raised to three. A grant of incorporation was made to the town in 1838, when the first municipal council was elected. In 1870 a School Board of fifteen members was elected, under the Elementary Education Act passed in that year. The town is built upon the New Red Sandstone, on a boldly undulated site, varying from 200 to 600 feet above the sea-level, steadily rising towards the north and west, so that when looked at from the heights on the south-east side it presents the appearance of a vast semicircle, picturesquely disposed, the masses of houses being broken by spires and lofty chimneys, and the south and west sides being thickly wooded on the slopes. The plan of the town is irregular, and the streets are mostly winding, and many of them somewhat narrow. In the centre, however, is a large open space, known as the Bull Ring and High Street, at the foot of which stands the mother church of St. Martin, and in which is situated the Market-Hall, one of the largest buildings of its kind in the kingdom. From this centre access is obtained to the principal streets, New Street and High Street; the former, about a quarter of a mile in length, derives a most picturesque appearance from its slightly curved form, and from the effective manner in which the sky-line is broken by lofty buildings alternating with others of lower altitude. This street contains the Exchange, the Grammar School, the Theatre Royal, the rooms of the Royal Society of Artists, which have a fine Corinthian portico stretching across the pavement. At the upper end of the street is the Town-Hall, and close to this are the corporate buildings and the Post-Office. The last quarter of a century has seen a great advancement in the style and accommodation of the public and commercial edifices; streets have been widened and new roads opened, and the place has altogether put on a livelier and wealthier look. Excepting in some of the older and poorer districts, the private houses have undergone a corresponding im provement. The richer classes live chiefly in the parish of Edgbaston, which belongs almost entirely to Lord Calthorpe, and in which strict rules as to the description, position, and area of the houses are enforced. The streets inhabited by the working-classes are, of course, more crowded, and many of the houses are built in enclosed courts, access to which is gained from the street, either by openings between the houses, or by narrow entries, too commonly built over, and thus impeding the free passage of air. Many of the courts, however, are wide enough to allow of small gardens in front of the houses, while in the suburbs almost every house is provided with a garden of some kind; and in a considerable number of cases the houses, through means of building societies, have become the property of the workmen themselves. The habit exists among all classes of each family (with rare exceptions) occupying a separate house, a practice which greatly affects the area of the town. Thus, to a population of 360,000 there are about 76,000 inhabited houses, giving an average of five persons to a house. Birmingham is a town of rapid growth. In 1700 the population was about 15,000. A century later, at the census of 1801, it had increased to 73,000. In the next thirty years the population doubled, being 147,000 in 1831. The same process was repeated in the following term of thirty years, the population in 1861 being 296,000. Between 1861 and 1871 the increase was 47,000, and the returns of the registrar-general show that the same rate of progress is still going on. It is, however, likely to be checked by the increasing value of land within the borough, by the absorption of available sites for building, and by the consequent overflow of population into the suburbs. If these, inhabited solely by borough people, are taken into account, the real population at present is probably not far short of half a million. Government. The government of the town resided originally in the high and low bailiffs, both officers chosen at the court of the lord of the manor, and acting as his deputies. The system was a loose one, but by degrees it became somewhat organized, and Crown writs were addressed to the bailiffs. In 1832, when the town was enfranchised, they were made the returning officers. About the beginning of the century, however, a more regular system was instituted, by an Act creating a body of street Commis sioners, who acted for the parish of Birmingham,-the traces except in the tower and spire of its former character. In hamlets outside its boundaries having similar boards of 1853 the tower was found to be in a dangerous condition, and their own. The annoyance and difficulty caused by these together with the spire was rebuilt. In 1873 the remaining part bodies-thirteen in number-led to a demand for the incor- of the old church was removed without disturbing the monuments, and a new and larger edifice was erected in its place, at poration of Birmingham as a borough; and a charter was accordingly granted by the Crown in 1838, vesting the a cost of nearly £30,000. The new church constitutes the chief ecclesiastical edifice in Birmingham, and indeed the handgeneral government in a mayor, sixteen aldermen, and somest structure in the town. St. Philip's, a stately Italian forty-seven councillors. The powers of this