Misplaced Pages

#174825

123-529: In 1738, the Baoshang system was established. This system granted a number of Chinese merchants license to trade with Western merchants as long as they helped to collect duties from the Westerners, successfully aligning trading interests with the government's revenue collection. This was the predecessor for the later Cohong system. According to John Phipps, author of the 19th century Practical Treatise on

246-754: A Dutch communist blamed for the Reichstag fire and executed by guillotine in January 1934. The Nazi government also guillotined Sophie Scholl , who was convicted of high treason after distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans , and other members of the German student resistance group, the White Rose . The guillotine was last used in West Germany in 1949 in

369-537: A Roman merchant named Lun reached southern China in 226 CE. Archaeologists have recovered Roman objects dating from the period 27 BCE to 37 CE from excavation sites as far afield as the Kushan and Indus ports. The Romans sold purple and yellow dyes, brass and iron; they acquired incense , balsam , expensive liquid myrrh and spices from the Near East and India, fine silk from China and fine white marble destined for

492-437: A beheading machine and employed Tobias Schmidt, a German engineer and harpsichord maker, to construct a prototype. Antoine Louis is also credited with the design of the prototype. France's official executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson , claimed in his memoirs that King Louis XVI, an amateur locksmith, recommended that the device employ an oblique blade rather than a crescent one, lest the blade not be able to cut through all necks;

615-598: A book called Merchants in Motion: the art of Vietnamese Street Vendors. Although merchant halls were known in antiquity, they fell into disuse and were not reinvented until Europe's Medieval period. During the 12th century, powerful guilds which controlled the way that trade was conducted were established and were often incorporated into the charters granted to market towns . By the 13th and 14th centuries, merchant guilds had acquired sufficient resources to erect guild halls in many major market towns. Many buildings have retained

738-476: A cutting blade of steel droppeth down, of steel sharper than any razor, and closeth up the three openings. "Even thus will I cut off their heads when they shall set them into those three openings thinking to adore the hallows that are beyond." The Halifax Gibbet in England was a wooden structure consisting of two wooden uprights, capped by a horizontal beam, of a total height of 4.5 metres (15 ft). The blade

861-691: A diverse range of product types. These merchants were concentrated in the larger cities. They often provided high levels of credit financing for retail transactions. In the nineteenth century, merchants and merchant houses played a role in opening up China and the Pacific to Anglo-American trade interests. Note for example Jardine Matheson & Co. and the merchants of New South Wales . Other merchants profited from natural resources (the Hudson's Bay Company theoretically controlled much of North America, names like Rockefeller and Nobel dominated trade in oil in

984-691: A group of musical performers; and dream merchant , which refers to someone who peddles idealistic visionary scenarios. Broadly, merchants can be classified into two categories: However, the term 'merchant' is often used in a variety of specialised contexts such as in merchant banker , merchant navy or merchant services . Merchants have existed as long as humans have conducted business, trade or commerce. A merchant class operated in many pre-modern societies . Open-air, public markets, where merchants and traders congregated, functioned in ancient Babylonia and Assyria, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Phoenicia and Rome. These markets typically occupied

1107-621: A high level of precision and skill to carry out successfully. After its adoption, the device remained France's standard method of judicial execution until the abolition of capital punishment in 1981. The last person to be executed by a government via guillotine was Hamida Djandoubi on 10 September 1977 in France. The use of beheading machines in Europe long predates such use during the French Revolution in 1792. An early example of

1230-478: A less painful alternative. While not the device's inventor, Guillotin's name ultimately became an eponym for it. Contrary to popular myth, Guillotin did not die by guillotine but rather by natural causes. French surgeon and physiologist Antoine Louis and German engineer Tobias Schmidt built a prototype for the guillotine. According to the memoir of the French executioner Charles-Henri Sanson , Louis XVI suggested

1353-552: A lowly profession and it was often subject to legal discrimination or restrictions, although in a few areas its status began to improve. The modern era is generally understood to refer to period that started with the rise of consumer culture in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. As standards of living improved in the 17th century, consumers from a broad range of social backgrounds began to purchase goods that were in excess of basic necessities. An emergent middle class or bourgeoisie stimulated demand for luxury goods, and

SECTION 10

#1732766276175

1476-530: A new method to be used on all condemned people regardless of class, consistent with the idea that the purpose of capital punishment was simply to end life rather than to inflict unnecessary pain. A committee formed under Antoine Louis , physician to the King and Secretary to the Academy of Surgery. Guillotin was also on the committee. The group was influenced by beheading devices used elsewhere in Europe, such as

1599-578: A number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos (in present-day Lebanon ) and Carthage in North Africa. The social status of the merchant class varied across cultures; ranging from high status (the members even eventually achieving titles such as that of Merchant Prince or Nabob ) to low status, as in China , Greece and Roman cultures, owing to

1722-428: A place in the town's centre. Surrounding the market, skilled artisans, such as metal-workers and leather workers, occupied premises in alley ways that led to the open market-place. These artisans may have sold wares directly from their premises, but also prepared goods for sale on market days. In ancient Greece markets operated within the agora (open space), and in ancient Rome in the forum . Rome's forums included

1845-483: A system of agents. Merchants specialised in financing, organisation and transport while agents were domiciled overseas and acted on behalf of a principal. These arrangements first appeared on the route from Italy to the Levant, but by the end of the thirteenth century merchant colonies could be found from Paris, London, Bruges, Seville, Barcelona and Montpellier. Over time these partnerships became more commonplace and led to

1968-500: A tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with a pillory at the bottom of the frame, holding the position of the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, swiftly and forcefully decapitating the victim with a single, clean pass; the head falls into a basket or other receptacle below. The guillotine is best known for its use in France , particularly during

