A Sportsman 211 



These purposes have passed away by the extended 

 growth of the city and its surroundings, but the city 

 charters of the associations are still in existence, while 

 the trade members gradually fell out by deaths, and 

 others foreign to the various trades were elected in 

 place, so that in reality none of the trades are repre- 

 sented in membership, and one going to the dinners of 

 the tailors or the bakers would look in vain for any 

 one who had ever cut a coat or baked a loaf. 



The present members of the guilds are a jolly lot 

 of convivial souls, who elect their successors from 

 among their friends, prominent business or profes- 

 sional city men, who in turn continue to elect a similar 

 class. The basic bond of union is the large fund 

 existing to the credit of the guild, which in some 

 instances is very large, as in the instance of the Tailors' 

 Guild, amounting to over a million pounds sterling, 

 aggregated by many years' increase of values from city 

 property holdings. The annual incomes, therefore, 

 of some of the guilds are very large, requiring con- 

 siderable ingenuity upon the part of the managers in 

 the methods to be pursued in dispensing the funds for 

 the most complete satisfaction of the members. 



A considerable fondness is indicated for monthly 

 banquets and weekly lunch meetings of committees to 

 consider important subjects affecting the interests of 

 the Guilds, which many presume to be concerning the 

 character of the wines to be put in cellar in place of 

 those which have been retired at previous meetings, 

 and as to the details of the succeeding banquets. The 

 banquets are of the most elaborate and expensive char- 

 acter, at least those of the tailors and bakers. These I 

 have frequently attended, by invitation of members, as 



