Stocks.—Putting people in the stocks appears to have been a very ancient mode of punishment, for the Bible tells us that Jeremiah, the prophet, was put in the stocks by Pashur, and the gaoler who had charge of Paul and Silas at Philippi made fast their feet in a similar way. Whether Shakespeare feared the stocks when he refused to go back to "drunken Bidford," after sleeping off the effects of one carouse with the "Sipper's Club" there, is not chronicled, but that the stocks were not unknown to him is evident by their being introduced on the stage in "King Lear." The Worcester Journal of Jan. 19, 1863, informs us that "this old mode of punishment was revived at Stratford-on-Avon, for drunkenness, and a passer-by asking a fellow who was doing penance how he liked it, the reply was—'I beant the first mon as ever were in the stocks, so I don't care a fardin about it." Stocks used to be kept at the Welsh Cross, as well as a pillory; and when the Corporation closed the old prison in High Street, Bordesley, they took over the stocks which formerly stood alongside the whipping-post, on the bank in front of the present G.W.R. Station. The last date of this punishment being inflicted in this town is 1844, when the stocks were in the yard of the Public Office in Moor Street.
Storms and Tempests.—A great storm arose on Wednesday, November 24, 1703, which lasted three days, increasing in force. The damage, all over the kingdom, was immense; and at no period of English history has it been equalled. 15,000 sheep were drowned in one part of Gloucestershire. We have no record of the immediately local loss.—In a storm on March 9, 1778, the windmill at Holloway Head was struck by lightning, the miller was hurt, and the sails shattered.—January 1, 1779, there was a violent gale, which, while it wrecked over 300 vessels on our coasts did great damage as far inland as Birmingham—Snowstorms were so heavy on January 23 and 24, 1814, that all communication between here and London was stopped for five days.—There was a strong gale September 26, 1853, during which some damage was done to St. Mary's Church, to the alarm of the congregation therein assembled.—A very heavy storm occurred June 15, 1858, the day after the Queen's visit, lasting for nearly three hours, during which time three inches of rain fell, one half in twenty minutes.—Some property in Lombard Street was destroyed by lightning, June 23, 1861; and parts of Aston, Digbeth, and the Parade were flooded same time.—There was a terrific thunderstorm, August 26, 1867; the rainfall being estimated at seventy-two tons per acre.—During a heavy thunderstorm, June 17, 1875, the lightning set fire to a workshop in Great Charles Street: killed a women in Deritend, and fourteen sheep and lambs at Small Heath.—In a heavy gale, January 30, 1877, a chimney stack was blown down in Jennen's Row, killing two men; and a wall was levelled in Harborne Road, on February 20, another poor fellow losing his life.—During the night of August 2 and 3, 1879 (when many parts of the outskirts were flooded in comparatively the shortest time in memory), the residence of W.E. Chance, Esq., Augustus Road, was struck by lightning, and considerable damage done; but no personal injuries were reported.—During the storm of October 14, 1881, much local damage was done, while round Coventry and Tamworth districts many hundreds of trees were broken or uprooted. In Windsor Park, 960 trees were blown down and more than a thousand damaged; 146 shipwrecks occurred on the coasts.—During a gale December 11, 1883, a large stained glass window of St. Philip's Church was shattered; part of a house in Charles Henry Street was blown down, two persons being killed; a child was killed at Erdington, by chimney falling through roof, several persons had limbs fractured, and there was generally a great injury to property.—On Sunday, June 15, 1884, St. Augustine's Church, Hagley Road, and the Congregational Chapel, Francis Road, were struck by lightning during a tempest, and the Chapel was somewhat injured.
Streets.—It is not every street that is a street in Birmingham, for, according to the Post Office Street List, besides a dozen or so to which distinctive names have been given, like Cheapside, Deritend, Digbeth, Highgate, Islington, &c., and 726 streets called Streets, there are in the borough 178 Roads, 86 Lanes, 69 Rows, 19 Squares, 11 Crescents, 2 Quadrants, 5 Arcades, 1 Colonnade, 5 Parades, 484 Terraces, 1,572 Places, 26 Passages, 20 Yards, 47 Courts (named, and twenty times that number numbered), 16 Mounts (twelve of them Pleasant), 24 Hills, 5 Vales, 2 Valleys, 23 Groves, 4 Retreats, 11 Villas, 14 Cottages, 2 Five-Dwelling, 179 Buildings, 14 Chambers, 12 Walks, 4 Drives, 3 Avenues, 5 Gullets, 1 Alley (and that is Needless), 1 Five-Ways, 1 Six-Ways, 6 Greens, 2 Banks, 2 Villages, 3 Heaths, 3 Ends, and 1 No Thoroughfare.
Sultan Divan.—Formerly a questionable place of amusement in Needless Alley, but which was bought for £7,500, and opened by the Young Men's Christian Association, January 7, 1875.
