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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.
For some time this Birmingham machine ran along by our side a piece of familiarity that already of itself seemed to me sufficiently Jacobinical. But all at once a movement of the horses announced a desperate intention of leaving us behind. "Do you see that?" I said to the coachman. "I see," was his short answer.
Did not the system of "pass-ports" which has been handed down to our day, but which seems to be falling into disuse even in Europe, have its origin in this way? At 5:40 I left Chester for Birmingham. On our way we passed Crewe, one of the great railroad centers of England. At this station five hundred trains pass each other every twenty-four hours. We arrived at Birmingham at 8:45 p.m.
Just so the thing is made out almost as quickly as though it had been written in copperplate, and the letter, redirected in red ink, finds its way into the Birmingham mail-bag. So far so good, but there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, and other elements were more successful than bad writing in preventing Mr William Stiggs from receiving that letter.
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.
We came home lately in a cab, after seeing a pretty little light-weight from Birmingham receive a severe dressing at the hands of a pocket Hercules from Bethnal Green. Jerry was in wild spirits, and his usual charming smile had broadened into a grin. Nothing would suit him but that I should go to his rooms. "My aunt keeps house for me, and she's sure to be up, and my sister's there as well."
A quiet advertisement in the front page of the Economist, a few letters from London, Birmingham, and Sheffield to City brokers for the ivory-trade is confined to a very small number of houses and a cargo of African or Indian ivory, amounting perhaps to L.50,000 sterling, is quickly and easily disposed of. The supply at this moment is unequal to the demand, and the price is steadily advancing.
On this London and Birmingham line, in addition to, and without disturbing the ordinary traffic, 2,000 souls have been conveyed in one train, at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Truly Queen Victoria can set the railway conquests of her reign against the glories of the war victories of Queen Anne and her grandfather, King George.
The variety of merchandise brought hither is something to astonish one. Jewelry of such beauty and fashion as would grace the best stores of Paris is here offered for sale, beside the cheapest ornaments manufactured by the bushel-basketful at Birmingham, England.
This reinforcement of the general language, by aids from the mintage of Shakspeare, had already commenced in the seventeenth century. In fact, by way of representing to himself the system or scheme of the English roads, the reader has only to imagine one great letter X, or a St. Andrew's cross, laid down from north to south, and decussating at Birmingham.
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