224 
THE RESOURCES, ETC., OF BIRMINGHAM. 
[Nature and Art, December 1, 1866. 
of the recent agitation of a fear that our supply of 
coals would he soon exhausted, as the world was 
being rapidly scuttled, our city friends may opine 
that the decadence in the size and weight of turtle 
during the last two hundred years may fairly argue 
a time fast approaching when calipash and calipee 
will be no longer seen in “ big bits ” of green fat. 
“In the island of Cuba {temp. 1602), they, — the 
turtle, are so large that they will creep along with 
five men upon their backs : they squirt the water 
out at their nostrils, as the dolphin does at his spout. 
Men take them by turning them upon their backs 
with staves, from which posture they cannot rise ; 
and as they lie, they sometimes fetch deep sighs, 
and shed abundance of tears. They are excellent 
good meat, and are sometimes big enough to dine 
fourscore men.” 
It is almost a pity to spoil the poetic sentiment 
of “ the sighs and the tears;” but in the attempt to 
get breath in such an apoplectic position, any 
creature with so little neck would gasp and be 
suffocated by water, or, prosaically speaking, be 
drowned. The assurance that “ they are excellent 
good meat,” protects us, however, against any fear 
that we, by disturbing the pathos of our ancient 
author, shall annoy his shade. 
THE RESOURCES, PRODUCTS, AND INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF BIRMINGHAM, 
AND THE MIDLAND HARDWARE DISTRICT. 
I F tlio British. Association should ever be in want of testi- 
mony to the benefit which it confers upon the country 
by holding its annual meetings in different provincial towns, 
it may point to the reports lately edited under the above 
title by Mr. Samuel Timmins (than whom no more zealous 
or accomplished authority could well have been selected), in 
proof of the wholesome stimulus which the Association 
applies to the minds of men apt to pursue trade and trade 
improvements too eagerly to waste a thought upon the 
mere chronicling of the events connected with their several 
manufactures and products. 
In this work of more than 700 pages, containing informa- 
tion respecting the coal and iron of Staffordshire, the glass 
and alkalis and soap of Smethwick, and the metal-works of 
Birmingham, including its cheapest toys, its costliest plate, 
and all kinds of engines and machinery, we have a highly 
valuable collection of facts, furnished us by men who, in 
their several departments, have had special opportunities of 
knowledge, and who, if not gifted with great literary skill, 
must yet be admitted to have described what they have had 
to tell us with considerable ability and perspicacity. Pecu- 
liarly interested as we are in Art manufactures, we have of 
course perused with most care the portions of this book 
which relate to these productions, and are glad to note 
admissions made here and there that Birmingham has yet 
much to learn in this respect. For instance, in summing up 
the particulars of the lock-trade — one of the most flourish- 
ing in the district — the writer acknowledges that there has 
been little or no improvement made during the last twenty 
years in Birmingham locks, which might be fashioned “with 
more symmetry and beauty, without in any way destroying 
their more practical qualities.” So also we note that the 
writer upon japanning admits his “ doubt if any great pro- 
gress has been made in the trade in an artistic direction, 
although we no longer see Abraham in red sacrificing Isaac 
in blue upon a green altar with a black background.” He 
tells us that all colour is now eschewed for japan ornament, 
excepting one, and that is “ the hue of the metal which sub- 
dues the world” — meant to be an elegant periphrase hinting 
that “gold hath the sway” at present; a statement which 
is followed by a mysterious sentence that “ one whose name 
in matters of art is just now much before the public” has 
announced that “ colours are coming in again,” and we 
may consequently expect that “ the flat and insipid will soon 
give place to Tyrian dyes and hues that emulate the rose.” 
This rather glowing paper ends with a statement that among 
japanuers “ a little more education is desirable ; for a man 
to excel in his art he should know something of perspective 
and more of colour.” But Birmingham artists in japanning 
can not be covetous of large pay, and yet they must be 
very expeditious ; for we are shown, in a statistical account 
of them, that their wages average only 30s. a week, although 
“ a skilled artist can paint with ease two gross of small 
landscapes per day.” 
In our necessarily rapid summary of the contents of this 
work, we are obliged to omit mention of many excellent 
articles on various subjects, several of which, if they were 
treated at large, would each suffice for a volume. We will 
advert to but three or four of the most prominent. 
In a paper on the Ribbon and Watch Trade of Coventry, 
we have a distinct assertion that the late distress of the 
ribbon-weavers was due less to the commercial treaty then 
just concluded with France, than to an unsound system of 
labour-payment and to the caprice of fashion. “ Foreign 
competition, or rather the terror of foreign competition, may 
have somewhat hastened the crisis, but the crisis itself was 
inevitable, and would have been equally disastrous had the 
French treaty never been concluded. On the other hand, 
while the direct competition of the produce of French looms 
can hardly be said to be felt by the Coventry manufacturer, 
the indirect competition produced by abolishing the restric- 
tions on trade has undoubtedly been the mainspring of the 
renewal of prosperity on a sounder and more enduring 
basis.” The writer is not, however, satisfied that tho 
attempt to introduce the manufacture of cotton goods into 
Coventry has been proved as yet to be successful. 
There have occasionally arisen strange rumours as to the 
kind of goods Birmingham sometimes exports to uncivilized 
countries ; heathen gods, themselves, as some have asserted, 
have been provided “to order.” Scarcely less strange is 
the trade described in this book as being carried on with 
some princes of Africa in specially-designed brass coffins, 
with plates of glass inserted, in order, as the Birmingham 
reporter poetically writes, “ to enable friends to survey the 
ravages of the destroyer on the visage of the silent tenant 
or the curious exportation of brass wire to the Gold Coast, 
sometimes to the extent of twenty tons at one order, for 
use by the natives of that country as money, or, in Birming- 
ham euphuism, “as the circulating medium.” Another of 
its annual exports to Africa is about 100,000 to 150,000 of 
those flint muskets — “park-palings” they used derisively 
to be called on account of their quality — with stocks stained 
to order, black, brown, red, and vermilion — the African 
being fond of “standing on the old paths” in the choice 
of his guns, rather than to accept the results of modern 
scientific discovery. 
The particulars respecting the manufacture of Birmingham 
jewellery and the cheap imitations of such valuables is ex- 
tremely interesting, and perhaps also the most carefully 
described in the volume. We have not room, however, to 
enter upon them here, nor to refer to the papers on electro- 
plating, bronze-casting, glass-painting, coining, steel-pen 
making, bells, and other manufactures. It must suffice that 
we pronounce the work to be an extremely important one, 
and to commend it to general perusal. Yet it is but a frag- 
ment — an imperfect fragment— of tli6 industrial history of 
this country, which yet remains to be written. 
