ABSTRACT
IN the fourth class were included the workers in glass, metals, wood, and leather; the manufacturers of linen and various stuffs; dyers, tanners, carpenters, cabinet-makers, masons; and all who f ollowed handicraft employments, or any kind of trade. The musicians, who gained their livelihood by singing and playing, the leather-cutters and the carvers in stone, and ordinary painters (distinct of course from sculptors and artists) were included in the same class, which was mostly composed of people living in towns. Each craft (as is generally the case in Modern Egypt also) had its own quarter of the town, called after it; as the quarter of the goldsmiths, of the leather-cutters, and others ; and no one presumed to interfere with the occupation of a different trade from his own. It is even said that every one was obliged by law to
follow the very same trade as his father ; at all events, whether allowed in the beginning of his career to choose for himself or no, he was forced to continue in the one he first belonged to ; and each vied with his neighbour in improving his own branch.
