of such wares used to be made in Birmingham in the course of a month.
Comparatively few are made now. Yet we are not exactly "buttonless
black-guards," as Cobbett--at least, I think it was Cobbett--once
disrespectfully called the Quakers, and buttons of various kinds other
than pearl and brass are turned out in barrow loads. I remember some
years ago going over the button factory of Messrs. Dain, Watts, and
Manton, an old-established business now carried on by Mr. J.S. Manton,
and was then shown a curious composition or kind of paste that could be
made into buttons useful for all sorts of purposes. On my asking what
the "button dough" was made of, Mr. Manton, I remember, gave me the
comprehensive reply, "anything."

All sorts of stuff having any substance in it was indeed thrown into a
kind of mortar, ground up, mixed with something that gave the mass
cohesion and plasticity, then moulded into buttons as clay is moulded by
the potter, and burned, dried, and hardened. Therefore, if brass and
pearl buttons are in limited demand, there are other materials from
which a new useful and cheap article can be made--the "very button" for
the time--and this is produced in much larger quantities than the more
costly articles of a few generations ago.

In spite, then, of changes in fashion, Birmingham is still--I will not
say a button hole, but a city where billions of buttons are made.
Witness, for instance, the turn-out of such a manufactory as that of
Thomas Carlyle, Limited. Here is a great and extended concern grafted
upon an old-established business, and which at the present time gives
employment, regularly, to over 1,000 hands. Buttons are made to go to
all people, save the rude and nude races, and a few odd millions
produced for home use. And speaking of all this reminds me how in the
days of my boyhood I sometimes saw a queer character known as "Billy