20 ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
these cases have operated to lessen the population in 
these parishes^ but the general result of a careful 
examination of the population returns is^ that in 
many of the agricultural parishes^ in this county^ the 
population has declined during the last ten years^ 
whereas in almost every place where manufactures 
are carried on^ population is fast increasing. Stoke 
Prior affords a very good elucidation of this position. 
Within the last ten years a manufactory of salt^ soap, 
and bicarbonate of soda, has been established there, 
which has had a great effect on the population, for in 
1821 the number of inhabitants was 900, and in 
1831 was 1,000 ; thus affording an increase of 22 per 
cent in the number of inhabitants in ten years. 
Feckenham too, in which village needle making 
is pursued to a considerable extent, has partaken of 
the fecundity which attaches to other manufacturing 
districts. Its population in 1821 was 2,383, in 1831 
it was 2,762, which gives an increase of 16 per cent 
in the number of its inhabitants in ten years. We 
may observe the same tendency to increase in the 
parish of Tardebigg, where the hamlet of Redditch 
is situated, and where needle making^ is carried on 
to a very great extent. The population of that 
^ " The excessive earnings of the needle-pointers at Redditch maintain a succes- 
sion of men who taint the whole neighbourhood with profligacy, who, with the most 
perfect consciousness, devote themselves to an early death for the sake of a life of 
idleness and debauchery, and who acquire such a callous indifference to the fate 
which they know awaits them [premature death from the grinders' asthma, occasion- 
ed by the constant inhalation of an atmosphere loaded with metallic particles] that 
their apprehensions are said to have been excited lest Mr. Abraham's invention 
[Abraham's magnetic guard for collecting the steely particles] should be successful 
enough to affect their wages." Mechanics' Mag, Oct, 1830, 