2091-537: A virtual monopoly on the trade, along with European Crowns, cutting down on the profits and power that could go to the middle-men, and Western and Chinese merchant classes, fomenting class divide issues, rebellions and uprisings of the exploited poor, such as the artisans and farmers whose hard work and daily struggles were primarily responsible for the wealth created, such as the production of mulberry leaves for silkworms in silkworm farming, production of silk through labour and land-intensive artisanal fabric manufacturing, or

2214-567: A world monopoly on gold ad silver. Silver was getting rarer in China, as it was not produced locally but was very practical as a much-coveted currency, as the Empire grew trade links, and developed its economy to keep up with modern ones in Europe. The Western trade warehouses and the incredibly important silver they represented for the Qing Empire's pre-modern artisanal and agricultural economy

2337-447: Is believed to be the first example of a merchant guild. The term, guild was first used for gilda mercatoria and referred to body of merchants operating out of St. Omer, France in the 11th century. Similarly, London's Hanse was formed in the 12th century. These guilds controlled the way that trade was to be conducted and codified rules governing the conditions of trade. Rules established by merchant guilds were often incorporated into

2460-640: The American Colonies , the British required a substitute for the precious metal. In short order, British merchants employed opium as a valuable trade good to obtain the goods it desired. As the Qing Empire's trade with the West transitioned from silver to opium, the Cohong Guilds transitioned themselves to the trade in the addictive narcotic substance. Opium from British India moved swiftly into

2583-573: The Cohong was sagaciously instituted to protect Qing peasants and small merchants from exploitation and coolie type slavery the Europeans had enforced in other continents, like Africa, India, Vietnam and other parts of the world. The Qing Emperor's wise "Cohong" system functioned similarly to a Modern French Republican Union of small-time breadmakers to prevent foreign monopolistic invasion. This system allowed for an efficient, centralised trade between

SECTION 20

#1732766276175

2706-823: The Forum Romanum , the Forum Boarium and Trajan's Forum . The Forum Boarium, one of a series of fora venalia or food markets, originated, as its name suggests, as a cattle market. Trajan's Forum was a vast expanse, comprising multiple buildings with shops on four levels. The Roman forum was arguably the earliest example of a permanent retail shop-front. In antiquity, exchange involved direct selling through permanent or semi-permanent retail premises such as stall-holders at market places or shop-keepers selling from their own premises or through door-to-door direct sales via merchants or peddlers . The nature of direct selling centred around transactional exchange, where

2829-609: The French Revolution , where the revolution's supporters celebrated it as the people's avenger and the revolution's opponents vilified it as the pre-eminent symbol of the violence of the Reign of Terror . While the name "guillotine" dates from this period, similar devices had been in use elsewhere in Europe over several centuries. Use of an oblique blade and the pillory-like restraint device set this type of guillotine apart from others. Display of severed heads had long been one of

2952-546: The Mediterranean , becoming a major trading power by the 9th century BCE. Phoenician merchant traders imported and exported wood, textiles, glass and produce such as wine, oil, dried fruit and nuts. Their trading necessitated a network of colonies along the Mediterranean coast, stretching from modern-day Crete through to Tangiers (in present-day Morocco ) and northward to Sardinia . The Phoenicians not only traded in tangible goods, but were also instrumental in transporting

3075-578: The National Museum of Scotland . For a period of time after its invention, the guillotine was called a louisette . However, it was later named after French physician and Freemason Joseph-Ignace Guillotin , who proposed on 10 October 1789 the use of a special device to carry out executions in France in a more humane manner. A death penalty opponent, he was displeased with the breaking wheel and other common, more grisly methods of execution and sought to persuade Louis XVI of France to implement

3198-475: The Place du Carrousel . The machine was judged successful because it was considered a humane form of execution in contrast with more cruel methods used in the pre-revolutionary Ancien Régime . In France, before the invention of the guillotine, members of the nobility were beheaded with a sword or an axe, which often took two or more blows to kill the condemned. The condemned or their families would sometimes pay

3321-591: The 1530s. These included including Georg Giese of Danzig ; Hillebrant Wedigh of Cologne ; Dirk Tybis of Duisburg ; Hans of Antwerp , Hermann Wedigh, Johann Schwarzwald, Cyriacus Kale, Derich Born and Derick Berck. Paintings of groups of merchants, notably officers of the merchant guilds, also became subject matter for artists and documented the rise of important mercantile organisations. In 2022, Dutch photographer Loes Heerink spend hours on bridges in Hanoi to take pictures of Vietnamese street Merchants. She published

3444-591: The 1532 edition of Petrarch 's De remediis utriusque fortunae , or "Remedies for Both Good and Bad Fortune" shows a device similar to the Halifax Gibbet in the background being used for an execution. Holinshed's Chronicles of 1577 included a picture of "The execution of Murcod Ballagh near Merton in Ireland in 1307" showing a similar execution machine, suggesting its early use in Ireland. The Maiden

3567-537: The 17th century. They stood out in international trade due to their vast network – mostly built by Armenian migrants spread across Eurasia. Armenians had established prominent trade-relations with all big export players such as India, China, Persia, the Ottoman Empire, England, Venice, the Levant, etc. Soon they captured Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, the Levant, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, and

3690-477: The 18th century with governmental encouragement of nobles to invest in trade, and the lifting of old bans on nobles engaging in economic activities. As Britain continued colonial expansion , large commercial organisations came to provide a market for more sophisticated information about trading conditions in foreign lands. Daniel Defoe ( c. 1660–1731), a London merchant, published information on trade and economic resources of England, Scotland and India. Defoe

