kinds and conditions aiers, varying from the bumble persons who displays a few, gimcracks on the pavement owners of large shops, which are spread over several courtyards, and which are filled with all kinds of valuable things. There is, however, a very sharp social distinction drawn, between the shopkeepers and those who display their goods on stalls in the open air, for the former have 9 guild from which the latter are rigidly excluded.
Formerly the guild house was a little more than a meeting place for, buyers and sellers but now every transaction made there is recorded and arbitration arranged for in case of dispute. The guild also has rules for the guidance of its members, and one of these is that they must not stand in the doorway of their shops and solicit customers, nor may they, the bargain is incomplete, follow the prospective buyer into the next shop ar even look through the window fat him. They may, however, wait the pavement for him and accost him a5 he leaves the rival establishment, The jade dealers have a guild of their Dealers as Buyers First there are the street buyers who go up and down the hutungs and alleyways trying to find out if there anything for sale. The ones who carry a basket and beat a small hard hand drum are after furniture or curios, while those who use a small soft hand drum and have a canvas bag slung over their shoulders are looking for jade and precious stones, These people work with a very small capital, seldom amounting to more than a few dollars, and if anything of value comes they have to call in outside help, with the result that sometimes no fewer than twenty or 30 men share in a transaction, They then try to dispose of their purchases to a curio dealer. Sometimes curio dealers buy directly from private individuals, but unless the eller is personally well known to them they require a shop guarantee to the effect that they are negotiating with the real owner or his accredited representative, otherwise they run the risk of becoming receivers of stolen woods. Another method frequently employed in Peking by the sellers is to exhibit their goods in the guild house, but this has its disadvantages as two per cent. commission has be paid on any business done and settlements 4s only made fatter a month, this being to guard against any claims that may come forward with regard to the ownership of the things in question. each with four pieces of ordnance. The Aldermen were on horseback—in coates of black velvet, with great chains of gold, everyone with his gytherne with the arms of the City, and four footman in a suit of white, their deputies frocks of white damask satin, taffeta, and velvet with chains and ouches, with other goldwork upon their" head-pieces....My lord mayor had the standard of the city borne before him in the middle battalion with divers banners.
The Watch was "for ever" abolished in 1546 but revived two years later. In 1584, Queen Elizabeth was issuing rules for these Midsummer shows. The Elizabethan idea was to make the Watch an opportunity for recognizing the labours of ex-servi men. who formed a good proportion of the Watch. It helped to solve a serious economic problem will be realized from this description of the,"old soldiers" who had Served the Kyng beyond the se, And now that they out of wages be They must beg or els go bribe and steele, the dole was-not unknown in the sixteenth century. However that be, Dick Whittington in the fourteenth century was never in need of any dole whatever, the pantomime-writers may say. He was a solid man and part of the solid civie history of London.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.