In the towns, many married women had independent businesses and wives also played an active part in the businesses of their husbands. Wives of well-to-do London merchants embroidered, sewed jewelry onto clothes, and made silk garments. Widows often continued in their husband's businesses, such as managing a large import-export trade, tailoring, brewing, and metal shop. Socially lower women often ran their own breweries, bakeries, and taverns. It was possible for wives to be free burgesses in their own right in some towns. Some ladies were patrons of writers. Some women were active in prison reform in matters of reviews to insure that no man was in jail without due cause, overcharges for bed and board, brutality, and regulation of prisoners being placed in irons. Many men and women left money in their wills for food and clothing for prisoners. There was much overlapping in the two forms of association: the craft guild and the religious fraternity. Paved roads in towns were usually gravel and sometimes cobble. They were frequently muddy because of rain and spillage of water being carried. Iron-shod wheels and overloaded carts made them very uneven. London was the first town with paviors. They repaired and cleaned the streets. Pot-holes were usually just filled up with wood chips and compacted with hand rams. They were organized as a city company in 1479. About 1482, towns besides London began appointing salaried road paviors to repair roads and collect their expenses from the householders because the policy of placing the burden on individual householders didn't work well. London streets were lighted at night by public lanterns, under the direction of the mayor. There were fire-engines composed of a circular cistern with a pump and six feet of inflexible hose on wheels pulled by two men on one end and pushed by two men on the other end. The King granted London all common soils, improvements, wastes, streets, and ways in London and in the adjacent waters of the Thames River and all the profits and rents to be derived therefrom. Later the King granted London the liberty to purchase lands and tenements worth up to 2,667 s. yearly. Each ward nominated two men for alderman, the final choice being made by the mayor and the other aldermen. There were many craft guilds. In fact, every trade of twenty men had its own guild. The guild secured good work for its members and the members maintained the reputation of the work standards of the guild. Bad work was punished and night work prohibited as leading to bad work. The guild exercised moral control over its members and provided sickness and death benefits for them. Apprentices were taken in to assure an adequate supply of competent workers for the future. When these apprentices had enough training they were made journeymen with a higher rate of pay. Journeymen traveled to see the work of their craft in other towns. Those journeymen rising to master had the highest pay rate.