Chapter V: Part 5

Among the branches of the brass trade which have become important, since the increase of emigration about 5000 ship lamps have been made in one year, at a cheap rate; and within the last five years brass egg cups have been sent in enormous numbers to Turkey, where they are used to hand round coffee. South America is a great mart for cheap brass ware.

Of this trade, it may be said, in the words of a vulgar proverb, "as one door shuts another opens."

The use of china and glass, in conjunction with brass for house furniture and chandeliers, has also created a variety, and afforded an advantageous impetus to the trade.

Mr. Winfield is one of the manufacturers in brass whose showrooms are open to the public. He also has claims on our attention for the wise and philanthropic manner in which he has endeavoured to supply the lamentable deficiency of education among the working classes.

He holds a very leading position as a manufacturer of balustrades, tables, window-cornices, candelabra chandeliers, brackets, curtain-bands, and above all of metal bedsteads, which last he has supplied to some of the chief royal and princely families of Europe, besides Spain, Algeria, and the United States. In all these works great attention has been paid to design as well as workmanship, as was amply proved both at the local exhibition in 1849, where a large gas bracket, in the Italian style, of brass, with Parisian ornaments, excited much admiration; and in 1851, in Hyde Park, where we especially noted an ormolu cradle and French bedstead in gilt and bronze, amid a number of capital works of his production.

Mr. Winfield is patentee of a curious process for drawing out the cylinders used in making bedsteads.

Messrs. Messengers and Sons have one of the finest manufactories in ornamental iron, brass, and bronze, for lamps, chandeliers, and table ornaments. For a long series of years they have spared no expense in obtaining the best models and educating their workmen in drawing and modelling. In their show-rooms will be found many very pleasing statues in gold-colour, in bronze, and copies from antique types of vases, lamps, candelabra, etc.

Messrs. Salt and Lloyd are also eminent lamp makers, and generally exhibit, beside table-lamps, the last and best carriage-lamps.

Messrs. Ratcliffes are another enterprising firm.

All such of these manufactories as have show-rooms open to strangers, will be found by an inquiry at any hotel; for although Birmingham is a large town, everybody knows everybody, and the cab drivers will usually be found competent to guide through the voyage of investigation.

Next, after brass, we will take steel, divided into heavy and light steel toys.

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HEAVY STEEL TOYS.--Heavy steel toys are the name by which, by a sort of Brummagem Bull, a variety of articles which are the very reverse of toys, and which are often not made of steel at all, are designated. Heavy steel toys are tools or articles of an implement nature, used in domestic economy.

The list includes nearly 600 articles. Among these are included the tools of carpenters, coopers, gardeners, butchers, glaziers, farriers, saddlers, tinmen, shoemakers, weavers, wheelwrights, as well as corkscrews, sugar- tongs, sugar-nippers, boot-hooks, button-hooks, door-scrapers, calipers, printing-irons, dog-collars, chains, whistles, tinderboxes, and tobacco- stoppers.

Hammers occupy a leading place, of which there are two or three hundred varieties, belonging to different trades, each of which is divided into eight or ten different weights. Birmingham has the largest share of the heavy toy trade, although there are extensive manufacturers in Sheffield and Wolverhampton. Fine edge tools are chiefly and best made at Sheffield.

This trade increases annually in importance, as it consists of articles which are greatly in demand in new countries; and new markets are opened by every new colonising enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon race. The manufacture includes a great deal of wood-work for handles, as well as iron and steel. For although many axes are made for the American market, after special patterns, and with national mottoes, no handles are ever sent, as the backwoodsmen have better wood for their purpose at command. Our axe handles are stiff; a backwoodsman must have a flexible handle or haft.

The Germans once tried to compete with us in the home market, but the attempt was a failure.

As an instance of the odd accidents that affect the Birmingham trade, about three years ago, when flounces were in fashion, a great demand sprang up for pinking irons, previously only used for ornamenting the hems of shrouds. A workman informed the correspondent of the Morning Chronicle that he had earned about 3 pounds a week for two years at making them.

The scientific tools of housebreakers are known to be made by certain journeymen in the steel toy trade. On the other hand, hand-cuffs, leg-irons, and similar restraining instruments are manufactured for home use and exportation.

Occasionally, London and Liverpool houses in the Brazilian or Cuban trade have ordered suits of chains, intended for the use of slave-ships. These are cheap, coarse, painted black, and horrid looking. Among the orders on the books of a manufacturer, were several dozen pair of hand-cuffs for ladies.

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THE EDGE TOOL MANUFACTURE, which is increasing in Birmingham, probably in consequence of the repeated strikes at Sheffield, added to the superior position of Birmingham as regards coal, and the markets of London, Liverpool, and Bristol, is often carried on in conjunction with that of steel toys. There are forty-five different kinds of axes; fourteen for the American market, twelve adzes, twenty-six bills and bill-hooks, and upwards of seventy hoes for different foreign countries--Spain, Portugal, South America, the United States, and Australia, which will soon consume as much hardware as America did fifty years ago.

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LIGHT STEEL TOYS.--These include chatelains, watch chains, keys, seals, purses, slides, beads, waist buckles, dress swords, steel buttons for court dresses, bodkins, spectacle frames, knitting and netting implements, and steel snuffers. Shoe and knee buckles, which were once universally worn, alone employed five thousand persons in their manufacture, when it was the staple trade of the town. The expense and inconvenience of shoe buckles sent them out of fashion. Dragoons hung in the stirrup, and cricketers tore the nails of their fingers in picking up cricket balls, from the inconvenient buckle.

