BOOK V—IDOLATRY
CHAPTER I
Gods of Wealth (財神), Ts‘ai Shên
The god of wealth is a very important image in these parts, as the Chinese are exceedingly practical and their chief delight is to drive a good bargain; they revel in hairsplitting differences; a grin of satisfaction lights up the countenance when they are counting money and they may get black in the face with rage over a single cash worth of vegetables; a woman will disturb the whole street in order that the family night-soil may bring a few cash more. They have a system of banking and reckoning which goes down to the tenth of a brass cash; lending money for usury is a practice of long standing; the fixed official rate is two per cent, per month, but that rate is often surpassed and such exorbitant interest as forty cash per day for the loan of one thousand brass cash is often extorted. The pawn shops are well managed and the fixed official rate is 2½ per cent, per month. If a pawn shop is burned the owner is released from responsibility. In spring time many people put their winter clothing in the pawn shop as a place of safe keeping. The abacus is a very efficient instrument for reckoning, both speedy and accurate. The following are a few of the gods of wealth known in these parts:
Wên (文) ts‘ai shên, or t‘zŭ fu t‘ien kuan (賜福天官), the literary god of wealth; said to be Ko Tzŭ-i (郭子儀) of the Han dynasty, who is reputed to have had a hundred sons and a thousand grandsons living at the same time; he had