body were, structure, designed by Archer, a pupil of Wren, was the next however, unusually restricted, the other local governing church erected. It was consecrated in 1715. Then followed St. bodies remaining in existence. It was not until 1851 that Bartholomew's in 1749, St. Mary's in 1774, St. Paul's in 1779, an Act of Parliament was obtained, abolishing all govern- St. James's, Ashted, in 1791, and others, which need not be ing authorities excepting the Town Council, and transfer- mentioned, followed in due course. At present the mother parish ring all powers to this body. Under this Act, and another is divided into five rectories, and there are within the borough, local Act obtained in 1862, the affairs of the town are now including those mentioned, 42 churches (each having an ecclesiadministered, the whole municipal government being in astical district assigned to it) of the Church of England, most the hands of the Town Council. The importance of the of these having schools and missions attached to them. Under the Commonwealth Birmingham was a stronghold of duties discharged by the Council may be inferred from the Puritanism. Clarendon speaks of it and the neighborhood as fact that it has under its control nearly 200 miles of street" the most eminently corrupted of any in England." Baxter, and road, that it has a police force of nearly 500 men, and on the other hand, commending the garrison of Coventry, says that its revenue, derived from tolls and rates, amounts to it contained "the most religious men of the parts round about, about £300,000 a year. These responsibilities have been especially from Birmingham." The traditional reputation for increased by the purchase in 1875 of the gas and water- Nonconformity is maintained by the town, all varieties of disworks (the latter with a daily supply of 17,000,000 gallons), senters being numerous and influential. the two purchases making a cost of more than £3,000,000. The growth of the revenue and expenditure of the town, its ratable value, and its ordinary debt, excluding the gas and water-works, will be seen from the following tabular 1864 920,191 3 8 187,620 185,537 3 2 3 1021 1869 1,052,796 1874 1,254,911 638,303 195,155 199,950 588,449 289,655 271,807 664,959 N.B.-The amount of property possessed by the Corporation on 31st December, 1874, taken at its original cost, was £1,259,047. The administration of the poor-law is vested in a Board of Guardians, of sixty members, for the parish of Birmingham. The parish of Edgbaston (wholly within the borough) is in the poor-law union of King's Norton, and that part of the parish of Aston included in the borough is in the Aston Union. There are three workhouses-that for Birmingham parish, situated at Birmingham Heath, is capable of receiving over 2000 inmates. In the week ending June 19, 1875, there were chargeable to the parish (including lunatics and Arms of Birmingham. persons receiving outdoor relief) 6949 paupers, a very small number in proportion to population. Birmingham has a grant of quarter sessions, with a recorder, and petty sessions are held daily at the Sessions Court, in Moor Street, before a stipendiary magistrate, and a bench of borough justices. The justices for the borough and Aston division of Warwickshire also sit here Occasionally. The borough justices have charge of the administration of the jail. The town is the head of a county court district, and is the seat of the probate registry for Warwickshire. Religious Denominations, Buildings, &c.-Until the year 1821 Birmingham was in the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry; it is now in the diocese of Worcester and archdeaconry of Coventry, and is a rural deanery. There was formerly a religious house, the priory of St. Thomas the Apostle, and a Guild of the Holy Cross, an association partly religious and partly charitable, having a chantry in the parish church. The possessions of the priory went to the Crown at the dissolution, and the building was destroyed before the close of the 16th century. The lands of the Guild of the Holy Cross were granted by Edward VI. to trustees for the support of a free grammar school; they are now of the value of nearly £15,000 a year. Until 1715 there was but one parish church, St. Martin's, a rectory, having the tithes of the entire parish of Birmingham. St. Martin's was erected ahout the middle of the 13th century; but in the course of ages was so disfigured, internally and externally, as to present no 1 Including rate for School Board, 3d. in the £. The Unitarians, the oldest body established here, have six chapels. One of these, the Old Meeting, is historically intermodel by a number of ministers ejected under the Act of Uniesting, the congregation having been formed on the Presbyterian formity. Another chapel, the New Meeting, in Moor Street (now occupied by the Roman Catholics), is memorable as having been the place of Dr. Priestley's ministerial labors. In 1862 the Unitarians removed from this place to a new Gothic edifice, called the Church of the Messiah, in Broad Street, where they still preserve a monument of Priestley, with a medallion portrait in profile, and an inscription written by Priestley's friend, Dr. Parr. The Society of Friends, whose first meeting-house dates from about 1690, have now three places of meeting. The