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 308 GUILD ens and Lord Lytton, for the relief of indigent men of letters and artists. A fund was created by a distinguished party of amateurs, who gave representations of the comedy " Not so Bad as we Seem ;" and three buildings were erected near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, on ground given by Lord Lytton, and inaugurated July 29, 1865. II. RELIGIOUS GUILDS, also called confra- ternities or sodalities (Lat. sodalis, companion), have always been numerous and popular in Roman Catholic countries. Some of them, like the confraternity of bridge builders (fratres pontifices), were closely allied to the guilds of carpenters and masons, devoting themselves in the 13th century to opening and repairing roads, building bridges, maintaining cheap or gratuitous hostelries, and watching over the safety of travellers. Kindred to these were the confraternities established during and after the crusades, to prevent wars between the feudal lords, to protect widows and orphans from oppression, to guard churches and mon- asteries from violence, and repress the bands of roving mercenaries (routiers) who infested the highways of Europe. Such were the con- fraternity of " the truce of God," the confrerie de Dieu in Normandy, the " militia of Christ " in northern Italy, and even the Vehmgerichte of Westphalia. These confraternities, much as they may have been perverted from their original purpose, sprang from motives of re- ligion and beneficence. The confraternities devoted to works of pure charity were innu- merable. In Rome before the late change of government upward of 200 such guilds were in activity ; and the other cities of Italy were little inferior in this respect. Paris, after Rome, counted the largest number of confrater- nities, prominent among which are the sodality of St. Vincent de Paul, known throughout the United States, and the societies of St. Francis Xavier and St. Francis Regis, which aim at doing away with concubinage among the labor- ing classes, &c. The confrerie de la passion^ organized for the purpose of representing on Sundays and holidays the mysteries of Christ's passion and other Biblical subjects, was origi- nally a lay brotherhood attending on the sick in the hospital of La Trinite in Paris. The entertainments which they instituted for the convalescents in one of the wards soon became so popular that the king gave them a monopoly of all such plays. In 1543 they opened a salle de spectacle in the rue de Mauconseil, which became the cradle of French comedy. But as the edict which renewed their charter of mo- nopoly forbade pagan plays and other than sa- cred dramas, they renounced profane theatricals as inconsistent with their religious garb, and made over their privilege to another company. Religious guilds have recently much increased in England, as well among Roman Catholics as among those called ritualists in the church of England and in the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States. A list of the latter is given in the "Church Union Almanac" for GUILFORD 1869. In the United States and British North America confraternities are both numerous and flourishing; temperance and mutual benevo- lent societies among Roman Catholics general- ly take this form, having prescribed religious practices, a patron saint, and stated feast days. GUILDFORD, a municipal and parliamentary borough, market town, and the capital of Sur- rey, England, on the right bank of the Wey, 29 m. S.. W. of London, at the junction of a branch of the Southwestern with the Guild- ford and Reigate railway; pop. in 1871, 9,801. The town stands on a declivity sloping toward the river, which is here crossed by a hand- some bridge. There are three parish churches, a hospital, a theatre, barracks, several schools, and the Guildford institute, with library and reading room. The chief manufactures are paper, powder, bricks, coaches, iron, and malt liquors; the trade is mostly in timber, grain, malt, and live stock. In 1036, under the reign of Harold I., Alfred, son of Ethelred II., after landing in Kent with the design of recovering the kingdom, was induced to enter Guildford, where he was made prisoner in the night, and his 600 Norman attendants were massacred. GUILFORD, a N. W. county of North Caro- lina, drained by Deep river, a branch of the Cape Fear, and by Reedy fork of Haw river; area, 600 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 21,736, of whom 6,080 were colored. The surface is un- dulating and abundantly timbered; the soil is fertile, well watered, and highly cultivated ; and there is a copper mine. It is traversed by the Richmond, Danville, and Piedmont, and the North Carolina railroads. The chief productions in 1870 were 132,783 bushels of wheat, 308,347 of Indian corn, 169,847 of oats, 22,521 of Irish and 23,468 of sweet potatoes, 149,490 Ibs. of butter, 31,461 of wool, 177,782 of tobacco, and 5,761 tons of hay. There were 2,790 horses, 4,791 milch cows, 6,859 other cattle, and 13,302 sheep ; 1 cotton factory, 18 flour mills, 10 tanneries, 8 currying estab- lishments, and 1 manufactory of wagon ma- terial. Capital, Greensborough. GUILFORD, a town and village of New Haven co., Connecticut, on Long Island sound, and on the Shore Line division of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford railroad, 15 m. E. of New Haven ; pop. in 1870, 2,576. The village has an antiquated appearance, but contains a few handsome buildings, the chief of which is a high-school building of stone. In the centre is a public square, on which front the hotel, the principal stores, and four churches. There are few manufactures, the inhabitants being en- gaged chiefly in farming and maritime pursuits. The harbor is visited by fishing and coasting vessels. About 1 m. S. of the village is the Point, a favorite watering and bathing place; and 3 m. S. W. is the watering place called Sachem's Head. Guilford is the birthplace of Fitz-Greene Halleck, and here he spent the last years of his life. Here also the regicides Goife and Whalley were for a time secreted. The