Notes from <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://thebamboosea.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/chinese-pictures-by-mrs-j-f-bishop/">Chinese Pictures: Notes on Photographs</a>:
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“In travelling, the carriage of money is a great annoyance, owing to the smallness of its value and the large number of coins or “cash” necessary to make up an amount of any size.”
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“Exchanging eighteen shillings English for brass cash, the weight of them amounted to seventy-two pounds, which had to be carried by the coolies.”
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“These cash have a square hole in the middle, and are strung together upon a piece of straw twist.  Should the straw break, the loss of time in getting up the pieces is much more than the loss of the money.”
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“The Chinese are honest, very keen at a bargain, but when the bargain is made the Chinaman may be depended on to keep it.”
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Isabella Lucy Bird (J.F. Bishop)
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433071393981;view=1up;seq=127;skin=mobile">Chinese Pictures: Notes on Photographs</a> by Isabella Lucy Bird (through <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://primaltrek.com/blog/2013/07/20/carrying-cash-in-imperial-china/">Primal Trek – A journey through Chinese culture</a> by Gary Ashkenazy)