Walks in the Black Country and its Green Border-Land/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
INSTITUTIONS AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND PUBLIC SPIRIT OF BIRMINGHAM—KING EDWARD'S SCHOOL—THE TOWN HALL—HOSPITALS, CHURCHES, AND CHAPELS.
AS Birmingham is a young town, growing within the memory of present residents from 50,000 to 300,000 inhabitants, it cannot boast of any monuments of antiquity of impressive date or character. The two or three churches whose inner walls or towers could show a goodly roll of centuries, have been so rebuilt or renovated that they present no venerable aspect. Indeed, excepting a few brick-and-timber buildings of the Elizabethan period, or houses that show their bones flush with their flesh, the town looks almost as American as Chicago. It has only one building that may be called a speciality in the way of architecture—that is the Town Hall. This is the most symmetrical and classical building in England; and looks like one of the grand edifices of ancient Greece transported in all its grace and glory to stand up in the midst of a city-full of modernmost buildings, as if to show by contrast how far they have departed from the architectural taste and science of the old masters of Pericles' day. The Madeleine in Paris and the Girard College in Philadelphia are the only buildings I ever saw with which this hall may be compared; indeed, the three are copies of the same original—the Temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome. Its interior structure and aspect are noble and grand, well fitted for the great voices of public opinion and the voices tuned to gentler melodies. For it is not only a public building, but a public institution in itself. It is a great educational agency for the enlightenment of the masses. It has played a great part in forming the public spirit and character of Birmingham. Here the population have met, almost en masse, from year to year, and been moved and moulded by eloquent orators who seemed to draw new power from the platform on which they stood. Indeed, if any man has any eloquence in his soul, the scene presented on some of these occasions must draw it forth. I have witnessed many of these during the last twenty years, and have always thought that they must present the most inspiring spectacle to the speaker The scene from the platform when John Bright is shaking the very walls with his eloquence is grand almost to sublimity. The floor of the hall is cleared of every seat, and seemingly half an acre of solid men, with eager and upturned faces, are surging to and fro, as if the breath of the orator were moving on the face of the human sea, and it were leaving in a ground-swell under the power of his thoughts. Now a great wave, crested with a thousand heads, sets in towards the platform with a tremendous surge. All those cager faces and eyes for a moment are buried in the trough of the sea; then comes the ebb and undertow, and they flash up again upon the speaker, and the retreating wave softens off into gentle ripples against the walls. On some of these occasions seven or eight thousand men are massed before and around the speaker; and when he puts them under the mesmeric spell of his eloquence in some powerful passage or peroration, the sight is worth a long journey to witness; and he who witnesses it with attentive faculties must see what a power in itself is such a hall for shaping the mind of a town on the great questions of the day.
When one has attended such a public meeting in the Town Hall, he should witness the spectacle presented within its walls at the great Musical Festival, which takes place once in three years. On this occasion philanthropy is set to music. The grand organ is owned by the General Hospital, and the notes it discounts for that institution are as good as gold, and produce a great deal of it. It was built in London and opened in 1834. It was then, probably, the largest and most powerful organ in England, and cost between £3,000 and £4,000. The organ case or, better, organ house, is forty feet wide, fifty-four high, and seventeen deep. The largest wood pipe measures in the interior 224 cubic feet. The bellows contain 300 square feet of surface, and require the pressure of three tons weight for their necessary action. The wires or "trackers," if laid in a straight line, would reach above five miles. There are seventy-eight drawstops, four sets of keys, and above 4,000 pipes. The weight of the instrument is above forty-five tons. Once in three years this vast harp of 4,000 strings plays for the benefit of the General Hospital, blending its grand melodies with the best human voices that can be found in the United Kingdom. This Musical Festival or banquet lasts four days, and the great hall is filled with as highly a cultivated and elegant audience as the town and surrounding country can produce. A large number of the nobility and gentry are present from all the midland counties; and all being in full dress, an assembly may be witnessed presenting a remarkable contrast with one of the political meetings we have noticed. The tickets are £1. 1s. and 10s. 6d. for the morning performances, and 15s. and 8s. for the evening concerts. The whole net proceeds, after the expenses are deducted, go to the support of the Hospital. Thus a rare opportunity and inducement are presented to make a virtue out of pleasure, and to give both self and sympathy a rich treat at the same time. The first festival was held in 1778 at St. Philip's Church, the best building then in the town for such performances, which consisted of selections of sacred music, and lasted three days. The total receipts were £800, and the net profit £299. In 1834 the festival was held in the new Town Hall and with the new organ; and the receipts were £13,527, and the net profit £4,035. In 1864 the receipts amounted to £13,777, and the clear profit to £5,256. The grand total received at all these Triennial Festivals, from 1768 to 1864 inclusive, is £216,499; and the whole net amount realized for the Hospital is £84,589. Thus music has had a beautiful mission in connexion with the Birmingham Town Hall and its organ. It has brought songs of gladness and gratitude to thousands in the long, dark night of suffering, and, like the angel at the pool of Bethesda, helped many a poor maimed or sick man and woman into the healing fountain.