The trade is extremely fluctuating, and depends very much on inventive taste in which we are manifestly inferior to the French. Some articles we can make better than they can, but they are always bringing out something new and pretty. In small beads they undersell us enormously, while in beads of 1/6th of an inch in diameter, and upwards, we can undersell them.

A visit to a manufactory of light steel toys will afford a great deal of amusement and instruction.

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MEDALLING.--DIE SINKING.--Here again are trades by which Birmingham keeps up its communication with all the civilised, and part of the uncivilised world. The first great improvements in coining the current money of the realm originated at Soho, near Birmingham, at the manufactories of two men whose memory Englishmen can never hold in sufficient respect--Matthew Boulton and James Watt. They were the inventors of the machinery now in use in the Royal Mint; for a long period they coined the copper money, as also some silver money for the United Kingdom, as well as money of all denominations for many foreign countries, tokens, and medals innumerable. They made coins for the French Convention.

During the war, when money was scarce and small notes were in circulation, many tradesmen, and several public establishments issued "tokens," which were, in fact, metal promissory notes, as they were seldom of the intrinsic value stamped on them. By this expedient retailers advertised themselves, and temporarily increased their capital. Some successful speculators made fortunes, others were ruined by the presentation of all their metal notes of hand at periods of panic.

At any rate, the manufacture of these articles had a great deal to do with the education of workmen for the medal manufacture which is now so extensively carried on.

The dies from which coins and medals are struck, are, of course, all executed by hand, and the excellence of each coin or medal depends on the skill of each individual workman; therefore there has been no great improvement in execution--indeed, some medals and coins struck two thousand years ago, rival, if they do not excel, the best works of the present day. The improvements of modern mechanical science are all in the die presses, and in producing cheap metal. These improvements have enabled Birmingham to establish a large trade in cheap medals, which are issued in tens of thousands on every occasion that excites the public mind. Jenny Lind and Father Mathew were both excellent customers of the medallists in their day.

The medallists are not confined to the home market; France has been supplied with effigies of her rival Presidents, Louis Napoleon and Cavaignac, and we should not be surprised to find that some day a contract has been taken for the medals which the Pope blesses and distributes. Schools and Temperance Societies are good customers, and occasionally a good order comes in from a foreign state or colony, for coins. In 1850 Mr. Ralph Heaton made ten tons of copper coin for Bombay, called cock money, so called because bearing a cock on the obverse, from dies purchased at the sale at Soho.

The late Sir Richard Thomason was a considerable manufacturer of medals, and a very curious collection may be seen at the showrooms of his successor, Mr. G. R. Collis, who carries on the same trade, and is consul for a number of countries between Turkey and Timbuctoo.

The most important part of the die-sinking trade, is that for making patterns in brass, mixed metal, and iron in curtain bands, pins, lamp pillars, cornices, coffin furniture, and all articles in which stamping has superseded the more expensive process of hammering out.

Within the last twenty years, and notably within the last ten years, public taste has required an increased amount of ornament in all domestic manufactures; stimulated by this demand, great improvements have been made in stamping, and excellence in the art of die-sinking has become more widely diffused. The Birmingham die-sinkers admit that they are inferior to the French in design, while in the execution of cutting heavy steel dies, they are decidedly superior. Die-sinking is an art, like painting or sculpture, which requires personal aptitude to enable an apprentice to acquire excellence.

It is carried on in Birmingham by men who work themselves, employing two or three journeymen. The names of these artists seldom appear. A London or Parisian tradesman undertakes an order which is passed to some noted Birmingham House, which transmits it to a hard-handed man in a back street.

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COFFIN ORNAMENTS.--The manufacture of ornaments for coffins is a very important part of the trade, and it is curious to find, that even in this last concession to human vanity, there is a constant demand for new designs.

Who is it that examines and compares the ornaments of one coffin with that of another? We never heard of the survivors of a deceased examining an undertaker's patterns. And yet, a house which consumes forty tons of cast iron per annum for coffin handles, stated to the gentleman to whose letters we are indebted for this information, "Our travellers find it useless to show themselves with their pattern books at an undertaker's, unless they have something tasteful, new, and uncommon. The orders for Ireland are chiefly for gilt furniture for coffins. The Scotch, also, are fond of gilt, and so are the people in the west of England. But the taste of the English is decidedly for black. The Welsh like a mixture of black and white. Coffin lace is formed of very light stamped metal, and is made of almost as many patterns as the ribbons of Coventry. All our designs are registered, as there is a constant piracy going on, which it is necessary to check."

Dies are cut in soft metal and then hardened.

Die-sinking is one of the arts so interesting in all its branches, from the first design to the finished coin or ornament, that every intelligent traveller should endeavour to see it.

