FIRST BANK NOTES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18834, 24 March 1931, Page 2

FIRST BANK NOTES.

CHINA’S EARLY CURRENCY. The Chinese, who have been credited ! with many wonderful inventions, made the first bank notes over 4000 years ago One of the earliest specimens of these has been carefully preserved and is dated 1339 B.C. At one period China’s money consisted mainly of knives and pieces of cloth, but about the twelfth century 8.C., the Government decided to copy this “coinage” in metal, and to-day there are still in existence models of both types, one representing a shirt and the other a knife. About 2697 B.C. the “greenback” came into general circulation. Printed on paper made from the fibre of mulberry trees, these notes bore notices of the penalties liable to be meted out to counterfeiters, together with a wise exhortation to thrift and industry, which ran: “Produce all you can, spend with economy.!”

Many other countries have used goods as money. Even less than a hundred years ago in Canada it was a common practice among the North American Indians. In some of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s old books of accounts one may see entries of goods supplied the Indian trappers—grease, calico or boots, the opposite page showing that mink t and beaver skins had been given in exchange. In Switzerland eggs were used as currency, while Newfoundland employed dried codfish in a similar way. The modern note-case would be considerably overtaxed by some of the ancient money. One large Swedish piece, for instance, is a copper slab weighing 311 b, which weight is entirely out of proportion to its value, which was only 32/-. Several examples of articles formerly used for batering purposes are now owned by a famous collector, and include bricks of compressed tea, salt, liquorice, and soaked tobacco. Years ago in Germany law-breakers were fined in terms of livestock, while for many hundreds of years in Asia cattle was the chief unit for the settlement of prices. A slave was valued as being worth three oxen, but if the capI live were a woman, and very skilful and i Industrious, she might fetch as much as four oxen, though such a high price would be a rare exception.