One great trading place is called the _Stock Exchange_--another, perhaps more important, styled the _Merchants' Exchange_. These places are established in every large town, and the _business_ done in them absorbs the attention of traders and people who have any property, throughout the Kingdom. The _dealings_ [Keet-sees] of the former relate to _Certificates_ and _Bonds_. These are _Pieces of Printed and Coloured Paper_, which represent in the words and figures a sum of money invested in a trading concern, or a sum of money which somebody owes and promises to pay. The _sum_ may be quite a fiction, and is usually either never to be really paid, or paid at some very remote day. However, a small sum is promised to be paid every six moons, or in twelve moons--this is for _not_ paying the big sum. The business of the latter relates to the buying and selling of every sort of merchandise, whether on land, or on vessels at sea. Other great trading places deal in money, or rather in bits of _Printed Paper_, which promise to pay money to him who has one of these _bits_. These places get people to sell them these bits at a price, and then resell at a greater price--or they _borrow_ and _lend_ these bits, paying less for the use than they obtain. Very little money is seen--business is in Paper--another of the ingenious _tricks_ of these trading and gambling Barbarians, perhaps the source of more dishonesty and cheating than almost any other. As the like has no existence in our Flowery Land, it will not easily be comprehended. The chief of these places for dealing in this money-paper is called the _Bank_. The Government shares in the advantages of this invention. Its object is to _bank up_, or hoard, all the real money (gold and silver) which it can get in exchange for the bits of paper. These promise that the Bank will always return the sum of gold which the bit acknowledges to have been received. The man hands the Bank his gold-money to be kept safely till he wishes for it, and the Bank gives him the _bit_ of Paper (which is numbered and recorded in a book). He can carry this in his pocket, but the gold-money would be too burdensome and more easily lost. The Government pledges also that the gold shall always be safely kept, to be returned whenever the bits of paper are returned. This Bank-house is immensely strong and large, built of hewn stone, and is guarded by men armed with swords and fire-arms for fear of the savage and ignorant Low-Castes. Ordinarily, only now and again, a few persons go to the Bank and wish the gold; because if one wishes it, some one of whom he buys, or to whom he owes, will take the money-paper and hand him the difference--consequently, the paper goes from hand to hand for a long time. Everybody takes it because it is convenient, and because he thinks the gold attached to it is safe in the Government Bank-house. The confidence in _Paper_ is called CREDIT. To which I shall more fully refer.