one time cheering the inmates of the institutions where the sick and
unfortunate lie, with music and song, and at another distributing books,
pictures, and flowers, where they are prized by those who are too poor
to purchase. The officers of the society will be pleased to hear from
donors, as let contributions of flowers or pictures be ever so many, the
recipients are far more numerous. Mr. Walliker, our philanthropic
postmaster, is one of the vice-presidents, and the arrangements of the
parcel post are peculiarly suited for forwarding parcels.

~Lady Well.~--There is mention in a document dated 1347 of a "dwelling
in Egebaston Strete leading towards God well feld," and there can be no
doubt that this was an allusion to the Lady Well, or the well dedicated
to the blessed Virgin, close to the old house that for centuries
sheltered the priests that served St. Martin's, and which afterwards was
called the Parsonage or Rectory. The well spring was most abundant, and
was never known to fail. The stream from it helped to supply the moat
round the Parsonage, and there, joined by the waters from the higher
grounds in the neighbourhood of Holloway Head, and from the hill above
the Pinfold, it passed at the back of Edgbaston Street, by the way of
Smithfield passage and Dean Street (formerly the course of a brook) to
the Manor House moat. The Ladywell Baths were historically famous and,
as stated by Hutton, were the finest in the kingdom. The Holy Well of
the blessed Virgin still exists, though covered over and its waters
allowed to flow into the sewers instead of the Baths, and any visitor
desirous of testing the water once hallowed for its purity must take his
course down the mean alley known as Ladywell Walk, at the bend in which
he will find a dirty passage leading to a rusty iron pump, "presented by
Sir E.S. Gooch, Bart., to the inhabitants of Birmingham," as
commemorated by an inscription on the dirty stone which covers the
spring and its well. God's Well field is covered with workshops,