gracious answer " that he was the last to
encourage shoe-strings; the custom of wearing
them he considered extremely ridiculous, and
injurious to an extensive manufacture. That
he never wore them himself, or suffered any of
his officers on board to use them," &c. The
same paragraph, too, which announced the
gratifying fact that the Prince of Wales wore
metal buttons, added this no less gratifying
piece of news: " The unmanly shoe-string will
henceforth be thrown aside for the buckle. On
his birthday, his Royal Highness, and all his
sisters, appeared in the Soho [wearing] new-invented
shoe latchets, and have since continued to wear
them. Indeed, no well-dressed gentleman or
lady now appears without these buttons, and
the ornament of the buckle." Again, another
paragraph said, "It is with singular pleasure
that we state, that, on the queen's birthday,
buckles were universally prevalent. The beauty
and brilliancy of those worn by the Prince of
Wales, Duke of York, and Earl of Fife, attracted
the notice of the whole drawing-room."

As for the riots of Birmingham, they are
legion, and from all manner of causes. The
Birmingham riots, par excellence, that raged
in February, 1791, and which were so bad
while they lasted, were riots of principle, and
all the more fierce because on points which no
one can prove for another, and where we must
all stand or fall according to our light. Dr.
Priestley, Free Thought, the French
Revolution, and Unitarianism, were the windmills
which the mob attacked with fire and sword,
the exciting cause being the simple fact that a
number of gentlemen chose to dine together on
the fourteenth of July, to commemorate the
French Revolution—" the auspicious day which
witnessed the Emancipation of twenty-six
millions of people from the yoke of Despotism,
and restored the blessings of equal Government
to a truly great and enlightened Nation."
"The tocsin of war," says Mr. Langford, "was
sounded in the same paper," the Gazette; for
immediately under the above advertisement we
find this ominous announcement:

                On Friday next will be published,

                        Price ONE HALFPENNY,

AN AUTHENTIC LIST of all those who Dine at the
Hotel in Temple-row, Birmingham, on Thursday, the
14th instant, in Commemoration of the French
Revolution.

                       Vivant Rex et Regina.

The dinner took place as advertised, and
the mob broke loose as threatened. For four
days they pillaged, and burned, and rioted
to their hearts' content; attacking only the
private dwellings and chapels of the
Unitarian and free-thought party. On the 16th
the magistrates appealed to them tenderly
to stop their rather excited proceedings; and
on the 17th they appealed to them more
urgently; and the arm of the law, hitherto
numbed, began to use a little action, and
tried to put out the fire it had allowed to get
to such a head. So by degrees the storm
roared itself into quiet, and the lawless
upholders of constituted authority, the anarchical
adherents of church and king, calmed down into
ordinary citizens again. Only twelve of the
rioters were made prisoners, and of these four
were found guilty, and two hanged. For,
indeed, it was considered that they had served
their king and country by their violence, and
if such a small misfortune as a death or two had
been the consequence, even that did not prove
that they had committed any crime. But the
culprits escaped against such overwhelming
evidence, that " a Birmingham jury" became
almost as well known as " a Welsh jury," and
in the same way. An anecdote is given of a
gentleman who, soon after the trial, was
"hunting with Mr. Corbett's fox-hounds, and
was so sure of killing the fox, that he cried,
' Nothing but a Birmingham jury can save
him!' " The amount of the damage done and
allowed by the court was twenty-six thousand
nine hundred and sixty-one pounds two
shillings and threepence.

After this Birmingham seemed to have
acquired a taste for tumult. Incendiaries in
1792; the little riot, as it was called, also in
1792; scarcity riots in 1795; a bread riot in
May, 1800; and another in September of the
same year; a riot in 1810, originally caused by
two women quarrelling in the market-place
over the price of potatoes; distress riots in
1812; a riot in 1816, because Mr. Jabet, a
zealous supporter of law and order, profoundly
content with things as they were, published a
pamphlet to counteract some of an agitating
tendency which had been lately set afloat;
and the chartist riots of 1839, about summarise
the turbulent side of Birmingham, though the
list by no means exhausts the political action
of the town.

It would be impossible in a short abstract
like this to go fully into any one given part
of Mr. Langford's book; but the curious
may trace for themselves, among other things,
the gradual changes and improvements in
the character of the amusements and
diversions of the place. First came automata and
wax-works—the Madame Tussauds of the
day; then the theatre had a beginning, and
soon flourished powerfully, supported by some
of the highest names of the stage; then book
clubs and debating societies gave a more
intellectual turn to things; and so by degrees the
mental life of the town unfolded more and more,
till from an ignorant and bigoted village
Birmingham became an enlightened and important
city. It obtained its charter of incorporation
only in 1838, though a petition, signed by
eighty-four of the inhabitants, was drawn up
so early as 1716, praying George the First to
make Birmingham a corporation. Things move
slowly at times, and the first steps are always
difficult; when fairly planted future progress
comes quickly and easily enough.

Many great names have associated themselves
with Birmingham, and it is only fair to give the
summary in Mr. Langford's own words:
"Birmingham has also no insignificant claims upon
the gratitude of the civilised world. Her share
in the development of the great instruments of