Independents have now eleven chapels, several of them large and flourishing. The Baptists first erected a chapel in Cannon Street in 1738. They have now 16; one of them, Wycliffe Chapel, Bristol Road, is a singularly handsome structure of 14th century Gothic. The Wesleyan Methodists were established in Birmingham by John Wesley himself in 1745, when he was roughly handled while preaching on Gosta Green. For some years they worshipped in temporary premises. They have now 17 places of worship; and the other divisions of the Methodist body have 24 in the aggregate. The Presbyterians possess 5 places of worship, and the Jews have a handsome synagogue. The Roman Catholics have paid special attention to Birmingham. From the Revolution of 1688 until 1789 they had no place of worship here. They now have a bishop (who assumes a title from the town), a cathedral, and 9 other churches or chapels, a cemetery, and other establishments in the suburbs, including several religious houses, including the Oratory, founded by Dr. Newman. The principal edifice is the Cathedral of St. Chad, built from the designs of Mr. Pugin, at a cost of more than £30,000. The religious institutions and societies in Birmingham are very numerous, and with these are associated many establishments of a benevolent character, such as almshouses, asylums, refuges, societies for the aid of discharged prisoners, and for the promotion of religious education in Board schools, training institutions for nurses and servants, and others of various kinds, in the management of which persons of different religious opinions are commonly found working together in friendly association. Charities.-These are numerous. The principal is the General Hospital, Summer Lane, opened in 1779; it was founded by Dr. Ash, an eminent local physician. The yearly average of in-patients is about 2300, of out-patients, 25,000. The Queen's Hospital, Bath Row, the other large hospital of the town, was founded in 1840 by Mr. W. Sands Cox, F.R.S., an eminent local surgeon, who also founded the Queen's College as a medical school. This hospital receives annually about 1300 in-patients and 17,000 out-patients. The General Dispensary, the officers of which visit patients at their own homes, relieves about 8000 yearly. The Children's Hospital (free), established in 1864 by Dr. Heslop, relieves about 15,000 out and 1000 in-patients. It has two establishments-for outpatients (a very handsome Gothic building) in Steelhouse Lane, and an in-patient department in Broad Street. There is also a Women's Hospital (free) for the special diseases of women; a lying-in charity; special hospitals for diseases of the eye, the ear, bodily deformities, and the teeth; and a homoeopathic hospital. The parish of Birmingham maintains a large infirmary at the workhouse (Birmingham Heath), and a dispensary for out-patients in Paradise Street. Nearly all these medical charities depend upon subscriptions, donations, legacies, and income from invested property; and the sum raised in this way is probably nearly £30,000 a year. There are two public organizations for aiding the charities, both of which were begun in Birmingham. One is a simultaneous collection in October in churches and chapels, called the Hospital Sunday, established in 1859, and now yielding over £5000 a year; the other is the Saturday Hospital collection, made by the work-people in March, which was established in 1873, and yields about £4000. There is also a Sanatorium at Blackwell, near the Lickley Hills, about 10 miles distant, common to all the hospitals. Amongst the non-medical charities the principal are the Blind Institution and the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, both at Edgbaston; and Sir Josiah Mason's Orphanage at Erdington, which receives 300 orphan children, and was built and endowed at the cost of about £250,000 solely by Sir Josiah Mason, a Birmingham penmaker. There are also in the town numerous almshouses for aged persons, the chief of which are Lench's Trust, the James Charities, the Licensed Victuallers' Asylum. Besides the general benefit societies, such as the Oddfellows', Foresters', &c., which are strongly supported in Birmingham, the work-people have numerous clubs of a charitable kind, and there are several important local provident societies of a general character, with many thousand members. Education. The oldest and principal institution is the Grammar School of King Edward the Sixth, founded in 1552, out of the lands of the Guild of the Holy Cross, then of the annual value of £21, but now yielding about £15,000 a year, with a prospect of large increase. The principal or high school, in New Street, was erected in 1840, in the Perpendicular period of the Gothic style, from designs by Sir Charles Barry, at a cost, including land, of £71,000. This school is divided into two departments, classical and English, and educates about 600 boys; while connected with it there are four elementary schools for boys and girls, used chiefly by the lower middle class, the number of pupils being 1500. The classical school has ten exhibitions of £50 each, tenable at Oxford or Cambridge. The next most important foundation is that of the Midland Institute, which includes a general literary department (lectures, museums, and reading-rooms), and an industrial