376 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



and of skill, both under its stationary and its nomadic forms, 

 is still common among us. Everywhere are to be found shoe 

 makers who are at once producers and distributors; and in 

 our streets we occasionally hear the knife-grinder and the 

 chair-mender. 



748. This early phase of industrial organization during 

 which producer and distributor were united., was, however, 

 more especially distinguished by periodic assemblings 

 fairs. 



Gatherings of this kind are found everywhere. Monteiro 

 describes them as occurring among the Congo people. 

 Mommsen says of Rome that &quot; fairs (mercatus), which must 

 be distinguished from the usual weekly markets (nundinm), 

 were of great antiquity in Latium.&quot; And of our own coun 

 try the like was true. 



&quot;In these times [of about 1300] there were few or no shops; private 

 families therefore, as well as the religious [bodies], constantly attended 

 the great annual fairs, where the necessaries of life not produced 

 within their own domains were purchased.&quot; 



Though in our days fairs have greatly changed in character, 

 part of the trade carried on in them is still by direct transfer 

 from producer to consumer; as, for example, in cheese-fairs 

 held in some places, where the farmer sells the whole or half 

 of a cheese to a retail buyer, or as again in the Nottingham 

 goose-fair, where commoners and others bring the birds they 

 have reared to be bought not by poulterers but chiefly by 

 those who will eat them. 



With the growth of population fairs are presently sup 

 plemented by markets, which in course of time usurp their 

 functions. Even in Africa this has happened. Livingstone 

 tells us that the market &quot; is a great institution in Manyu- 

 ema.&quot; Burton says that in Daliome there are &quot; four large 

 and many smaller markets ; &quot; and that in Egba, villages had, 

 &quot; as usual in Africa, a bazaar or market, where women 

 squatted before baskets under a tree.&quot; In Central Africa 