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PLATERS, GILDERS, AND ELECTRO-PLATERS.--Large fortunes have been made in Birmingham by plating copper, "in the good old times;" but Sheffield was, until within the last ten years, the principal seat of the manufacture. Sheffield plate was a very superior article, and for years would look and stand wear like silver. Plating was effected by laying a thin film of silver on a sheet of copper, which was afterwards shaped into tea or coffee services, forks, spoons, candlesticks, trays, tea urns, and other articles for house use. It was also applied to harness, saddlery, and every thing formerly made of silver alone. A great impetus was given to this trade by our intercourse with the continent at the close of the war, which sent steel pronged forks out of fashion. The first inroad upon the plates on copper was made by the invention of white metal, called German silver. The next was the discovery of the art of plating by galvanic instead of mechanical agency, now known as electro-plating. The result of the application of electric power to plating, however, has been to transfer a large share of the Sheffield plate business to Birmingham. It is a curious fact that a veterinary surgeon (of the name of Askew) invented the first German silver manufactured in England, and that a Dr. Wright, of the same town, discovered the practicability of electro-plating about the same time that several other persons had discovered that metal could be deposited by a galvanic current, but had not thought of applying it practically to manufactures.

The old system of plating is still carried on both in Sheffield and in Birmingham; improvements have been introduced by the employment of a white metal instead of copper as the foundation, and by grafting on, as it were, silver tips to forks and silver edges to prominent ornaments; but the balance of advantage in economy and facility are so greatly in favour of the electro- plating process, that, no doubt, when the patents under which it is now worked expire, its use will become universal.

Since the first patent was published, important improvements have been made in France, Germany, and America, which the original patentees have incorporated. Copperplates cast from wood cuts and stereotypes can be reproduced with great facility and economy, and the exact touches of an artist in clay or wax can be reproduced in metal without the translation of casting. Nothing is too small or too large,--the colossal statue of an Amazon on horseback spearing a lioness, by Kiss, the Berlin sculptor, exhibiting in the Hyde Park Exhibition of 1851, was copied in zinc and bronzed by this process; and, by the same means, flowers, feathers, and even spiders' webs have been covered with a metal film.

At present, a handsome electro-plated teapot, exactly resembling silver, may be purchased at what a Britannia metal one cost fifteen years ago.

Messrs. Elkington and Mason, the purchasers of the secret from the original discoverer and authors of valuable improvements, are at the head of one of the finest and most interesting silver and electroplating establishments in the kingdom.

In commencing this new manufacture, the commercial difficulties they had to overcome, in addition to those of a practical and mechanical nature, were very formidable.

The Messrs. Elkingtons originally intended to confine themselves to plating for the trade. But the prejudice against the new process was so great, that the manufacturers of the needful articles could not be induced to try it. Messrs. Elkington were, therefore, very unwillingly, compelled to invest a capital in becoming manufacturers of plated forks, spoons, cruets, candlesticks, tea services, and all the et ceteras of imitation silver. The additional venture did not serve their purpose. The retail dealers, equally prejudiced, refused or neglected to push off the new plate. More anxiety and more expenditure of capital followed, for the patentees were obliged to establish retail establishments in several cities in this country, America, and our Colonies. The struggle ended in complete success; the use of electro plate has become universal, and the manufacture is not confined to Messrs. Elkington, but is carried on, under licence from the Patentees, by a vast number of firms. The result, however, has been, as already stated, to transfer a good deal of the plated trade of Sheffield to Birmingham, for the former town has slowly and unwillingly adopted the new method, which has deprived its manufacturers of their ancient pre-eminence. Electro-plating has not, as was imagined on its first discovery, lessened the demand for manual labour in the plate trade; on the contrary, it has largely increased it, while extending the sale of a superior, and superseding an inferior, class of goods.

Although for all ordinary articles, such as forks, spoons, teapots, etc., there are, no doubt, many manufacturers in Birmingham quite equal to Messrs. Elkingtons, their manufactory is especially worth visiting; because, in the first place, the whole manufactory is open, and conveniently arranged for the inspection of visitors; and, in the next place, the firm pay great attention to the artistic merit of their more expensive work. They spare no expense to obtain copies from the best antique models, and original designs from living artists, beside keeping up a staff of draughtsmen and modellers.

In the manufactory may be seen the whole history of a plated dinner service, from the pickle fork to the epergne, or vase, which crowns the centre of the table at a grand banquet.

In one room men are at work in cutting out forks and spoons from flat sheets of white metal, which is afterwards shaped, ornamented, engraved, and then, if to be covered with silver, subjected to the action of a current of electricity, produced by an immense pair of magnets--if to be coated with gold, to the action of galvanic batteries; this process requires explanation which must be sought in works, like Mr. Alfred Smee's, especially devoted to the subject. Then comes the burnishing, by the action of leather-covered wheels and wire brushes, in steam-driven motion, and then the burnishing by hand, which is chiefly performed by young girls and women. And an agreeable and profitable occupation it seems to be.

The manufacture of such articles as teapots is equally interesting. In the process of joining such parts as the handle and spout by hard solder, that is to say, solder as difficult to melt as the main body of the object, one of the most valuable inventions for chemical processes, the blow-pipe, is employed with the aid of two other great scientific aids of modern times. The flame of the blow-pipe is made by a stream of gas, and driven, instead of by a man's breath, by a steam blast, so that the mechanic has a power and a facility of manipulation which would be unattainable under the old system of working with a lamp and puffed out cheeks. There is great matter for reflection in the sight of the hundreds of ingenious industrious workmen and workwomen under one roof, employed mainly through the agency of three powers, which, if not discovered, were utilised in the last years of the eighteenth, and early years of the nineteenth century--Steam, Gas and Electricity.