Sunday in Birmingham.—Sunday dogfights have been heard of in this town, but it was sixty years ago, when brutal sports of all kinds were more rife than now. Prior to that, however, many attempts were made to keep the Sabbath holy, for we read that in 1797 the heavy wagons then in use for transport of goods were not allowed to pass through the town, the authorities fining all offenders who were so wicked as to use their vehicles on the Lord's Day. The churchwardens were then supported by the inhabitants, who held several public meetings to enforce the proper observance of the day, but there have been many changes since. In January, 1856, a Sunday League, for opening museums, libraries, &c., on the Sabbath, was started here. In the last session of Parliament in 1870, there were eighteen separate petitions presented from this town against opening the British Museum on Sundays. The Reference Library and Art Gallery commenced to be opened on Sundays, April 28, 1872, and they are well frequented. Sunday labour in the local Post Offices was stopped Aug. 10, 1873. In 1879 a society was formed for the purpose of delivering lectures, readings, and addresses of an interesting nature, on the Sunday evenings of the winter season, the Town Hall, Board Schools, and other public buildings being utilised for the purpose (the first being held in the Bristol Street Schools, Oct. 19, 1879), and very popular have they been, gentlemen of all sects and parties taking part, in the belief that
A Sabbath well spent
Brings a week of content.
In 1883, during an inquiry as to the extent of drunkenness on the Sabbath, it was shown that the county of Warwick (including Birmingham) was remarkably clear, as out of a population of 737,188 there had only been 348 convictions during 1882. For Staffordshire, with a population of 980,385, the convictions were 581. Northumberland, 687 convictions out of 434,074. Durham, 1,015 out of 867,586. Liverpool 1,741 out of 552,425. Manchester, 1,429 out of 341,508.
Sutton Coldfield, on the road to Lichfield, is celebrated even more for its park than its antiquity. The former was left to the town by the Bishop of Exeter (John Harman), otherwise known as Bishop Vesey, who was a native of Sutton, and whose monument is still to be seen in the old Church. He procured a charter of incorporation in 1528, and also founded the Grammar School, and other endowed charities, such as the Almshouses, the Poor Maidens' Portions, &c., dying in 1555, in his 103rd year. Thirty years' back, the park contained an area of 2,300 acres, but a small part was sold, and the railways have taken portions, the present extent, park and pools, being estimated at 2,034 acres, the mean level of which is 410 feet above the sea level. A good length of Icknielde Street, or the Old Roman Road, is distinctly traceable across a portion of the park. King John visited Sutton manor-house in April, 1208. On the 18th of October, 1642, Charles I. reviewed his Staffordshire troops here, prior to the battle of Edgehill, the spot being long known as "The King's Standing." The mill-dams at Sutton burst their banks July 24, 1668, and many houses were swept away. The population is about 8,000, and the rateable value is put at £50,000, but as, through the attraction of the park, the town is a very popular resort, and is rapidly increasing, it may ultimately become a place of importance, worthy of municipal honours, which are even now being sought. The number of visitors to the park in the Whit-week of 1882, was 19,549; same week in 1883, it was 11,378; in 1884, it was 17,486; of whom 14,000 went on the Monday.
Taxes.—Would life be worth living if we had to pay such taxes as our fathers had to do? Here are a few:—The hearth or chimney tax of 2s. for every fire-place or stove in houses rated above 20s. per annum was imposed in the fifteenth year of Charles II.'s reign, but repealed in the first year of William and Mary, 1689; the owners of Edgbaston Hall paid for 22 chimneys before it was destroyed in 1668. In 1642, there was a duty of £4 a pair on silk stockings. A window tax was enacted in 1695 "to pay for the re-coinage of the gold coin," and was not entirely removed till July 24, 1851; from a return made to Parliament by the Tax Office in 1781, it appeared that the occupiers of 2,291 houses paid the window tax in Birmingham; there was collected for house and window tax in 1823, from the inhabitants of this town, the sum of £27,459 12s. 1-3/4d., though in the following year it was £9,000 less. Bachelors and widowers were rated by 6 and 7 William III., c. 6, "to enable the King to carry on the war against France with rigour." Births, marriages, and deaths were also made liable to duties by the same Act. The salt duties were first levied in 1702, doubled in 1732, and raised again in 1782, ceasing to be gathered in 1825. The price of salt at one period of the long Peninsular war rose to £30 per ton, being retailed in Birmingham at 4l. per lb. Carriages were taxed in 1747. Armorial bearings in 1798. Receipts for money and promisory notes were first taxed in 1782. Hair powder tax, of 21s. per annum, was first levied in 1795. In 1827, there was a 1s. 3d. duty on almanacks. The 3s. advertisement duty was reduced to 1s. 6d. in 1833, and abolished August 4, 1853. The paper duty, first put on in 1694, was repealed in 1861; that on bricks taken off in 1850; on soap in 1853; on sugar in May, 1874, and on horses the same year. Hats, gloves, and linen shirts were taxed in 1785; patent medicines, compound waters, and codfish, in 1783; in fact every article of food, drink, and clothing required by man from the moment of his birth until his burial, the very shroud, the land he trod on, the house he lived in, the materials for building, have all been taxed. For coming into the world, for living in it, and for going out of it, have Englishmen had to pay, even though they grumbled. Now-a-days the country's taxes are few in number, and per head are but small in amount, yet the grumbling and the growling is as heavy as of old. Can it arise from the pressure of our local rates? Where our fathers paid 20s. to the Government, we do not pay 5s.; but where the old people gave 5s. in rates, we have to part with 25s.
Telegraphs.—The cable for the first Atlantic telegraph was made here. Its length was 2,300 nautical miles, and it required 690,000 lbs. of copper in addition to the iron wire forming the strand, of which latter there was about 16,000 miles' length. The first time the "Queen's Speech" was transmitted to this town by the electric telegraph was on Tuesday, November 30, 1847, the time occupied being an hour and a half. The charge for sending a message of 20 words from here to London, in 1848, was 6s. 6d. The Sub-Marine Telegraph Co. laid their wires through Birmingham in June and July, 1853.