(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. Liver- pool 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 authority. 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, 1203. 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 1S23, from the inhabitants of this town, the sum of £27,459 12s. l½d., 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 4d. per lb. Carriages were taxed in 1747. Armorial bearings in 1798. Receipts for money and promisory
