"These corporations, being established in the cities, banish, by their oppressive laws, all the mechanic arts from towns and villages. In the cities likewise they tend only to monopoly, by limiting the numbers in every branch of business, and fixing within unreasonable bounds the residence of those who are concerned in trade. This they do either by assigning the distance between shop and shop, under pretence that two shops vending the same commodities must not be so near together as to interfere, or by assembling all the mechanics of the same profession, such as silversmiths, and confining them to one street or quarter of the city, under the plausible pretext that thus the proper magistrate may with ease pay attention to their work, and see that the due standard be observed.[82] [82] This custom was borrowed from the East, and explains why, in many of the older Spanish cities, a number of their streets have taken their title from the trades that formerly were plied in them, or (in some instances) that still are so. Especially was this the case at Valencia and Toledo. In the latter capital there are, or used to be, the streets, _plazas_, or _barrios_, of the silversmiths, armourers, bakers, old-clothes vendors, potters, esparto-weavers, dyers, chairmakers, and many more. Martín Gamero, in his excellent _History of Toledo_ (Introduction, p. 60), says that in the centre of the city were located the quiet crafts, such as those of the jewellers, silversmiths, chandlers, and clog-makers, as well as the shops of the silk, brocade, and tissue-vendors. Noisy trades, such as the swordsmiths', tinsmiths', boiler-makers', chairmakers', and turners', were practised on the outskirts of the town. "In many cases the various _gremios_ bear hard upon each other. Thus, for instance, the carpenter must not employ his industry on mahogany, or any other wood but deal, nor must he invade the province of the turner. The turner must confine his ingenuity and labour to soft wood, and must not presume to touch either ivory or metals, even though he should be reduced to poverty for want of work. The wheeler, in similar distress, must not, however qualified, extend his operations beyond the appointed bounds, so as to encroach on the business of the coach-maker, who is equally restrained from either making or mending either cart or waggon wheels. The barber may shave, draw teeth, and bleed, but he must not fill up his leisure time with making wigs.[83] As mechanics are obliged to keep exactly each to his several line, so must shopkeepers confine themselves to their proper articles in trade, and under no pretence must the manufacturer presume to open magazines, that he may sell by retail.