3813-469: The 21st century. Elizabeth Honig has argued that artists, especially the painters of Antwerp , developed a fascination with merchants from the mid-16th century. The wealthier merchants also had the means to commission artworks with the result that individual merchants and their families became important subject matter for artists. For instance, Hans Holbein the younger painted a series of portraits of Hanseatic merchants working out of London's Steelyard in

Cohong - Misplaced Pages Continue

3936-519: The China and Eastern Trade , the merchant Poankeequa (潘启官) founded the guild in the 1790s, although Chinese historian Immanuel C.Y. Hsu cites an earlier date of 1738. Over time, membership of the Cohong fluctuated between five and 26 merchants authorized by the Qing Imperial Government to handle trade, particularly rights to trade tea and silk, with the West. They were the only group at the time authorized to do this, making them

4059-634: The Chinese markets, largely overtaking silver as the most traded good between British merchants and the Qing dynasty. Despite the Daoguang Emperor 's many opium prohibition edicts throughout the early nineteenth century, the Western trade upon which the Cohong merchantmen built their livelihoods now centered around the drug, and as such the merchants participated heavily in the narcotic trade. Within

4182-467: The European medieval period , a rapid expansion in trade and commerce led to the rise of a wealthy and powerful merchant class . The European Age of Discovery opened up new trading routes and gave European consumers access to a much broader range of goods. By the 18th century, a new type of manufacturer-merchant had started to emerge and modern business practices were becoming evident. The status of

4305-527: The European colonial powers and the Chinese peasants, and limited problems of racial chaos, class divides forming between the neo-bourgeoisie and the old peasant class, foreign colonial exploitation, prostitution, setting up of houses of vice, that plagued European settlements and colonies in many parts of the world, especially in India, Africa and Vietnam. Technically, this allowed the Qing Emperor to share

4428-548: The Far East trade routes, carrying out mostly caravan -trade activities. A significant reason for Armenians' massive involvement in international trade was their geographic location – the Armenian lands stand at the crossroads between Asia and Europe. Another reason was their religion, as they were a Christian nation isolated between Muslim Iran and Muslim Turkey. European Christians preferred to carry out trade with Christians in

4551-541: The French Berger 1872 model, but they eventually evolved into sturdier and more effective machines. Built primarily of metal instead of wood, these new guillotines had heavier blades than their French predecessors and thus could use shorter uprights as well. Officials could also conduct multiple executions faster, thanks to a more effective blade recovery system and the eventual removal of the tilting board (bascule). Those deemed likely to struggle were backed slowly into

4674-481: The Hoppo, creating much chaos, irregularity and unexpected surprises in high-risk colonial era "shipping" or "export-import" trade known as "entrepot trade". Throughout his three-year term in the office, a Cohong merchant would be forced to pay numerous bribes, levies, donations, and gifts to his superiors, resulting in a steep drop in profits, sometimes even to bankruptcy, hence international trade remained curtailed, and

4797-667: The Italian Mannaia (or Mannaja, which had been used since Roman times ), the Scottish Maiden , and the Halifax Gibbet (3.5 kg). While many of these prior instruments crushed the neck or used blunt force to take off a head, a number of them also used a crescent blade to behead and a hinged two-part yoke to immobilize the victim's neck. Laquiante, an officer of the Strasbourg criminal court, designed

4920-509: The Mediterranean; its fame travelled as far away as modern southern France. Other notable Roman merchants included Marcus Julius Alexander (16 – 44 CE), Sergius Orata (fl. c. 95 BCE) and Annius Plocamus (1st century CE). In the Roman world, local merchants served the needs of the wealthier landowners. While the local peasantry, who were generally poor, relied on open-air market places to buy and sell produce and wares, major producers such as

5043-632: The Middle English, marchant , which is derived from Anglo-Norman marchaunt , which itself originated from the Vulgar Latin mercatant or mercatans , formed from present participle of mercatare ('to trade, to traffic or to deal in'). The term refers to any type of reseller, but can also be used with a specific qualifier to suggest a person who deals in a given characteristic such as speed merchant , which refer to someone who enjoys fast driving; noise merchant , which refers to

Cohong - Misplaced Pages Continue

5166-621: The Pearl River Delta area, as factories pollution and waste multiplied to cope with European and American consumer demands. Both the Western mercenaries, monopolistic traders and the Manchu Qing Government were known to have exploited and grown rich on the new European demand for all things chinoiserie, while the Qing Imperialty and Chinese aristocracy overpaid the Empire's wealth for "luxury" trinkets from

5289-577: The Qing Empire Cohong merchant guilds therefore represented the primary link between the government of the Qing dynasty and the rest of the world. As Qing Imperial Seat of Canton (now sometimes conflated with the PRC-established New Communist City of Guangzhou, as both share similar geographical locations) represented the only official port of trade between the Qing trade network and European trading powers,

5412-713: The Qing Government. The insidious poisoning of scores of colonial subjects in India for cash-grab to support European bourses and their collapse through opium addiction and sales, and its success at harvesting more cash in China, leading cash-poor and desperate European bankers to poison local coolies with poison to harvest their cash, weaken their empire and collapse their territories for warmongering and landgrab eventually led to German banks financing Japanese invading China (Nanking Massacre), and financing Japanese-controlled Taiwan into genocide and usurpation of weakened British Crown Colony of Singapore (Sook Ching Massacre), as

5535-469: The Roman wholesale market from Arabia. For Roman consumers, the purchase of goods from the East was a symbol of social prestige . Medieval England and Europe witnessed a rapid expansion in trade and the rise of a wealthy and powerful merchant class. Blintiff has investigated the early Medieval networks of market towns and suggests that by the 12th century there was an upsurge in the number of market towns and

