Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History and Guide Arranged Alphabetically by Thomas T. Harman;Walter Showell
page 68 of 741 (09%)
page 68 of 741 (09%)
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them as being made here as early as 1816, though they were not
introduced into "the service" until 1839. The manufacture of these articles has several times led to great loss of life among the workers, notes of which will be found under the head of "_Explosions_." See also "_Trades_." ~Carlyle.~--The celebrated philosopher, Thomas Carlyle, resided here for a short time in 1824; and his notes about Birmingham cannot but be worth preserving. Writing to his brother John under date Aug. 10, he says:-- "Birmingham I have now tried for a reasonable time, and I cannot complain of being tired of it. As a town it is pitiful enough--a mean congeries of bricks, including one or two large capitalists, some hundreds of minor ones, and, perhaps, a hundred and twenty thousand sooty artisans in metals and chemical produce. The streets are ill-built, ill-paved, always flimsy in their aspect--often poor, sometimes miserable. Not above one or two of them are paved with flagstones at the sides; and to walk upon the little egg-shaped, slippery flints that supply their places is something like a penance. Yet withal it is interesting for some of the commons or lanes that spot and intersect the green, woody, undulating environs to view this city of Tubal Cain. Torrents of thick smoke, with ever and anon a burst of dingy flame, are issuing from a thousand funnels. 'A thousand hammers fall by turns.' You hear the clank of innumerable steam engines, the rumbling of cars and vans, and the hum of men interrupted by the sharper rattle of some canal boat loading or disloading, or, perhaps, some fierce explosion when the cannon founders [qy: the proof-house] are proving their new-made ware. I have seen their rolling-mills, their polishing of teapots, and buttons and |
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