department, with classes in science, languages, mathematics, arithmetic, history, literature, and the laws of health. There are about 600 science students, and about 1600 in the other departments. The Queen's College, originally a school of medicine, founded in 1828, obtained a royal charter in 1843 as a kind of university, with departments of literature, theology, law, science, and engineering. All these branches have now fallen into disuse, excepting medicine and theology; in the latter the college educates candidates for the ministry of the Church of England. An important foundation is Sir Josiah Mason's Scientific College, for the endowment of which Sir Josiah has conveyed to trustees property valued at nearly £100,000, and a capacious building, estimated to cost probably £40,000, is now in erection in Edmund Street, near the Town-Hall. Among the other educational foundations may be mentioned Spring Hill College, Moseley, for the education of Congregational ministers; four industrial schools; a large reformatory for boys at Saltley, and one for girls at Smethwick. For general education there are many private schools, of a good class, for boys and girls. Elementary education is provided in the Church of England day schools, Roman Catholic schools, and Board schools. A total provision, in all the public elementary schools, is made for 41,791 children; there are (July, 1875) 51,334 on the books, with an average attendance for the previous quarter of 37,894. The School Board, though it was elected only in 1870, has, by the provision of new schools, and the exercise of compulsory powers, more than doubled the school attendance. It has already built and opened 9 schools, with accommodation for 8800 children, at a cost, for land and buildings, of about £86,000; and 8 other schools are now in progress, providing accommodation for 7400 children, at an estimated cost of about £103,000— making a total expenditure of nearly £200,000, and provision for a total of about 16,000 children. Libraries, &c.-The principal libraries of the town are the Birmingham Library (belonging to a body of proprietors), founded in 1798 by Dr. Priestley, and containing about 40,000 volumes, and the Corporation Free Libraries, in Ratcliff Place, commenced in 1861. These consist of a central reference library and lending library (the former containing 36,000 volumes of carefully chosen books), to which is attached a central reading-room. There are also four lending libraries and news-rooms in other parts of the town, and news-rooms are about to be opened by the Corporation in connection with the Board schools. The total issue of books from the libraries for 1874 was 521,991. Included in the reference library are a special Shakespeare library, containing almost all known editions of the plays and of works illustrating them; a library of nearly 1000 volumes, illustrating the works of Cervantes (presented by Mr. W. Bragge of Sheffield); and a large and unique collection of Warwickshire books and antiquities, known as the Staunton collection. An Art Gallery and Industrial Museum is attached to the Free Libraries; and there is at Aston Hall another museum of natural history, &c., belonging to the Corporation. Art instruction is provided by the Royal Society of Artists, which has classes and lectures for students, and which holds two general exhibitions annually; and by the School of Art, which has 900 students, together with affiliated classes in schools, containing nearly 1700 students. Miscellaneous Institutions, Parks, &c.-These include 8 banks, 4 principal clubs-the Union, the Midland, the Arts, and the Conservative-to which a Liberal Club is about to be added. There are 3 morning and 2 evening daily papers-4 of them Liberal and 1 Conservative—and 2 weekly papers. There are 2 theatres, 2 large music-halls, and several smaller ones. Musical festivals for the benefit of the General Hospital are held triennially, and are usually marked by the production of new and important works, and by the engagement of most of the leading vocalists and instrumental performers. There are 5 parke and pleasure grounds belonging to the CorporationAston Park and Hall, 45 acres; Calthorpe Park, about 35 acres; Cannon Hill Park, 65 acres; and Adderley and Highgate Parks, each about 12 acres. Besides these there are numerous pleasure-grounds-the Botanical Gardens, Edgbaston, open to subscribers, and the Lower Grounds, a beautiful series of gardens at Aston, in which important flower shows are periodically held. Sutton Park, about & miles distant, and including about 3000 acres, is also much used by the Birmingham people. The Corporation has several sets of baths and wash-houses in various parts of the town. There are several extensive cemeteries. Public Buildings. Of these the Town-Hall, a nobly-proportioned and impressive edifice, is the principal. It stands at the top of New Street, and on three sides is isolated from all other buildings by broad and handsome streets. The hall, completed in 1850 at a total cost of £52,000, is severely classic, modelled upon a Greek temple. The lower stage consists of a vast plinth or basement, 23 feet high, upon which is reared a façade of peripteral character, with 8 Corinthian columns (36 feet high) at the two principal fronts, and 13 columns on each side. These