LOCAL GOVERNING AGENCIES. 465 



Kemble concludes that the word &quot; gegyldan &quot; means 

 * those who mutually pay for one another . . . the associates 

 of the tithing and the hundred ; &quot; and how the two were 

 originally connected, we are shown by the statement that as 

 late as the 10th century in London, the citizens were united 

 into frithgylds, &quot; or associations for the maintenance of the 

 peace, each consisting of ten men ; while ten such gylds 

 were gathered into a hundred.&quot; Prof. Stubbs writes : 



&quot;The collective responsibility for producing an offender, which had 

 lain originally on the mcegth or kindred of the accused, was gradually 

 devolved on the voluntary association of the guild ; and the guild super 

 seded by the local responsibility of the tithing.&quot; 



Here we have to ask whether there are not grounds for con 

 cluding that this transfer of responsibility originally took 

 place through development of the family-cluster into the 

 gild, in consequence of the gradual loss of the family-cha 

 racter by incorporation of unrelated members. That we do 

 not get evidence of this in written records, is probably due 

 to the fact that the earlier stages of the change took place 

 before records were common. But we shall see reasons foi 

 believing in such earlier stages if we take into account facts 

 furnished by extinct societies and societies less developed 

 than those of Europe. 



Of the skilled arts among the Peruvians, Prescott re 

 marks : &quot; these occupations, like every other calling and 

 office in Peru, always descended from father to son ; &quot; and 

 Clavigero says of the Mexicans &quot; that they perpetuated the 

 arts in families to the advantage of the State : &quot; the reason 

 Gomara gives why &quot; the poor taught their sons their own. 

 trades,&quot; being that &quot; they could do so without expense &quot; a 

 reason of general application. Heeren s researches into 

 ancient Egyptian usages, have led him to accept the state 

 ment of early historians, that &quot; the son was bound to carry 

 on the trade of his father and that alone ; &quot; and he cites a 

 papyrus referring to an institution naturally connected with 

 this usage &quot; the guild or company of curriers or leather- 



