and the women, besides the duties above named and some field-labour,
mended old clothes, drilled and sharpened needles, pasted tin-foil,
made shoes, and gathered and sorted the leaves of the tea-plant. In
course of time trades became highly specialized--their number being
legion--and localized, bankers, for instance, congregating in Shansi,
carpenters in Chi Chou, and porcelain-manufacturers in Jao Chou,
in Kiangsi.

As to land, it became at an early age the property of the sovereign,
who farmed it out to his relatives or favourites. It was arranged on
the _ching_, or 'well' system--eight private squares round a ninth
public square cultivated by the eight farmer families in common for the
benefit of the State. From the beginning to the end of the Monarchical
Period tenure continued to be of the Crown, land being unallodial, and
mostly held in clans or families, and not entailed, the conditions
of tenure being payment of an annual tax, a fee for alienation,
and money compensation for personal services to the Government,
generally incorporated into the direct tax as scutage. Slavery,
unknown in the earliest times, existed as a recognized institution
during the whole of the Monarchical Period.

Production was chiefly confined to human and animal labour, machinery
being only now in use on a large scale. Internal distribution
was carried on from numerous centres and at fairs, shops, markets,
etc. With few exceptions, the great trade-routes by land and sea have
remained the same during the last two thousand years. Foreign trade was
with Western Asia, Greece, Rome, Carthage, Arabia, etc., and from the
seventeenth century A.D. more generally with European countries. The
usual primitive means of conveyance, such as human beings, animals,
carts, boats, etc., were partly displaced by steam-vessels from