Excerpt from The Gilds of China: With an Account of the Gild Merchant or Co-Hong of Canton<br><br>I bring to the subject a certain degree of personal knowledge, but I have always referred to information already in print, whenever it existed. Where there is no reference to other authorities, the fact stated must be accepted on my own authority, either from my personal observation, or coming from my study of Chinese history and social institutions.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.