columns (imitated from those of the temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome) support a bold and enriched cornice, finished at each end with a lofty pediment and entablature. The exterior of the hall is built of Anglesea marble. The interior consists chiefly of a regularly-built room, designed specially for meetings and concerts, with an orchestra containing one of the finest organs in the kingdom. The seats are arranged for an audience of 2265 persons, but when cleared of benches, as is the case at great political meetings, 5000 persons may find standing room. On one side of the Town-Hall are the buildings of the Midland Institute and the Free Libraries (of Italian design), occupying the whole of Ratcliff Place, with fronts to Paradise Street and Edmund Street. A new Art Gallery is in course of erection, fronting the latter street. At the back of the Town-Hall is the site of the new building of the Mason College (Gothic), and in front of the hall, in Paradise Street, are Christ Church (classic), the Queen's College (Gothic), and the Post-Office. On the side of the hall in Ann Street, opposite to the Midland Institute, are the new Corporate Buildings (Italian), now being erected at a cost of nearly £200,000. These will give accommodation for the Town Council, law courts, public offices, and the mayor of the borough. Lower down New Street is the building of the Royal Society of Artists (classic), with a noble portico; then comes the Exchange (Gothic) in Stephenson Place; and at the bottom of the latter street is the Central Railway station, used by the North-Western, the Midland, and their branch railways, and fronted by the Queen's Hotel. The station is more than a quarter of a mile in length. The roof, a magnificent specimen of engineering, consists of a vast arch of glass and iron, carried on pillars on each side, and measuring 1100 feet in length, 80 feet in height, and 212 feet in width in a single span. The glass in the ing from 1d. to 12s. per gross of 12 dozen. The fact roof weighs 115 tons, and the iron-work 1400 tons. Below that each gross requires 144 pieces of steel to go through the station, in New Street, is the Grammar School; and 12 different processes, renders this cheapness of sale one in High Street, close at hand, is the Market-Hall, a mag- of the greatest marvels of manufacturing skill and indusnificent classic building, erected in 1833 at a cost of nearly try. Electro-plating, first established about 1848 Dy £70,000, with an area of 4380 square yards, and affording Messrs. Elkington and Mason, is one of the leading trades. room for 600 stalls. Amongst the other public buildings Amongst other branches of manufacture are wire-drawing, are the Borough Gaol at Winson Green, with 467 cells, bell founding, metal rolling, railway carriage building (a arranged on the separate system; near this the Lunatic large and important industry), steel-toy making (including Asylum, with accommodation for 600 patients; and close cutting implements and tools of all kinds), die-sinking, at hand the workhouse, which receives about 2000 in- papier-maché making, and a variety of others, for which The General and Queen's Hospitals are also hand-reference may be made to a volume entitled Birmingham so've buildings, the latter especially so, it being remark- and the Midland Hardware District, prepared on the visit able for a very noble out-patient hall. This and the out- of the British Association in 1865, and extending to more patient hall at the Children's Hospital in Steelhouse Lane than 700 pages. It is impossible, indeed, in smaller com(Gothic) are perhaps the finest rooms of their kind in the pass to give an adequate idea of the variety and extent of kingdom. Birmingham industry. To quote a modern writer: mates. Birmingham had till very recently only one public monument, the statue of Nelson, by Westmacott, in High Street; but several others have been erected-namely, those of Joseph Sturge, at the Five Ways, and of Thomas Attwood, the founder of the Political Union, in Stephenson Place, both of them by the late Mr. Thomas; James Watt, a singularly beautiful work, in Ratcliff Place, by the late Mr. Munro; Sir Robert Peel, in New Street, by Mr. P. Hollins; the late Prince-Consort, in the Art Gallery, by Mr. Foley; Sir Rowland Hill, in the hall of the PostOffice, by Mr. Noble; and Dr. Priestley, in New Street, by Mr. F. J. Williamson. Chantrey's famous statue of James Watt is in a special chapel at Handsworth Church. Manufactures. From an early period Birmingham has been a seat of manufactures in metal. Hutton, the historian of the town, claims for it Saxon or even British antiquity in this respect, but without the shadow of foundation. The first or direct mention of Birmingham trades is to be found in Leland's Itinerary (1538). He writes:"I came through a pretty street as ever I entered into Bermingham towne. This street, as I remember, is called Dirtey (Deritend). In it dwell smiths and cutlers. There be many smithes in the towne that use to make knives and all manner of cutlery tooles, and many lorimers that make bittes, and a great many naylors, so that a great part of the towne is maintained by smithes, who have their iron and sea-cole out of Staffordshire." The cutlers no longer exist, this trade having gone to Sheffield; but