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