One of the industries of Soongkong is the manufacture of mock money for offering tothe dead. Formerly the Chinese burnt paper sycee, but in these days of enlighternment and foreign intercourse, the natives of Soongkong, Hangchow, and'some other places have come to the conclusion that paper dollars are more handy to the ghosts than the clumsy paper sycee is; hence they now, to great exteuty supply their ances: tors' and departed friends with "mock dollars. True, the dollars are only half the size of real'dollars, but there appears to be no more harm in squeezing the dead than there is in cheating the living. Besides the deceased are not supposed to know the difference, for many of them departed this life before silver dollars were imported into China. A hundred mock Carolus dollars done up in boxes, are sold for thirty-four cash. We watch the operation of coining this money with interest. First of all there are blocks of tin which are melted down and then poured between boards lined with Chinese paper, and when the upper board is pressed down un the lower one, a thickness of tin remains. This is next cut up into strips four inches long, one wide, and an eighth of an inch thick. Some ten of these strips are placed evenly together one on top of the other and one end is held between the fingers, when the workman proceeds to hammer them out till he has beaten them so fine that they are now three feet long and a foot broad, and so thin that they are not thicker than the thinnest paper. This is next pasted on €mmon cardboard which is than cut with w"punching machine to the size of half dollars, and this having been done, a boy takes the cut-out pieces in hand and with two dies, one representing the one side and the other the reverse, hammers impressions of dollars on them and the money is ready for use.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.