5658-509: The Romans did not consider the activities of merchants "respectable". In the ancient cities of the Middle East, where the bazaar was the city's focal point and heartbeat, merchants who worked in bazaar enjoyed high social status and formed part of local elites. In Medieval Western Europe, the Christian church, which closely associated merchants' activities with the sin of usury , criticised

5781-581: The US and in the Russian Empire), while still others made fortunes from exploiting new inventions – selling space on and commodities carried by railways and steamships. In fully planned economies of the 20th century, planners replaced merchants in organising the distribution of goods and services . However, merchants, increasingly labelled with euphemisms such as "industrialists", "businessmen", "entrepreneurs" or "oligarchs" , continue their activities in

5904-574: The West. The upper classes were so intrigued with European luxury and so victimised by European type marketing and European merchant's seduction that they would pay everything just for a little European clock or watchpiece. There is a saying that Jung Chang quoted that the upper class of China has "fallen under such a dangerous lovespell from European merchants" that even "foreigner's farts" were deemed to be "fragrant perfumes" from France or Italy. Overtime, in times of famine, many early anti-Feudalists became critical of false Western luxuries, while in Europe,

6027-705: The Yehenara clan, was so exploitative of the Han population, that she spent all the Empire's wealth being overcharged by greedy European mercenaries, merchants and European bankers on eccentric, impractical projects such as the Summer Palace, while Han peasants and children starved during famines. Famines were common in those days as there were no modern dams and the Yangtze River and Yellow River were prone to flooding. There were also frequent floods and drownings in

6150-404: The act of shopping came to be seen as a pleasurable pastime or form of entertainment. 16th century Spanish and 17th century English nobles had been enticed into participating in trade by the profitability of colonial expeditions. In the 17th century, members of the nobility in many European countries like France or Spain still disliked engaging in merchant activities, but such attitudes changed in

6273-412: The arrival of the missionaries. Avaricious exploitative foul-mouthed greedy "devils" were their first experience in their contact with the Europeans. Despite being awarded the "Imperial Right" to controlling of the trade between European powers and the Qing Empire, the Cohong often held precarious positions, because it was largely appointed top-down, and received no feedback from those below, or from

SECTION 50

#1732766276175

6396-554: The benefits of the no-minimum wage of local artisans and peasants, while the European traders and bankers grew rich off the emerging bourgeoisie in industrialising Europe joining their noble's insatiable appetite exotic and exquisite foreign culture and Chinoiserie - deluxe, such as porcelain , silk , and most of all, tea , which became a most fashionable and expensive part-time in the British Empire to show off one's new bourgeois status and aristocratic and royal taste, much like

6519-551: The charters granted to market towns . In the early 12th century, a confederation of merchant guilds, formed out the German cities of Lübeck and Hamburg, known as "The Hanseatic League " came to dominate trade around the Baltic Sea . By the 13th and 14th centuries, merchant guilds had sufficient resources to have erected guild halls in many major market towns. During the thirteenth century, European businesses became more permanent and were able to maintain sedentary merchants and

6642-508: The city of Canton, in which western trade represented the center of the economic structure, the Qing Emperor's edicts held little effect over the trade hierarchy. From Lintin Island , the small island near Guangzhou on which the European states moored their boats, the Cohong merchants facilitated the use of small smuggling vessels known as "fast crabs" or "shifting dragons" in order to transport

6765-632: The countryside in order to intimidate the rural population; they used guillotines, which had belonged to the former French colonial power, in order to carry out death sentences on the spot. One such guillotine is still on show at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City . In the United States in 1996, Georgia State Representative Doug Teper unsuccessfully sponsored a bill to replace that state's electric chair with

6888-468: The destruction of privilege under the Ancien Régime , which used separate forms of execution for nobility and commoners. The Parisian sans-culottes , then the popular public face of lower-class patriotic radicalism, thus considered the guillotine a positive force for revolutionary progress. After the French Revolution , executions resumed in the city centre. On 4 February 1832, the guillotine

7011-402: The development of large trading companies. These developments also triggered innovations such as double-entry book-keeping, commercial accountancy, international banking including access to lines of credit, marine insurance and commercial courier services. These developments are sometimes known as the commercial revolution. Luca Clerici has made a detailed study of Vicenza's food market during

7134-477: The device from behind a curtain to prevent them from seeing it prior to the execution. A metal screen covered the blade as well in order to conceal it from the sight of the condemned. Nazi Germany used the guillotine between 1933 and 1945 to execute 16,500 prisoners, 10,000 of them in 1944 and 1945 alone. Notable political victims executed by the guillotine under the Nazi government included Marinus van der Lubbe ,

7257-585: The distribution handled by criminals and social outcasts, such as migrants), they were the first part of the process through which the substance entered China. After the British victory in the First Opium War , the Treaty of Nanjing , signed in 1842, extracted several British demands from the Qing government, in particular the end of the Canton system and the dissolution of the Cohong merchants' guilds. In

7380-747: The eighteenth century, a new type of manufacturer-merchant was emerging and modern business practices were becoming evident. Many merchants held showcases of goods in their private homes for the benefit of wealthier clients. Samuel Pepys , for example, writing in 1660, describes being invited to the home of a retailer to view a wooden jack. McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb found extensive evidence of eighteenth-century English entrepreneurs and merchants using "modern" marketing techniques, including product differentiation , sales promotion and loss-leader pricing. English industrialists, Josiah Wedgewood (1730–1795) and Matthew Boulton (1728–1809), are often portrayed as pioneers of modern mass-marketing methods. Wedgewood