In one series of the workshops of this same establishment, a considerable manufacture of genuine silver plate is carried on, and it is curious to find mechanics engaged in hammering out or chasing plate, using exactly the same tool that was employed in the fifteenth century, or perhaps in Roman times. No improvement has, or, as it would appear, can be, effected; all superiority now, as then, depending on the workmen.

A great deal of ornamental work, of a stereotype character, is done by stamping instead of chasing. The steel dies for this purpose form a very costly stock in trade. A single pair of dies for a sacramental cup will sometimes cost 150 pounds.

Among the modern improvements, we must not fail to note the patent seamless teapots of Britannia metal, and white metal, electrotyped--capital things for bachelors, the spouts are not likely to melt off on the hob.

The show rooms of this establishment contain, in addition to the ordinary contents of a silversmith's shop, a number of exquisite copies in gold, silver, and bronze electro-plate of cups and vases of Greek and Etruscan execution, and of chased work by Benvenuto Cellini, and other master goldsmiths of the fifteenth century.

The Messrs. Elkington have doubled their trade since the Birmingham Exhibition in 1848, and there is reason to believe that, instead of displacing labour as was anticipated, this invention has increased the number and the wages of the parties employed.

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The Britannia Metal manufacture is closely allied to the plate trade; an ingenious improvement, well worth examination, has recently been introduced by Messrs. Sturgis of Broad Street, by which teapots are cast whole, instead of having the spouts and handles soldered on.

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The Gilt Toy and Mock Jewellery Trade, once one of the staple employments of Birmingham artizans, has dwindled away until it now occupies a very insignificant place in the Directory. Bad cheap articles, with neglect of novelty and taste in design, ruined it. In cheap rubbish foreigners can always beat us, but the Birmingham gilt toy men made things "to sell" until no one would buy.

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FOX AND HENDERSON'S MANUFACTORY.--The London works conducted by Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Co., who have become known to all the world by their rapid and successful erection of the Crystal Palace, are situated at Smethwick, about four miles from Birmingham on the Dudley Road. They were established after the commencement of the London and Birmingham Railway, for the manufacture of iron and machinery required in the construction of railways.

The shops, which are of large dimensions, are built in a quadrangle, enclosing a large area or open space, which is employed as a yard for material or finished goods as may be accidentally required. The first place into which the stranger is shown is called the Truck shop, and will accommodate three hundred carriage builders and carpenters. Adjoining it is the Boiler Makers' shop, or, more properly, a shop for workers in plate-iron, for boilers are not made in the establishment, but iron doors, navy casks, and wrought iron railway carriages are produced in this department. These shops form one side of the quadrangle.

The forges, which are very numerous, occupy the first department of another side of the range of buildings. The forges, as is now usual, are supplied with air by the motion of a fan worked by the engine, and by the side of them many strong and stalwart arms are wielded with as much skill and ingenuity as distinguished some of the smiths of the middle ages. The Mechanical Engineering shops join the forges, and in them will be found many of those beautiful self-acting tools for which this age is so remarkable. There are drilling, planing, screwing, and slotting machines of various designs and adapted to different purposes, as well as numerous expensive and very perfect lathes. Here the switches used for conducting trains from one line to another are made, as well as all kinds of machine work. Connected with this is the Turntable shop, which is, to a stranger, as interesting as any part of the establishment, from the magnitude of the machinery and the ease with which gigantic masses of iron are carried about by the traveller to and from the planing and other machines. The Wheel shop, which is next visited, is chiefly used for the manufacture of railway carriage wheels, of which, as must be well known, there are many varieties. The Foundry and Anchor manufactory must not be omitted in an enumeration of the departments.

The other two sides of the quadrangle are occupied by saw-pits, painters' shops, stores, offices, and all the conveniences required for carrying on a business which frequently gives employment to eleven or twelve hundred men.

The reputation of Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Co., has been long established among engineers for the construction of railway bridges, iron roofs, and works of a similar kind; but it has been made European, if not universal, by the rapidity and skill with which they have constructed the Industrial Exhibition.

Strangers, if introduced, are permitted to see the works.

Besides the manufactures we have enumerated and described, there are many others of more or less importance; and new inventions and the spur of enterprise are creating new manufactures in Birmingham every day.

There are manufacturers of steam-engines and other machinery, of stoves, grates, and other iron foundry. One firm (Messrs. Hardman Iliffe) employs a great number of workmen in making every kind of church furniture, from the most approved mediaeval models and the designs of Mr. Pugin. Another executes stained-glass windows. Saddlery and harness, or parts of saddles and whips, employ a certain number of hands; and not only imitation but a good deal of real jewellery is made. There is one large and curious manufactory of gold chains.

In a word, there is no town in the world in which the execution of work, however new or complex, in metal, wood, horn, or ivory, can be so certainly effected as in Birmingham.

There are not many merchants in Birmingham, in the large sense of the term. The chief mercantile business is done by parties termed factors, who in effect are, if not actually, the agents of great merchants. These "factors" purchase what they need for their wholesale customers from the manufacturers. About 2,000 of the Birmingham manufacturers are what are termed garret- masters; they work themselves, and employ a few hands. The "factor" buys as few as half-a-dozen tea-pots, or a hundred gross of pearl buttons, from these little men, until he makes up his number. His business partakes more of the character of retail than wholesale, and the grinding--technically slaughtering--system of the factors of Birmingham has an unfavourable Yankeefying effect on their character.