The Free Grammar School, on New Street, is a large and well-proportioned Gothic building, with less space sacrificed to acute angles than is generally the case with that order of architecture. It is an edifice that will correspond with the most elegant improvements that the enterprising and ambitious town may make for half a century to come, and looks well beside the largest and most ornate structure lately erected—the Birmingham Exchange. This is one of the foundation schools of that interesting and amiable sovereign of educational memory. Edward VI. He was at heart the best Edward England ever had; and being so good it was a pity he did not live and reign as long as some of his ancestors of the same name. He was a better and braver crusader than any of them; for, cross in hand, he marched to the rescue of really a nation from the sepulchre of ignorance. And, what showed the force of his feeling, wish, and work in the matter, like another Peter the Hermit, he enlisted a large number of good and true men in the same enterprise. He not only had Peabody's purse and heart for the education of the people, but he made Peabodies and a kind of philanthropic age by his example and influence. If any one will take the census of educational and benevolent institutions founded in that age, he will see how it was marked with good will and good works for the children of the poor. Then it was so easy and cheap to plant an acorn that should grow into a wide-spreading oak of strength and protection. It was a generous act in old James Harper to give a pasture on Holborn Hill to the education of the children of Bedford, his native town. A ten-acre field, though roughened with gorse, brachens, and thistles, must have been worth £10 an acre in fee simple, when he made the donation. One hundred pounds made a large sum in his day; but it was only the acorn. That furzy pasture has been covered for a century or more with a little city-full of houses, and it is now the oak under whose branches thousands of Bedford children have received an education as free as the light of heaven.
An acorn was planted in Birmingham in the same way. It is said that the inhabitants of the town and the people of King's Norton petitioned the crown for a school at the same time. In both cases the petitioners were offered land or money to the value of £20 per annum. The ready cash was preferred by the Nortonians, whilst the Birmingham men chose the land; which, like Harper's pasture on Holborn Hill, then lay mostly out of the town. But it has grown into a grand oak. It is now in the very heart of the town, and covered with its best buildings; one of which is the magnificent Exchange. The present income is about £12,000, and at the end of the century it must amount to £50,000 per annum from the leases that will drop in by that time. It has been creditable to the people of Birmingham, and a proof of their public spirit, that they have watched with jealous vigilance over this institution, and have stoutly resisted every insidious effort or tendency to make it "a close borough," or a fat living for a few luxurious and idle selfs, as many great and noble charities have been perverted. They had a long and hard struggle to rescue it from this condition or peril, and to utilize it for the benefit of the town. They not only succeeded in having the present edifice built upon the old site, against the will of influential parties, but in opening up four branch schools to be supported out of the funds of the institution and to be carried on under its direction. In these affiliated schools about 500 boys and the same number of girls are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by thirty-eight masters, mistresses, and assistants. The education provided at the Grammar School is of high order, embracing classics, mathematics, and other branches of college studies, together with that practical and varied instruction necessary for commercial life. No expense is spared in securing the services of first-rate masters, two of whom have become bishops. The number of pupils in all departments is about 600, taught by upwards of twenty masters, who are generously paid for their services. Indeed, the head master receives a salary equal to that of the Secretary of State at Washington; and the aggregate received all the masters of the institution is about £6,000 per annum; being equal to £10 per head of the pupils for tuition.
There is a feature of this admirable institution which an American must admire; and it is common to a large number of similar foundations in England. In the first place, there are ten scholarships awarded every year to pupils that have reached a certain standard of excelling, and who receive each £50 per annum for four years, or for the whole period of his college course should he go to Oxford or Cambridge. This is capital. This is a noble and generous stimulus and help for a young man who has the mind but not the means to acquire a university education and the status and capacity it confers. Thus £500 per annum are paid out of the income of the institution for these ten scholarships. Then in addition to all this encouragement and aid which it extends to the pupils, there are several annual prizes founded by friends of the school. The governors, twenty in number, give two prizes of £10 every Christmas to boys of the first class, not under fifteen years of age, who pass the best examination in all branches taught in the English department. Bishop Lee, of Manchester, once head master of the school, gave £100 to found an annual prize for a critical essay on a passage of the Greek Testament. William Chance, Esq., of the great glass manufactory, appropriately gave an annual prize for encouraging the study of the Holy Scriptures in English and Greek. Others have founded smaller prizes to stimulate and reward study in different departments of useful learning.
The annual examinations are always conducted by eminent scholars from the universities, and give additional value to the awards. The public distribution of the prizes is an occasion of great interest. I have been present at the two last anniversaries, and have witnessed the proceedings with lively satisfaction. The cheering of the boys that fills the hall as the successful competitors ascend to the platform and receive the prize books from the hands of the head master, surrounded by the whole corps of teachers and examiners, and the audible or visible sympathy of the elder portion of the audience, are enough to animate a casual spectator with the spirit of the scene. The sum paid for these prize books in 1859 was put down at £120. Declamations and recitations in English, Latin, Greek, and German, form an interesting part of the proceedings on these occasions, and show very creditable attainments in elocution as well as thought and memory on the part of the young men. But, what is peculiarly pleasing, the head master reads, with a satisfaction which the whole school and audience share with him, the roll of merit on the part of former pupils who are contending for the prizes of Oxford and Cambridge, and every distinction won and announced is hailed by the boys with a ringing cheer of pride and congratulation.