7503-460: The emergence of merchant circuits as traders bulked up surpluses from smaller regional, different day markets and resold them at the larger centralised market towns. Peddlers or itinerant merchants filled any gaps in the distribution system. From the 11th century, the Crusades helped to open up new trade routes in the Near East, while the adventurer and merchant, Marco Polo stimulated interest in

SECTION 60

#1732766276175

7626-629: The execution of Richard Schuh and was last used in East Germany in September 1967 when the murderers Paul Beirau and Günter Herzfeld were executed. The Stasi used the guillotine in East Germany between 1950 and 1966 for secret executions. A number of countries, primarily in Europe, continued to employ this method of execution into the 19th and 20th centuries, but they ceased to use it before France did in 1977. In Antwerp , Belgium,

7749-505: The execution of the King and for Robespierre. For a time, executions by guillotine were a popular form of entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators, with vendors selling programs listing the names of the condemned. But more than being popular entertainment alone during the Terror, the guillotine symbolized revolutionary ideals: equality in death equivalent to equality before the law; open and demonstrable revolutionary justice; and

7872-526: The executioner to ensure that the blade was sharp in order to achieve a quick and relatively painless death. Commoners were usually hanged, which could take many minutes. In the early phase of the French Revolution , prior to the guillotine's adoption, the slogan À la lanterne ( lit.   ' To the lamp post! ' ) symbolized popular justice in revolutionary France. The revolutionary radicals hanged officials and aristocrats from street lanterns and also employed more gruesome methods of execution, such as

7995-575: The far East in the 13th century. Medieval merchants began to trade in exotic goods imported from distant shores including spices, wine, food, furs, fine cloth (notably silk), glass, jewellery and many other luxury goods . Market towns began to spread across the landscape during the medieval period. Merchant guilds began to form during the Medieval period. A fraternity formed by the merchants of Tiel in Gelderland (in present-day Netherlands) in 1020

8118-438: The fascination of sugar among English Royalty in the earlier period. Under the oversight of a ministry of revenue official known to the British as the "Hoppo" (a mispronunciation of the term hubu , 户部), the Cohong, from their offices known as hangs, held an Imperial monopoly over trade on the China-originated products of Imperial Chinese artistry and artisanship. These were traded with European banks and traders which had

8241-473: The feudal economy in China did not progress further. Nevertheless, as a result of the lucrative trade they controlled, Cohong guilds became very wealthy, with their personal fortunes numbering among the highest in the Qing Empire, although the European bankers pocketed most of the wealth in terms of silver hoarded from the Chinese goods buyers, and in their European-based stock market equity stacks. Before stock market panics in Europe, and pressure for liquidity,

8364-401: The fine cloth imports while the Hanseatic League controlled most of the trade in the Baltic Sea. A detailed study of European trade between the thirteenth and fifteenth century demonstrates that the European age of discovery acted as a major driver of change. In 1600, goods travelled relatively short distances: grain 5–10 miles; cattle 40–70 miles; wool and wollen cloth 20–40 miles. However, in

8487-412: The floor of his atrium were decorated with images of amphorae bearing his personal brand and inscribed with quality claims. One of the inscriptions on the mosaic amphora reads "G(ari) F(los) SCO[m]/ SCAURI/ EX OFFI[ci]/NA SCAU/RI" which translates as "The flower of garum, made of the mackerel, a product of Scaurus, from the shop of Scaurus". Scaurus' fish sauce had a reputation for very high quality across

8610-432: The goods that their Empire craved. The Cohong further functioned as controller of the Consoo Fund (公所, gōngsuǒ )(actually the name of the office of the Cohong in Thirteen Factory Street ), a system established in 1781 that utilized a pool of money raised by levies (公所费, gōngsuǒfèi ) on the trades of individual merchants to cover the debts of any bankrupt hong at year end and to pay the various exactions demanded by

8733-439: The goods were on open display, allowing buyers to evaluate quality directly through visual inspection. Relationships between merchant and consumer were minimal often playing into public concerns about the quality of produce. The Phoenicians became well known amongst contemporaries as "traders in purple" – a reference to their monopoly over the purple dye extracted from the murex shell. The Phoenicians plied their ships across

8856-399: The government and the Hoppo bureaucrats. Officially, the rate levied for the fund was 3% of the value of goods. This tax originally applied only to tea but by the late eighteenth century had expanded to cover 69 different products. Due to the heavy need for silver in the trade between European colonial powers and the Qing in Canton and complications with its silver supply due to revolts within

8979-505: The great estates were sufficiently attractive for merchants to call directly at their farm-gates. The very wealthy landowners managed their own distribution, which may have involved exporting. Markets were also important centres of social life, and merchants helped to spread news and gossip. The nature of export markets in antiquity is well documented in ancient sources and in archaeological case-studies. Both Greek and Roman merchants engaged in long-distance trade. A Chinese text records that

9102-655: The guillotine is known as Fallbeil ("falling axe") or Köpfmaschine ("beheading machine") and was used in various German states from the 19th century onwards, becoming the preferred method of execution in Napoleonic times in many parts of the country. The guillotine, axe and the firing squad were the legal methods of execution during the era of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the Weimar Republic (1919–1933). The original German guillotines resembled

9225-417: The guillotine was invented specifically to be more humane, the issue of whether or not the condemned experiences pain has been thoroughly examined and remains a controversial topic. Certain eyewitness accounts of guillotine executions suggest anecdotally that awareness may persist momentarily after decapitation, although there is no scientific consensus on the matter. Gabriel Beaurieux, a physician who observed

9348-451: The guillotine. In recent years, a limited number of individuals have killed themselves using self-constructed guillotines. Ever since the guillotine's first use, there has been debate as to whether or not the guillotine provided as swift and painless a death as Guillotin had hoped. With previous methods of execution that were intended to be painful, few expressed concern about the level of suffering that they inflicted. However, because

