Nowhere does a Chinaman mean 1000 cash when he speaks of 1000 cash.

In Tientsin 1000 cash means 500 cash--that is to say 5 times 100 cash, the 100 there being any number you can pass except 100, though by agreement the 100 is usually estimated at 98.

In Nanking I found a different system to prevail.

There cash are 1075 the 1000, but of the 10 strings of 100 cash, 7 contain only 98 cash each, and 3 only 95, yet the surplus 75 cash--that is to say the number which for the time being is the Nanking equivalent of 75--are added all the same.

At Lanchow in Chihli on the Imperial Chinese Railway near Shanhai-kwan, 16 old cash count as 100 cash, yet 33 are required to make up 200; in Tientsin from which point the railway starts, 1000 cash are really 500 cash and 98 count there as 100.