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 improvement. 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 house⅛ 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 takeninto 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 Commissioners, who acted for the parish of Birmingham,—the hamlets outside its boundaries having similar boards of their own. The annoyance and difficulty caused by these bodies—thirteen in number—led to a demand for the incorporation of Birmingham as a borough; and a charteτ was accordingly granted by the Crown in 1838, vesting the general government in a mayor, sixteen aldermen, and forty-seven councillors. The powers of this body were, however, unusually restricted, the other local governing bodies remaining in existence, It was not until 1851 that an Act of Parliament was obtained, abolishing all governing authorities excepting the Town Council, and transferring all powers to this body Under this Act, and another local Act obtained in 1862, the affairs of the town are now administered, the whole municipal government being in the hands of the Town Council. The importance of the duties discharged by the Council may be inferred from the fact that it has under its control nearly 200 miles of street and road, that it has a police force of nearly 500 men, and that its revenue, derived from tolls and rates, amounts to about .£300,000 a year. These responsibilities have been increased by the purchase in 1875 - of the gas and water-works (the latter with a daily supply of 17,000,000 gallons), the two purchases making a cost of more than £3, 000,000. The growth of the revenue and expenditure of the town, its rateable value, and its ordinary debt, excluding the gas and water-works, will be seen from the following tabular statement :— [table]

NR.— The amount of property possessed by the Corporation on 81st 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 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 gaoh The town is the head of a county court.district, and is the seat of the probate registry for Warwickshire.

Religious Denominations, Buildings, <kc.— 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 about the middle of the 13th century; but in the course of ages was so disfigured, internally and externally, as to present no traces except in the tower and spire of its former character. In 1853 the tower was found to be in a dangerous condition, and together with the spire was rebuilt. In 1873 the remaining part of the old church was removed without disturbing the monuments, and a new and larger edifice was erected in its place, at a cost of nearly £30,000. The new church constitutes the chief ecclesiastical edifice in Birmingham, and indeed the handsomest structure in the town. St Philip v s, a stately Italian structure, designed by Archer, a pupil of Wren, was the next church erected. It was consecrated in 1715. Then followed St Bartholomew’s in 1749, St Mary’s in 1774, St Paul’s in 1779, St James’s, Ashted, in 1791, and others, which need not be mentioned, followed in due course. At present the mother parish is divided into five rectories, and there are within the borough, including those mentioned, 42 churches (each having an ecclesiastical district assigned to it) of the Church of England, most of these having schools and missions attached to them.

Under the Commonwealth Birmingham was a stronghold of Puritanism. Clarendon speaks of it and the neighbourhood as “the most eminently corrupted of any in England. ’’ Baxter, on the other hand, commending the garrison of Coventry, says it contained “the most , religious men of the parts round about, especially from Birmingham.” The traditional reputation for Nonconformity is maintained by the town, all varieties of dissenters being numerous and influential.

The Unitarians, the oldest body established here, have six chapels. One of these, the Old Meeting, is historically interesting, the congregation having been formed on the Presbyterian model by a number of ministers ejected under the Act of Uniformity. 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 labours. 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 out-patients (a very handsome Gothic building) in Steelhouse Lane, and an inpatient 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 Lickey Hill, 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.

Educodion.— 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, Ac.— 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, Ae.— 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...