9471-617: The guillotine. Most of the time, executions in Paris were carried out in the Place de la Revolution (former Place Louis XV and current Place de la Concorde ); the guillotine stood in the corner near the Hôtel Crillon where the City of Brest Statue can be found today. The machine was moved several times, to the Place de la Nation and the Place de la Bastille , but returned, particularly for

9594-413: The head of executed prisoner Henri Languille, wrote on 28 June 1905: Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of

9717-515: The highest level of exchange, they transferred a more outward-looking mindset and system of values to their commercial-exchange transactions, and also helped to disseminate a more global awareness to broader society and therefore acted as agents of change for local society. Successful, open-minded cosmopolitan merchants began to acquire a more esteemed social position within the political elites. They were often sought as advisors for high-level political agents. The English nabobs belong to this era. By

9840-579: The highly skilled and labour-intensive production of glazed ceramics, blanc-de-chine Dehua porcelain, and other massive quantities of goods by the diligent and intelligent peasants in the Orient. However, the wealth of trade in this virtual trade monopoly trade with the Western European Crowns was not always evenly distributed with the peasant class, leading to socio-economic exploitation and unfairness in Europe, but especially in China. This

9963-528: The horrific Holocaust changed the course of history forever in Germany, Europe. To maintain their influence they ensured that local residents and officials up to the highest level of the bureaucracy made overtures to the Qing government to maintain Canton's status as the sole site of official trade with the western world. From time to time, this municipal trade monopoly came to rankle the British government, who sought out other ports of call through which to obtain

10086-429: The illicit substance from Lintin to the warehouses within Canton. These boats were necessary to avoid Qing search and seizure of the opium and ensure its arrival in Canton, after which the Cohong took over the process, trading their goods for the opium and preparing it to enter Qing Territory. While the Cohong did not participate directly in the opium trade within China (this was accomplished through other merchants, and

10209-520: The last person to be beheaded was Francis Kol. Convicted of robbery and murder, he received his punishment on 8 May 1856. During the period from 19 March 1798 to 30 March 1856, there were 19 beheadings in Antwerp. In Utrecht , the Netherlands, the first person to be beheaded was Anthony van Benthem, a criminal confined in a mental institution. He killed a cellmate after being called a sodomite. He

10332-588: The low social status of merchants within traditional Confucian social hierarchy - the Ancient Chinese culture derided merchants as cunning, and sly, while it celebrated peasantry culture for its worth ethic, the Confucianist elite ministers for their great learning and the Emperor for his divine wisdom, the Cohong merchants were often at the erratic beck-and-call of their bureaucratic masters within

10455-544: The main controllers of all foreign trade in the nation. Within the city of Canton ( formerly known as "Canfu" or "Cong Foo" (Imperial Provincial Seat of Canton Province, after establishment of Communist China, renamed as Guangzhou , 广州 situated in Guangdong province) the Cohong were granted the Qing Empire's monopoly on foreign trade, overseeing the trade between western silver from the New World and valued goods from

10578-548: The mandatory method of execution in 1866. The guillotine replaced manual beheading in 1903, and it was used only once, in the execution of murderer Alfred Ander in 1910 at Långholmen Prison , Stockholm. Ander was also the last person to be executed in Sweden before capital punishment was abolished there in 1921. In South Vietnam , after the Diệm regime enacted the 10/59 Decree in 1959, mobile special military courts were dispatched to

10701-507: The merchant class, strongly influencing attitudes towards them. In Greco-Roman society, merchants typically did not have high social status, though they may have enjoyed great wealth. Umbricius Scauras, for example, was a manufacturer and trader of garum in Pompeii, circa 35 C.E. His villa, situated in one of the wealthier districts of Pompeii, was very large and ornately decorated in a show of substantial personal wealth. Mosaic patterns in

10824-487: The merchant has varied during different periods of history and among different societies. In modern times, the term merchant has occasionally been used to refer to a businessperson or someone undertaking activities (commercial or industrial) for the purpose of generating profit, cash flow, sales, and revenue using a combination of human, financial, intellectual and physical capital with a view to fueling economic development and growth. The English term, merchant comes from

10947-547: The merchant-buyers themselves. Thus, it was not as efficient a system of trade as during modern times. In addition, the languages in Europe and China were so different that successful communication was impossible in the early phases of trade. Many specialists and linguists were needed, and many errors, miscommunication, cultural misappropriations occurred. The Hoppo held tremendous power over their appointment and their finances and shared them with no one else, neither anyone Chinese in China nor with foreigners. Additionally, because of

11070-403: The most common ways European sovereigns exhibited their power to their subjects. The design of the guillotine was intended to make capital punishment more reliable and less painful in accordance with new Enlightenment ideas of human rights. Prior to use of the guillotine, France had inflicted manual beheading and a variety of methods of execution, many of which were more gruesome and required

11193-400: The names derived from their former use as the home or place of business of merchants: Guillotine A guillotine ( / ˈ ɡ ɪ l ə t iː n / GHIL -ə-teen / ˌ ɡ ɪ l ə ˈ t iː n / GHIL -ə- TEEN / ˈ ɡ i j ə t i n / GHEE -yə-teen ) is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading . The device consists of

11316-496: The neck ... I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. [...] It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: "Languille!" I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions – I insist advisedly on this peculiarity – but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts. Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and

11439-404: The neck of the king, who himself died by guillotine years later, was offered up discreetly as an example. The first execution by guillotine was performed on a highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier on 25 April 1792 in front of what is now Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, the city hall of Paris. All citizens condemned to die were from then on executed there, until the scaffold was moved on 21 August to