The principal mercantile houses are in direct communication with American houses, if not actual partners or agents. A panic in New York finds an immediate echo in Warwickshire and Staffordshire, just as a fall or rise of cotton in New Orleans is immediately felt in Lancashire.

It is worth observing, that in some instances great transactions are carried on with wonderfully little show in Birmingham, and no state. We could not give a better instance of the difficulty of "judging by appearances" than in the following sketch from nature.

There is a broad street of tall mean houses, which, except at the workmen's dinner hour, seems always empty.

In this street is a large house of a dirty, faded appearance; the cobwebbed windows blocked up; the door with a broken knocker and a sad want of paint. It is evidently the ci-devant residence of a Birmingham manufacturer of the old school, before the suburbs of Edgbaston and Handsworth sprang up, now turned into a warehouse or receptacle for lumber. As to apply to the front door would be useless, you turn up a dark passage at the side, and reach another dingy door, which gives way with a rattle at your touch, and closes with a rattle and a bang; passing through you ascend a flight of creaking deal stairs, and reach a suite of low rooms, about as imposing in appearance as a deserted printing-office. A few juvenile clerks--the very converse of the snug merchants' clerks of the City of London--are distributed about. A stranger would not give 50 pounds for the furniture, capital, and credit, of the whole concern.

And yet, in this strange place, is conducted a trade of many tens of thousands per annum, with branches in all the principal towns of Germany, Spain, Portugal, South America, and British India!

A rapid idea of the Birmingham hardware trade may be obtained from the extensive show-rooms of Messrs. Herbert, in the Bull-ring.

If we have failed to do justice to any branch of manufacture, we have a very sufficient excuse in the difficulty we experienced in obtaining access to manufactories, or even information as to what was worth examination.

HEALTH AND EDUCATION.

After detailing at such length the material advantages of this interesting and important community, we should not be doing right if we did not present the reverse of the medal in certain drawbacks and deficiencies which seriously interfere with the prosperity and progress of "the hardware village."

The Birmingham public are so often in the habit of hearing from their favourite orators that they are the most intelligent, moral, and intellectual people in the world,--that their town is the healthiest, and their opinions the soundest, of any community in England, that it is not extraordinary if they overlook blots which are plain enough to a stranger. Perhaps they are quite right; perhaps they are more honest, more sensible, more sound politicians, than any other British community. Perhaps, too, they are cleaner, more sober, and better educated than the towns of A, B, and C; but, without entering into comparisons, which, in such cases, are of no practical benefit, we shall proceed to show that, with all their excellent industrious, intelligent, and ingenious qualities, the people of Birmingham are much more dirty, drunken, and uneducated than they ought to be, considering that the town is in a very healthy situation; that the mass of the population is engaged in skilled employments, and that patriots, bearded and unbearded, are plentiful, who seem to have a great deal of influence, for good or evil.

First, then, as to drunkenness, the great parent of British poverty and crime--drunkenness, which is a greater tax upon us than the National Debt; let us see what share that has in the grievances of Birmingham.

It appears that in 1850 there were, including hotels, taverns, gin-shops, and beer-shops, altogether 1293 establishments for the supply of intoxicating liquors. The total number of houses in the borough being 43,000, it results that in every 33 houses one is a wine, beer, or spirit shop. That as the number of bakers' and chandlers' shops is only 871, there are 422 more shops engaged in selling drink than in selling bread, and if only four persons be supposed to be supported by selling liquors, that will be more than twice as many as are engaged in the gun trade, viz., 2400. Or to put the calculation in another form, if we allow the sum of 50 pounds per annum as the wages of the five thousand persons who live by the sale of intoxicating drinks, it will be found that the people of Birmingham must expend at least a quarter of a million on wine, beer, and spirits.

That too much is so expended is proved by the police returns, which show that out of 3400 persons taken into custody in 1849, nearly half the offences arose from intoxication.

In other respects, considering the population, the crime of Birmingham is rather below than above average. It cannot be said that it is either a brutal or dishonest, but it is essentially a drunken town. The causes of the prevalence of this degrading vice are several, and may be traced out very clearly.

Metal work is hard and thirsty work, but it may be doubted whether what is really drunk while at work, or immediately after work, does harm. But it has long been, and still is, the habit of the mechanics in a number of trades, to make a holiday of Monday; it has even a local name--it is called Shackling day, "Shackling" being a term which can be perfectly translated by the French verb, flaner. A Shackler must drink, if not smoke.

The more plentiful and pressing the work is, the more determined are the men engaged to make Saint Monday, and very often Tuesday and Wednesday also.

The time so lost when trade is at high water, and the losses imposed on the manufacturer by the consequent non-fulfilment of contracts, eventually form a second drawback on the earnings of the workman, in addition to the day's wages lost, and the days' wages spent on "shackling days."

Secondly, it has been proved that a large percentage of the married women engaged in work factories are compelled so to work to support their families in consequence of the improvidence of their husbands.

Thirdly, in the same way children, from a very early age,--seven years, and even younger,--work in order to support their improvident parents.

Women engaged in work all day cannot keep comfortable houses for their husbands. An uncomfortable home drives a husband, no matter of what rank, to the tavern or the club.

The custom of sending children to work from the time they can earn sixpence a-week, renders education impossible. In the evenings they are only fit to sleep: on Sundays, in fine weather, the majority very naturally prefer walking in the fields to the dry task of acquiring knowledge, the value of which they are not sufficiently educated to appreciate.

