What can pertinently be called a third kind of guild, are those belonging to the handicraft trades. They are very similar in functions and_ institutions to the Trade Unions in England. As a rule an apprentice to a handicraft has to serve for five years to learn his trade, after which he has to give two years' work free of change to his master. An apprentice on beginning his time must first pay a sum of money, say, about from twenty to thirt dollars to his master for his board, an seven years from that time he will be allowed to "hang up his own signboard." Any infringement of this rule, will bring upon him the wrath of the entire guild, followed, perhaps, by utter ruin or death. He cannot go to a neighbouring town to work, because there the same rule obtains and not being able to show a certificate or letter of recommendation from his master's guild he naturally will not be allowed to work on his own account. Again, in such guilds there is always a sum held in reserve to support members out on strike, for strikes are an institution not wholly belonging to the European and American continents. Feeling their inferiority in social life, these handicraft guilds ate perhaps more donnish and closely associated than the bigger and more influential merchants' guilds; and for this reason, they might 4 said to wield as much.power as their ce-guilds. in the municipal machinery of every town. The subject of Chinese guilds is an inexhaustible one, but with the limited space allotted to the subject in this Jubilee issue we cannot do more than take a cursory glance at institutions which'can properly be said to wield more power than the official world itself. The following are
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.