Chapter 43

_WEALTH, SPORTS, ETC._

Ancient and modern ideas of wealth--Ts'in and Ts'u valuables-- Furniture--Mats and divans--Tea and wine--Tartar couches--Inlaid ivory sofas--State treasure--Wealth in horses-Silks and furs in Tsin and Ts'u--Women as property--Pearls and jade as portable property--A Chinese Crocesus--Escape by sea to Shan Tung--Gold as money--Bribery with "metal"--Iron and gold mines in Wu--Fine Wu swords--"Cash" as coins--Ts'u money--Weight of a gold piece--Cooks important personages--"Meat-eaters" meant the ruling classes-- Silk universal--Poor wore hemp--No cotton--Ts'in custom of wearing swords--Jade marks of rank--Sports--Egret fights-war hunts--Horses in Peking plain--Hunting chariots and "shaft-gates"--_Yamen, ya_, and Turkish encampments--Cockfighting-Lifting heavy weights--Ball games--Women at looms--Little said of family life-- No homely pastimes--No squeezed feet--Helplessness of the people under their taskmasters.