The effect of the want of education and the habit of idle Mondays on the male population is sufficiently lamentable. A man who can neither read nor write, in addition to the abstract pleasure Saxons have in drinking, finds an occupation and a substitute for ideas in a pot and pipe. The effect on the female population is even more baneful. They are so fully occupied that they have neither time to write, nor to cook, to read nor to sew, and they become wives and mothers with no better qualification for their important duties than girls educated in a fashionable school, without being able to obtain the assistance of servants and governesses.

Wives engaged in factories are obliged to leave their children to the care of strangers or elder children, themselves scarcely above the age of children.

One consequence is, that according to the report of a committee of physicians and surgeons in 1840: "The ratio of infant mortality in Birmingham is very considerable, greatly exceeding that of the metropolis, and of the agricultural districts, though not as high as in some provincial towns." "Severe burns and scalds, particularly the former, are so numerous, that in the general hospital two rooms are devoted for their reception."

We have not been able to obtain any precise statistics of education among the operative classes; but we find that among criminals upwards of ninety per cent. are either totally or very imperfectly educated, and that of 15,000 young persons between the age of ten and fifteen engaged in manufacture, not more than 1,000 have an opportunity of education, except from Sunday schools.

In Sunday schools the instruction is confined to reading the scriptures and religious books, except in the schools attached to the meeting-houses of the Society of Friends and the Unitarians, the conductors of which have had the good sense to accommodate their plans to the peculiar wants of a manufacturing district.

No general movement seems to have been attempted to correct this crying evil of infant employment and neglected education, none of the patriots, bearded or shaven, have ventured to exert their strong lungs in so unpopular a cause: it is so much easier to stand on your own dunghill and abuse the lord of the manor than to put on an apron and a cap, mix up the lime and water, and whitewash your own cottage. But several manufacturers have honourably distinguished themselves by beginning the work of reformation at home.

Mr. Gillet, the pen manufacturer, whose work is principally done by females, admits no girls into his shops under thirteen; he makes ability to read indispensable, and gives a preference in obtaining employment to those who can write; and requires a certificate of regular attendance from a Sunday school teacher.

Mr. Winfield, who employs nearly five hundred hands, of whom few are women, established an evening school in 1844, at a charge of a penny a week, for his own work people, in which reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, geography, and drawing, are taught, with occasional lectures on the principles of mechanics, natural philosophy, and history. A small library is attached to the school.

"When the school was first established, it was remarked that scarcely a boy knew his companion except by a nickname, and that fights on entering and leaving school were of common occurrence. At present the practice of nicknames has disappeared, and a fight does not take place once in three months.

"The proceedings of the evening commenced with a hymn. An orphan boy, fourteen years of age, a self-taught musician, placed himself before a small organ, provided by Mr. Winfield, and played the evening hymn. All the boys accompanied him with their voices, and sang very creditably; after this they were formed into their usual classes.

"The school labours under great disadvantages; the hours of attendance are not sufficiently long; even these few hours are infringed on when trade is brisk, and the men, working over-hours, require the boys to assist them; and from physical exhaustion of the boys after the labour of the day, they sometimes fall asleep over their books.

"A hymn is sung, a prayer said, and the bible read without comment, no catechism or doctrinal point is introduced. The school includes the sons of people of the Church of England, Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, and Unitarians."

Messrs. Peyton & Barlow, metal-bedstead makers, Mr. Bacchus, glass-maker, Mr. Middlemore, currier, and Messrs. Chance, glassmakers, have also established schools for the parties in their employ.

Mr. William Chance is an earnest philanthropist; he has established a ragged school, at his own expense, in Birmingham, open to all, and at his works in Spon Lane, West Bromwich, one school for his workmen alone, and another open to the neighbourhood.

The first school, in Spon Lane, is divided into three departments, for infants, for girls, and for boys. A weekly charge of 3d. is made, for which books and stationery are provided; punctual attendance and cleanliness are conditions insisted upon. The number of scholars, of whom one-third are from Messrs. Chance's works, has steadily increased from the time of opening. The boys are instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and the elements of drawing. The girls are taught plain needlework instead of drawing. No catechism is taught, but the bible is read without comment. One- half are the children of parents in communion with the Church of England, and the other half of Dissenters. In 1850 it contained 190 boys, 80 girls, and 150 infants.

It is difficult to rate too highly the advantage the operative classes obtain from the preliminary training afforded by infant schools. But infant schools are useless, if the education is to cease at seven years old.

The other school is strictly confined to the boys and men employed in the glass works. It opened July, 1850, with 110 scholars, all boys from twelve years of age, before which none are admitted into the manufactory. By degrees the men, at first deterred by shame, began to attend, and at present a considerable number avail themselves of the advantage for commencing or extending the imperfect education they had obtained at Sunday Schools.

These schools are not self-supporting, but are found, even in a commercial point of view, to repay the philanthropic firm by whom they have been founded and supported.

The Birmingham Free and Industrial School, founded in 1847 by the energetic exertions of the Hon. and Rev. Grantham Yorke, Rector of St. Philip, includes a day school for boys and girls above seven years of age; two industrial classes; and an asylum for deserted and orphans. The scholars are not of the class to which we are specially calling attention. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with mentioning the existence of such a School for the refuse population of this large town.