11562-581: The nobility. This trading system supported various levels of pochteca – from very high status merchants through to minor traders who acted as a type of peddler to fill in gaps in the distribution system. The Spanish conquerors commented on the impressive nature of the local and regional markets in the 15th century. The Mexica ( Aztec ) market of Tlatelolco was the largest in all the Americas and said to be superior to those in Europe. In much of Renaissance Europe and even after, merchant trade remained seen as

11685-932: The oppressed working class became disillusioned with the Royalty's unending budget in all luxuries Chinois, such as vases, plates, silkwear, ceramics and calligraphy. In Western Europe, Queen Marie-Antoinette was sent to the guillotine , but the Manchu Qing Government was so oppressive and powerful that more and more Chinese children fell into poverty, and became sold as boy coolies and girl Samsui women abroad in British controlled Singapore , Malay Protectorates, Hong Kong , even to United States of America , London docks area of England and even to France and colonies in Africa such as Reunion or Mauritius , and India . The European traders grew greedy and gained tremendous wealth stacking their profits in European stock markets equity stacking. The Qing Imperial Government in turn reaped

11808-649: The original guillotines used during the Reign of Terror. The executioner had "pawned his guillotine, and got into woeful trouble for alleged trafficking in municipal property". On 6 August 1909, the guillotine was used at the junction of the Boulevard Arago and the Rue de la Santé, behind the La Santé Prison . The last public guillotining in France was of Eugen Weidmann , who was convicted of six murders. He

11931-401: The presumed distastefulness of profiting from "mere" trade rather than from labor or the labor of others as in agriculture and craftsmanship . The Romans defined merchants or traders in a very narrow sense. Merchants were those who bought and sold goods, while landowners who sold their own produce were not classed as merchants. Being a landowner was a "respectable" occupation. On the other hand,

12054-541: The principle is found in the Old French High History of the Holy Grail , dated to about 1210. Although the device is imaginary, its function is clear. The text says: Within these three openings are the hallows set for them. And behold what I would do to them if their three heads were therein ... She setteth her hand toward the openings and draweth forth a pin that was fastened into the wall, and

12177-502: The pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. After several seconds, the eyelids closed again [...]. It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than

12300-690: The region was at Fort-de-France in 1965. In South America, the guillotine was only used in French Guiana , where about 150 people were beheaded between 1850 and 1945: most of them were convicts exiled from France and incarcerated within the "bagne", or penal colonies. Within the Southern Hemisphere, it worked in New Caledonia (which had a bagne too until the end of the 19th century) and at least twice in Tahiti . In Germany ,

12423-491: The region. Eighteenth-century merchants who traded in foreign markets developed a network of relationships which crossed national boundaries, religious affiliations, family ties, and gender. The historian, Vannneste, has argued that a new " cosmopolitan merchant mentality" based on trust, reciprocity and a culture of communal support developed and helped to unify the early modern world. Given that these cosmopolitan merchants were embedded within their societies and participated in

12546-424: The sake of the publicity and kudos generated. Both Wedgewood and Boulton staged expansive showcases of their wares in their private residences or in rented halls. Eighteenth-century American merchants, who had been operating as importers and exporters, began to specialise in either wholesale or retail roles. They tended not to specialise in particular types of merchandise, often trading as general merchants, selling

12669-431: The sixteenth century. He found that there were many different types of merchants operating out of the markets. For example, in the dairy trade, cheese and butter was sold by the members of two craft guilds (i.e., cheesemongers who were shopkeepers) and that of the so-called ‘resellers’ (hucksters selling a wide range of foodstuffs), and by other sellers who were not enrolled in any guild. Cheesemongers’ shops were situated at

12792-595: The town hall and were very lucrative. Resellers and direct sellers increased the number of sellers, thus increasing competition, to the benefit of consumers. Direct sellers, who brought produce from the surrounding countryside, sold their wares through the central market place and priced their goods at considerably lower rates than cheesemongers. From 1300 through to the 1800s a large number of European chartered and merchant companies were established to exploit international trading opportunities. The Company of Merchant Adventurers of London , chartered in 1407, controlled most of

12915-447: The trade hummed along, and Europe and China soon both fell in love with each other's culture and became obsessed at acquiring luxuries from the other, more exotic culture. When the world stock markets collapsed, as they say, love turned to scorn, and the complete reverse occurred at a rapid pace, leading to Yellow Peril demonisation and caricatures sponsored by traders and newsprints in Europe, and "Foreign Devil caused it all" diatribes from

13038-524: The trappings of culture. The Phoenicians' extensive trade networks necessitated considerable book-keeping and correspondence. In around 1500 BCE, the Phoenicians developed a script which was much easier to learn than the pictographic systems used in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Phoenician traders and merchants were largely responsible for spreading their alphabet around the region. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in archaeological sites at

13161-563: The use of a straight, angled blade instead of a curved one. On 10 October 1789, physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed to the National Assembly that capital punishment should always take the form of decapitation "by means of a simple mechanism". Sensing the growing discontent, Louis XVI banned the use of the breaking wheel . In 1791, as the French Revolution progressed, the National Assembly researched

13284-637: The wake of this decision, trade moved from the Confucian merchant-to-merchant systems of the Qing Empire to the more diplomatic official-to-official trading systems of the British Empire. Merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated in ancient Babylonia , Assyria , China , Egypt , Greece , India , Persia , Phoenicia and Rome . During

13407-479: The wheel or burning at the stake . Having only one method of civil execution for all regardless of class was also seen as an expression of equality among citizens. The guillotine was then the only civil legal execution method in France until abolition of the death penalty in 1981, apart from certain crimes against the security of the state, or for the death sentences passed by military courts, which entailed execution by firing squad . Louis Collenot d'Angremont