the smiths remain, and the heavier cutting tools are still largely made here. The well-ascertained importance of Birmingham as a centre of manufactures began towards the close of the 17th century, one great source of it being the absolute freedom of the town, there being no guilds, companies, or restrictions of any kind; besides which the easy access to cheap coal and iron indirectly helped the development. It is remarkable that two important trades, now located elsewhere, were first established here. Steel was made in Birmingham until 1797, and was then disused for quite 70 years, when an experiment in steel-making (still carried on) was made by a single firm. Cotton-spinning was begun in Birmingham by John Wyatt, and Lewis Paul, and Thomas Warren as early as 1730; but the speculation was abandoned before the end of the century. The great staple of Birmingham is metal-working in all its various forms. The chief variety is the brass-working trade, which employs several hundred masters, and about 10,000 workpeople, and consumes probably 50,000 tons of metal annually, which is worked up into an infinity of articles of ornament and utility. Iron-working, though largely carried on, is a much less important trade, works of this kind being chiefly established in the Staffordshire district. Jewelry, gold, silver, and gilt come next to brass. Then follow small arms of all kinds, some of the larger establishments being capable of turning out 2000 stand per week. Buttons, hooks and eyes, pins, and other articles used for dress, constitute a large class of manufactures. Glass, especially table glass, is a renowned staple of the town. Screws, nails, &c., are made in enormous quantities; indeed, Birmingham has a monopoly of the English screw trade. Steel pens are also a specialty-as much as, probably, 15 tons or more of steel being the weekly consumption of these articles; the largest maker, Sir Josiah Mason, rolls 5 tons weekly for his own consumption, and has about 60 tons of pens constantly in manufacture in various stages. About 20,000,000 pens are made weekly in the town, and are sold at prices rang "We cannot move without finding traces of the great hive of metal-makers-the veritable descendants of Tubal-cain. At home or abroad, sleeping or waking, walking or riding, in a carriage or upon a railway or steamboat, we cannot escape reminiscences of Birmingham. She haunts us from the cradle to the grave. She supplies us with the spoon that first brings our infant lips into acquaintance with 'pap,' and she provides the dismal 'furniture' which is affixed to our coffins. In her turn Birmingham lays the whole world under contribution for her wherever nature has deposited stores of useful or precious materials. For her smiths, and metal workers, and jewellers, metals, or has hidden glittering gems, there industrious miners are busily digging. Divers collect for her button makers millions of rare and costly shells. For her, adventurous hunters rifle the buffalo of his wide-spreading horns, and the elephant of his ivory tusks. There is scarcely a product of any country or any climate that she does not gladly receive, and in return stamps with a richer value." These labors Birmingham performs with the aid of many thousands of willing hands, moved by busy and ingenious brains, and aided by her own great invention, the steamengine; for by the genius of Watt and the intrepid courage of Boulton, Birmingham may claim the perfection of this discovery as her own. The memory of the great Soho factory is one of the most precious heritages of the town, and the name remains, for though the old factory has long since disappeared, the firm of Boulton and Watt still continue to make steam-engines in the immediate neighborhood; and James Watt's own private workshop continues just as he left it, with no single article disturbed, carefully preserved in the garret of his house at Heathfield. The mention of Watt and of Soho recalls the memories of distinguished inventors and others who have been connected with Birmingham. Johnson was a frequent visitor here to his friend Hector, the surgeon, on whose house in the Old Square a tablet (erected by the Shakespeare Club) bears witness to the residence of the great moralist. Then Baskerville, the printer, carried on his work here. The famous Lunar Society, fully described by Mr. Smiles in his Lives of the Engineers, brought together a brilliant company-Watt, Boulton, Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood, Darwin, Parr, Withering, Edgeworth, Sir Joseph Banks, Herschel, Dr. Solander, Fothergill, Roebuck, Galton, Keir, and many others. Murdoch, the inventor of gas, was a Soho man, and first used his invention to light the Soho factory at the peace of Amiens in 1802. Rickman, the reviver and historian of Gothic architecture, practised as an architect in Birmingham. Hutton, the antiquary and historian, carried on his bookselling business here. Many of the best engravers were Birmingham men, notably Willmore and Pye, the special translators of Turner's marvellous creations. In the ranks of landscape painters the name of David Cox will ever confer honor upon the town. Attwood, Joseph Parkes, and Bright speak for it in the region of politics and statesmanship. The series of inventors is continued to our own day by the names of