The deficient education of the working classes, consequent on unregulated infant labour, would alone be sufficient to account for the prevalence of the idle custom of losing at least one day every week in busy times, and the drinking habits, which are a blot upon a population of superior intelligence. But a still more demoralizing influence exists in the state of the dwellings of the working classes in Birmingham, which, although at first sight very attractive in appearance, forming neat courts of cottages, compared with the crowded lodging-houses of many manufacturing towns, are, nevertheless, lamentably deficient in two essentials for health and decency, viz., efficient drainage, and a sufficient supply of wholesome water.

In two thousand courts, inhabited by fifty thousand people, the supply of water is either obtained at great loss of time from wells, often dirty, sometimes fetid, or purchased at an extravagant rate from itinerant water- carriers.

A Private Water Company exists, but has scarcely been called upon at all to supply the houses of the working classes. Under these circumstances, with a clean external appearance, the filth in which fifty thousand people live seems to be only understood by the local Medical Inspectors, whose reports have hitherto produced so little effect, it is not extraordinary that after long hours of toil, the inhabitants fly to the bright saloons of gin shops, and the snug tap-rooms of beer shops.

We have dwelt thus at length upon the moral, and educational, and sanitary shortcomings of a town which can, no doubt, draw comparisons, very much to its own advantage, with other manufacturing district towns, because Birmingham is in a position to set an example, to lead the way in an all- important reform without consulting the opinions of the Ministers or the Parliament of the day. Birmingham may, if it pleases, go far toward affording every working man the means of drinking and washing in an ample supply of clean water, of living in a well-drained cottage, and of sending his children to school for two hours every day, without waiting for the decision of Parliament upon all the crotchets of the Chartists, or plans of the Financial Reform Association.

Pity it is that none of the well-applauded Brummagem patriots have pluck enough to battle a little unpopularity in so honest a cause. But clap-trap costs less trouble than work, and gets more cheers.

It is the misfortune of Birmingham to be sacrificed to the disagreements of two rival factions, one calling itself Conservative, and the other Radical, both filling the pockets and doing the work of lawyers at the expense of the ratepayers.

Nothing can be done until the municipal Corporation obtains the powers now vested in several sets of virtually irresponsible Commissioners. When these wars of the Pots and Kettles are ended, the ratepayers will be able to turn their undivided attention to local reforms without having their minds distracted by those little legal squabbles, under cover of which business is neglected, and pockets are picked. It is to be hoped that the session of 1851 will settle this point.

The whole kingdom is interested in the good government and prosperity of its greatest inland town. {113}

WARWICK, LEAMINGTON, KENILWORTH, STRATFORD ON AVON.

Before leaving Birmingham, it will be convenient to say something about Warwick, Leamington, Kenilworth, and Stratford on Avon, of which the one is the assize town, another the watering place, and the third and fourth the antiquarian or rather romantic lions of the county in which Birmingham stands first, for wealth, population, manufacturing, and political importance. Warwick, in spite of its parliamentary, municipal, and assize honours, would soon be as much forgotten as a hundred other dull little country towns, without local trade or local attractions, if it were not for the castle, the church, and the river, which, in connection with striking epochs in England's history, will ever render it a favourite pilgrimage.

After being destroyed by the Danes, Warwick was restored by Ethelfreda, the daughter of Alfred the Great, who built a fort there, A.D. 913. At Domesday Survey it was a borough, and contained 261 houses, of which 126 belonged to the king. Members were sent to Parliament in the time of Edward I., when also the paving of the town and the erection of a wall round it were commenced. In the time of Philip and Mary, the first charter of incorporation was granted.

The town stands on the west side of the river Avon,--Shakspeare's Avon, from which it is separated by Warwick Castle and grounds. It was formerly a little county metropolis, many of the families of rank and fortune had winter residences there; the Warwick balls were frequented by a select and exclusive set; a small theatre was well supported, and few races assembled more distinguished company than used to throng the Warwick course once a year, in family coaches and four-in-hands. All this grandeur has departed, Leamington has absorbed the wealth and fashion of Warwick, the town mansions have fallen into plebeian hands, the theatre has ceased to be a training school for the London boards, the streets are silent except when a little temporary bustle is produced by an influx of Birmingham attorneys, their clients, and witnesses, at the assizes, of stout agriculturists and holiday labourers on "fair days," or the annual "mop," when an ox is roasted whole, and lads and lasses of rosy rural breed range themselves along the pavement to be hired, or at the races twice a year, when, although the four horses with postilions and outriders are seldom seen, railroads from a distance, and Leamington from close at hand, pour a variegated stream of sightseers and gamblers on one of the prettiest pieces of ground in England.

Warwick has no manufactures, but, being a borough very evenly balanced between the two contending political parties, its inhabitants have enjoyed a fuller share of the favours of Government than has fallen to the lot of towns of more commercial importance.

Warwick stands on solid rock, in which the cellars are excavated; and this circumstance, added to its position on the top of a hill, renders it particularly dry and clean.

There are several excellent inns, supported by the surrounding' farmers, which are much to be preferred to more fashionable hotels. The roast geese to be found at the farmers' ordinaries on market days about Michaelmas time, are worthy of commendation; and the farmers themselves, being of a jovial and hospitable turn of mind, render these dinners pleasanter to a stranger who can dine at an unfashionable hour, than the eternal "anything you please, sir; steak or chop, sir," in a solitary box, which haunts us for our sins in the coffee-rooms of English hotels.

