more or less common use. They were all, so far as I know, of foreign origin - either Chinese, Siamese, 0: Shân, being in fact sycee silver, tickals, or tànðing silver, which are not properly Burmese carrency, and are only considered in detail later on, owing to the light their use throws on the present subject.
Peasant Currenoy. The irregular tokens above spokon of were lumps of metal made into certain forms and used ag coins, though never intended for that purpose. Anything answers for currency to the petty dealer in an Upper Burma bazasr, provided she knows that it is of true metal and has a value by waight. I have had a copper button and a copper seal (Burmese) tendered to me in all good faith in payment of petty bazaar fees by Burmese women. The same observation is true, too, of most country places in India, as is proved by the existence of the Metal Tokens Act (Indian Act I. of 1889) of the Indian Legislature, the preamble of which is as follows: "Whereas it is expedient to prohibit the making or the possession for issue, or the issue, by private persons of pieces of metal for use as money." The Act then goes on to say (Section 3): - "No piece of copper or bronze or of any other metal or mixed metal, which, whether stamped or unstamped, is intended to be used as money, shall be made except by the authority of the Governor-General in Council." We thus see, despite the many centuries that have passed since the introduction of “coin of the realm” into India, that the use as currency of any lamp of metal of recognised quality is still so common as to repaire a special Act in our own days to repress it. Nothing seems to be able to overcome in fact the popularity of the Mansûri, Chachsauli, Gorakhpuri, Påndů, and Daballs paisas, chalans, et hoc genus omne, in the congurvative Indian village.16
I found a number of English early Nineteenth Century jettons, or brass card-counters, current at Patiala, Ambâld, Hardwar, and elsewhere in 1890. They have turned up, too, in Rangoon, and have the appearance of farthings, but with such nonsense on them as the Prince of Wales's model half sov.." (sic), etc. They pase for what they are intrinsically worth, jast as do the metal tokens prohibited by the Act above-mentioned.
14 of the habits of the Chineso in this respect Terrien de la Couperio writes :-"A fiduciary coinage has never been willingly accepted in China, and the coins, whatever mark they bore, were never taken for more than their intrinsic value without great objection." Old Nainerals and the Swampan in China, p. 14
16 This is the English word "double." The "double pice" or hallands pieco is, however, a recognised legal coin under that name. See also Seca. 8, 9 and 14 of the Indian Coinage Act (XXII. of 1870).
16 For a collection of names of pice, soe Tennant's Catalogue of Coins in the Cabinet of Her Majesty's Mint, Cal cutta, 1883, p. 81 8. Compare the old Portuguese arco, Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soo. Ed., Vol. II. p. 68.