Gillott, Elkington, Chance, Mason, and others. In many respects Birmingham is a peculiar town, and in none more than the hold it has upon the affections of its people. A "Birmingham man" is usually a man of strong individuality, independence of character, facility of resource, and with an enduring love for "the old town." These traits of character are the result of a variety of circumstances. Birmingham is peculiar in opening a career even to the humblest who are gifted with ingenuity and industry. The great number of trades keeps work fairly constant, the skill required in them sustains wages of arti well, from whom by marriage and descent it went to Christo- sans at a high level, and the distribution of labor, and its The Birmingham work-people, in their way, are courteous and helpful. This is probably owing to the free and open and common discussion of subjects of political and social interest engaged in without distinction of class. The same principle is adopted educationally-in the Midland Institute, for example-the Act of Parliament which established the Institute providing that the governing council shall always include artisan members. Another noticeable characteristic of the town is the development of means of self-instruction and of self-help. Birmingham was amongst the earliest places to establish a mechanics' institution, the place of which is now more efficiently supplied by the Midland Institute. Birmingham, again, was the birthplace of the freehold land and building societies, by which workmen are enabled, on easy terms, to acquire houses of their own; and in addition to these institutions, which are numerous and flourishing, it has a very large number of sick and friendly societies, savings-clubs, and other organizations of a provident kind,-more in proportion to population than, probably, any other of the large towns in England. Amongst the social characteristics it should be mentioned that there are few serious disputes between masters and workmen, and that strikes are infrequent, and when they do occur are found capable of easy adjustment by friendly negotiation. One point more is worthy of record-the constancy of the town to those who serve it. Many of the leading manufacturers and other citizens are members of the local governing bodies, and these and the parliamentary representatives are rarely changed by their constituents. History. Owing to its rapid expansion, and the consequent newness of most of the public and other buildings, Birmingham is often supposed to be a modern town. It is really one of the oldest in the country, and was in existence as a community in the Saxon period. Proof of this was given in 1309 by William de Bermingham, then lord of the manor, who showed in a lawsuit that his ancestors had a market in the place, and levied tolls, before the Conquest. Some authors have endeavored to identify the town with the supposed Roman station called Bremenium, but this claim has long since been abandoned as fabulous. The origin of the name is untraceable; the spelling of it is traceable in about 100 different forms. Dugdale, the historian of Warwickshire, adopts Bromwycham, and regards it as of Saxon derivation. Hutton, the historian of Birmingham, has the fanciful etymology of Brom (broom), wych (a descent), and ham (a home), making together, the home on the hill by the heath. As regards the history of the town, we must agree with Hutton that "the way is long, dark, and slippery." In Domesday Book it is rated at four miles of land with half a mile of woods, the whole valued at £203. Two hundred years later the family of De Ermingham, the owners of the place, come into sight,- -one of them, William, being killed at the battle of Evesham, in 1265, fighting with Simon de Montfort and the barons against Henry the Third. The son of this William afterwards took part in the French war, and was made prisoner; his father's estates, forfeited by treason, were re-manding parliamentary representation, and for electing Sir stored to him. Thenceforward we find the family engaged in various local and other offices, but seemingly abstaining from politics. They held the place until 1527, when Edward de Bermingham was deprived of his property by means of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, who trumped up a pretended charge of riot and robbery against him, and procured Birmingham for himself. On the attainder of Dudley the manor passed to the Crown, and was granted to Thomas Marrow, of Berks As if ashamed of the excesses of 1791, Birmingham thenceforth became a thoroughly Liberal and, with one or two exceptions, a peaceful town. In the dismal period from 1817 to 1819, when the manufacturing districts were heavily distressed and were disturbed by riots, Birmingham remained quiet. Even when some of the inhabitants were tried and punished for deCharles Wolseley as their delegate, there was no demonstration of violence-the wise counsels of the leaders inducing orderly submission to the law. The same prudent course was observed when in the Reform agitation of 1831-32 the Political Union was formed, under the leadership of Thomas Attwood, to promote the passing of the Reform Bill. Almost the whole town, and great part of the surrounding district, joined in this agitation; vast meetings were held on Newhall Hill, there was |