Warwick deserves a long journey, if it were only for the sake of the fine woodland scenery which surrounds it for ten miles, but the castle is the especial object of attraction,--a castle which realizes almost more than any other those romantic ideas of a feudal abode which were first put into circulation by the "Castle of Otranto," and became part of the education of our youth under the influence of the genius of Sir Walter Scott.

The castle rises upon the brink of the river, which foams past over the weir of an ancient mill, where once the inhabitants of the borough were bound by feudal service to grind all their corn. The best approach is from the Leamington Lower Road, over a bridge of one arch, built by a late Earl of Warwick. Caesar's and Guy's towers rise into sight from a surrounding grove. The entrance is through an arched gateway, past a lodge, where the relics of Earl Guy, the dun cow slayer, are preserved; and a winding avenue cut in solid rock effects a sort of surprise, which, as the castle comes again suddenly into view, is very pleasing. The exterior realizes a baronial abode of the fourteenth or fifteenth century; the interior has been modernized sufficiently to be made comfortable, still retaining many striking features of its ancient state. A closely cropped green sward covers the quadrangle, which was formerly the tilting ground.

The date of Caesar's tower, the oldest part of the building, is uncertain. Guy's tower, of the latter part of the fourteenth century, is in fine preservation.

The great entrance hall, a grand old room sixty-two feet by thirty-seven, is adorned with armour and other appurtenances to feudal state. At a great fire-place with fire dogs, room might be found for a cartload of faggots. A suite of rooms, commanding views of delightful scenery, are adorned with ancient tapestry, armour, and pictures by Rubens, Vandyke, Velasquez, and other eminent painters. Among the portraits are Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, Prince Rupert, and Charles I. on horseback, by Vandyke.

Hours may be profitably and agreeably spent in investigating the treasures of Warwick Castle. The grounds, although not extensive, are picturesquely arranged; in one of the greenhouses, the Warwick vase, an antique celebrated for its size and beauty, will be found. The numerous copies in various materials, but especially in metals, cast in Birmingham, have rendered the form of this relic of classic art well known.

After the Castle, St. Mary's Church must be visited for its beautiful chapel with altar tomb, on which lies prostrate in humble prayer the effigy of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, styled "the Good." This Beauchamp was Regent of France in 1425, during the absence of the Duke of Bedford, and carried on the war there with signal success. He was afterwards governor of the infant king, Henry VI. While a second time ruling over France, he died at Rouen on the 30th April, 1439. It was the daughter of the Good Earl who married Richard Nevil, created, on succeeding to the Warwick estates through his wife, Earl of Warwick, known as "the king maker;" a grand character in Shakspeare's Henry VI., and the hero of Sir Bulwer Lytton's "Last of the Barons."

Then there is Leicester Hospital, founded in the time of Richard II., as two guilds, in honour of the Virgin and St. George the Martyr, which, after the Reformation, was re-established under its present name by Queen Elizabeth's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, as an almshouse for a master and twelve brethren, "being impotent or infirm men." These last have been, in consequence of the improved value of the trust-funds, increased to twenty, and receive each an allowance of 80 pounds per annum: the master has 400 pounds. The buildings of this charity consist of a quadrangle, formed by the brethren's lodgings and public kitchen, of a chapel of ancient architecture over the west gate of the town, and an ancient hall.

Previous to the Reform Bill, the influence of the Warwick family returned two members for the borough of Warwick: since that period they have as yet only returned one; but, in the absence of the countervailing influence of any manufactures, it seems likely that a popular Earl, of whatever politics, would be able to resume the ancient influence of the house, and again return two.

* * * * *

LEAMINGTON, about two miles distant, may be reached by two turnpike roads and a pleasant footpath; the distance of all being about two miles.

Mineral waters, fashion, a clever physician, the Warwickshire hounds, the surplus capital of Birmingham, speculative builders, and excellent sanitary regulations have contributed to the rapid rise of this picturesque and fashionable watering-place; in what proportions it would be difficult to say.

The waters, which resemble mild Epsom salts, first brought the village into notice in 1794, although the existence of mineral springs at Leamington Priory had been recorded by Camden and Dugdale. In 1794 people drank harder than they do now, read less, played cards more, were altogether "faster," and had more need of purifying waters and pump-room amusements. A long war shut out our idlers from the Continent, and created an additional demand for our native mineral produce. At a later period the talents of Dr. Jephson attracted an army of invalids and would-be invalids; Sir Walter Scott's novels brought Kenilworth and Warwick Castle into fashion, just as Garrick, like a second Peter the Hermit, preached up a pilgrimage to Stratford-on- Avon. So land-jobbers and builders rushed to prepare tempting abodes for the armies of the sick, the sporting, and the romantic, who gathered round the springs.

Although the beautiful stone which has made Bath the queen of watering- places, was not to be had, the materials for Roman cement, then lately invented, were plentiful. With these aids the town authorities had the good sense to enforce cleanliness, and all manner of rules for making the streets fit for the lounging promenades of the well-dressed. Water-carts and brooms were kept in active employment; beggars and dust-heaps were under the eye of a vigilant police.

The result was, that at the expense of many ruined builders and speculators, Leamington grew from a pretty village into a fine town, peopled not only by invalids in the water-drinking season, and sportsmen in the winter season, but by a number of permanent residents of independent fortune, of all ranks between retired manufacturers and Irish peers. Attached to the manufacturing districts, it has become what Brighton is to the London Stock Exchange.