land--cleared away a large area of slums that were scarcely fit for
those who lived in them--which is saying very much. A region sacred to
squalor and low drinking shops, a paradise of marine store dealers, a
hotbed of filthy courts tenanted by a low and degraded class, was swept
away to make room for the large station now used by the London and
North Western and Midland Railway Companies.

The Great Western Railway station, too, in its making also disposed of
some shabby, narrow streets and dirty, pestiferous houses inhabited by
people who were not creditable to the locality or the community, and by
so doing contributed to the improvement of the town. Further, the
erection of two large railway stations in a central district naturally
tended to increase the number of visitors to the growing Midland
capital, and this, of course, brought into existence a better class of
shops and more extended trading. Then the suburbs of Birmingham, which
for some years had been stretching out north, south, east, and west,
have lately become to a considerable extent gathered into the arms of
the city, and the residents in some of the outskirts, at least, may now
pride themselves, if so inclined, upon being a part of the so-called
"best governed city in the world," sharing its honours, importance, and
debts, and contributing to its not altogether inconsiderable rates.

I do not purpose in these pages to go into the ancient history of
Birmingham. Other pens have told us how one Leland, in the sixteenth
century, visited the place, and what he said about the "toyshop of the
world." Also how he saw a "brooke," which was doubtless in his time a
pretty little river, but which is now a sewery looking stream that tries
to atone for its shallowness and narrowness by its thickness. They have
likewise told us about the old lords of Bermingham--whose monuments
still adorn the parish church--who have died out leaving no successors