any appeal to Western ears; at any rate, not in the sense in which it
appealed to Confucius, who has left it on record that after listening to
a certain melody he was so affected as not to be able to taste meat for
three months.



CHAPTER II--LAW AND GOVERNMENT

In the earliest ages of which history professes to take cognizance,
persons who wished to dispose of their goods were obliged to have
recourse to barter. By and by shells were adopted as a medium of
exchange, and then pieces of stamped silk, linen, and deerskin. These
were followed by circular discs of copper, pierced with a round hole,
the forerunners of the ordinary copper coins of a century or two later,
which had square holes, and bore inscriptions, as they still do in
the present day. Money was also cast in the shape of "knives" and of
"trouser," by which names specimens of this early coinage (mostly fakes)
are known to connoisseurs. Some of these were beautifully finished, and
even inlaid with gold. Early in the ninth century, bills of exchange
came into use; and from the middle of the twelve century paper money
became quite common, and is still in general use all over China, notes
being issued in some places for amounts less even than a shilling.

Measures of length and capacity were fixed by the Chinese after an
exceedingly simple process. The grain of millet, which is fairly uniform
in size, was taken as the unit of both. Ten of these grains, laid
end-ways, formed the inch, ten of which made a foot, and ten feet a
_chang_. The decimal system has always prevailed in China, with one
curious exception: sixteen ounces make a pound. How this came to be so