13530-565: The years following the opening up of Asia and the discovery of the New World, goods were imported from very long distances: calico cloth from India, porcelain, silk and tea from China, spices from India and South-East Asia and tobacco, sugar, rum and coffee from the New World. In Mesoamerica, a tiered system of traders developed independently. The local markets, where people purchased their daily needs were known as tianguis while pochteca referred to long-distance, professional merchants traders who obtained rare goods and luxury items desired by

13653-543: Was a prolific pamphleteer. His many publications include titles devoted to trade, including: Trade of Britain Stated (1707); Trade of Scotland with France (1713); The Trade to India Critically and Calmly Considered (1720) and A Plan of the English Commerce (1731); all pamphlets that became highly popular with contemporary merchants and business houses. Armenians operated as a prominent trade nation during

13776-451: Was a royalist famed for having been the first guillotined for his political ideas, on 21 August 1792. During the Reign of Terror between June 1793 and July 1794 about 17,000 people were guillotined, including former King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette who were executed at the guillotine in 1793. Towards the end of the Terror in 1794, revolutionary leaders such as Georges Danton , Saint-Just and Maximilien Robespierre were sent to

13899-420: Was able to generate higher overall profits. Similarly, one of Wedgewood's contemporaries, Matthew Boulton, pioneered early mass-production techniques and product differentiation at his Soho Manufactory in the 1760s. He also practiced planned obsolescence and understood the importance of " celebrity marketing " – that is supplying the nobility, often at prices below cost – and of obtaining royal patronage , for

14022-612: Was an axe head weighing 3.5 kg (7.7 lb), attached to the bottom of a massive wooden block that slid up and down in grooves in the uprights. This device was mounted on a large square platform 1.25 metres (4 ft) high. It is not known when the Halifax Gibbet was first used; the first recorded execution in Halifax dates from 1280, but that execution may have been by sword, axe, or gibbet. The machine remained in use until Oliver Cromwell forbade capital punishment for petty theft. A Hans Weiditz (1495–1537) woodcut illustration from

14145-548: Was because unlike Europe which was going through industrialisation and adopting of modern concepts of human rights and universal declaration of human rights, influenced by the French Revolution, the feudal system did not pay peasants or artisans minimum wage, and was completely unregulated by the Manchu-origin Qing Government, which did not have the concern for the well-being and poverty of enslaved Han peasantry and artisans in their hearts. Empress Cixi, of

14268-499: Was beheaded on 17 June 1939 outside the prison Saint-Pierre, rue Andre Mignot 5 at Versailles , which is now the Tribunal Judiciaire de Versailles. The proceedings caused "disgusting" and "unruly" behaviour among spectators. The “hysterical behavior” by spectators was so scandalous that French president Albert Lebrun immediately banned all future public executions. Marie-Louise Giraud (17 November 1903 – 30 July 1943)

14391-524: Was constructed in 1564 for the Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh , Scotland and was in use from April 1565 to 1710. One of those executed was James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton , in 1581, and a 1644 publication began circulating the legend that Morton himself commissioned the Maiden after he had seen the Halifax Gibbet. The Maiden was readily dismantled for storage and transport, and it is now on display in

14514-565: Was executed at Paardenveld on 27 July 1811. Back then, the Netherlands was part of the French Empire, Utrecht being in the Zuyderzée department. In Switzerland, it was used for the last time by the canton of Obwalden in the execution of murderer Hans Vollenweider in 1940. In Greece, the guillotine (along with the firing squad ) was introduced as a method of execution in 1834; it was last used in 1913. In Sweden, beheading became

14637-494: Was known to have used marketing techniques such as direct mail , travelling salesmen and catalogues in the eighteenth century. Wedgewood also carried out serious investigations into the fixed and variable costs of production and recognised that increased production would lead to lower unit-costs. He also inferred that selling at lower prices would lead to higher demand and recognised the value of achieving scale economies in production. By cutting costs and lowering prices, Wedgewood

14760-584: Was moved behind the Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie , before being moved again, to the Grande Roquette prison , on 29 November 1851. In the late 1840s, the Tussaud brothers Joseph and Francis, gathering relics for Madame Tussauds wax museum, visited the aged Henry-Clément Sanson , grandson of the executioner Charles-Henri Sanson , from whom they obtained parts, the knife and lunette, of one of

14883-897: Was one of the last women to be executed in France. Giraud was convicted in Vichy France and was guillotined for having performed 27 abortions in the Cherbourg area on 30 July 1943. Her story was dramatized in the 1988 film Story of Women directed by Claude Chabrol . The guillotine remained the official method of execution in France until the death penalty was abolished in 1981. The final three guillotinings in France before its abolition were those of child-murderers Christian Ranucci (on 28 July 1976) in Marseille, Jérôme Carrein (on 23 June 1977) in Douai and torturer-murderer Hamida Djandoubi (on 10 September 1977) in Marseille. Djandoubi's death

15006-448: Was the European key to further exploiting and oppressing the Han peasantry and artisans, now with a second double-layer of oppressors from foreign lands. As such, foreign traders who came to bully local peasants and artisans to hand over goods to satisfy their greed for wealth from European buyers, were known as "Gweilos" or "Ghost Men". These poor Chinese farmers and peasants had no contact with other more benign characters from Europe before

15129-687: Was the last time that the guillotine was used for an execution by any government. In the Western Hemisphere, the guillotine saw only limited use. The only recorded guillotine execution in North America north of the Caribbean took place on the French island of St. Pierre in 1889, of Joseph Néel, with a guillotine brought in from Martinique . In the Caribbean, it was used rarely in Guadeloupe and Martinique ; its last use in

#174825