The Birmingham and Midland Institute is an admirable institution, that does credit to the public spirit of the town. As a building it mates well with the Town Hall, over against which it stands. It is to the instruction of the people in scientific and artistic industries what the Town Hall is to the culture and development of public sentiment and opinion. Here artisans, miners, and men of every mechanical business are taught the science and economy of their occupations, not as a theory merely, but as applied practically and technically to their trades and professions. The classes embrace chemistry as applied to various manufactures and agriculture, mechanics, metallurgy, mineralogy, geology, ventilation of mines, and mining engineering. The first stone of the Institute was laid by Prince Albert, in November, 1855, and the lecture theatre was opened by Lord Brougham in October, 1857. So it has been in operation only ten years; but within that period it has educed and trained up a working force of practical science of inestimable value to the town. It has founded a home School of Design and produced home artists who are already competing with those brought from France and Italy in drawing and modelling patterns of exquisite taste for gold and silver ware, papier-machè, furniture, and other elegant manufactures. Any young man may here fit himself to fill the first position in his trade that science, taste, and skill can make, and this, too, at cheap and easy terms as to time and money. Then there is a literary department, comprising reading room and lectures and other sources of useful entertainment and knowledge.
The Free Library, in the same building, is the most popular institution in the town, in origin, object, and use. It is the best exponent and illustration of the public spirit of the people. It was founded for and by them, and they owe it to no one else. This is as it should be and will be in times to come. Drinking Fountains are the order of the day. They at first originated as the benefactions of some generous individual, who set an impressive example to municipal authorities. Then they speedily grew to be the standing and regular institutions of the community. So it has been with the Drinking Fountains of Knowledge. Some munificent donor, like William B. Astor, of New York, or William Brown, of Liverpool—to use a homely simile—has "killed two birds with one stone:" he has founded a great library and opened its thousands of volumes to the people to read as free and cheap as water; and the library thus founded is to be a perpetual and effective monument to his name and generosity to the public. It is an invaluable institution for which its author deserves to be held in everlasting and grateful remembrance. But the thirsty masses cannot drink at this fountain with the same sentiment as at one of their own opening and ownership. After all, in drinking at such a private benefaction, the water of knowledge has to them a little of the look and flavour of charity-soup. The Birmingham men were the last in the kingdom to content themselves with such a source of mental refreshment, even if one had been opened to them as large and luxurious as the Astor Library in New York. They did what no community in America has yet done; and in the doing of it they have taken a step in advance of anything we have accomplished in this department of popular education. We have taxed every man, whether he has children or not, to open and support free schools; but we have never gone so far as to levy a rate upon the population of a town to establish a Free Library. In this the Birmingham people have beaten the most enlightened and munificent community in America. To their credit and to our reproach be this said; or if not to our reproach, then to our stimulus in following this example.
This invaluable institution embraces two departments: the Reference Library, and the Lending Library and News Room; the former being opened to the public in 1866, the latter in 1865. The Reference Library is truly a vast treasure-house of every department of human learning; and, to use an American simile of hospitality, "you will always find the latch-string outside the door," The lofty circular hall represents the sphere of knowledge it embraces. The Philosopher, the Historian, Theologian, Lawyer, Inventor, and Scientific Mechanic may each find here an almost boundless mine from which he may draw, as cheaply as water, the most valuable deposits of thought, observation, and fact. Here a poor but earnest learner may explore a volume which cost more than a small farm in Illinois, and transfer the whole harvest of its wisdom into his own stock of knowledge. Here an inventive mind may run through the whole forest of Patents, Improvements, and Mechanical Suggestions which a century of the world's best genius has produced. As an illustration of the richness of this special department, so valuable to this great mechanical community, the fact may suffice, that it contains 2,030 Specifications of Patents. The whole number of volumes in the Reference Library is 18,225. The Arts and Sciences number 1,968 volumes on the list; History and Biography, 3,637; Poetry and the Drama, 720. As an indication of how much this great storehouse of knowledge is used and appreciated, the daily average issue of books for the fifty-four days after the first opening amounted to 212 volumes.
The Central Lending Library and News Room is on the first floor of the same building, and was opened in September, 1865. It contains 11,276 volumes, of which History, Biography, Voyages and Travels have 2,304. This is really a Drinking Fountain of Knowledge on a more liberal basis than those opened in large towns to quench the thirst of dry and dusty men with water. For in the latter case the ladle or basin is always chained to the fountain, and the drinker cannot carry any of the water home to his family. But at this Lending Library he may find a perpetual spring of pure and wholesome literature for himself, wife, and children and other inmates of his house, and that as cheap as air, after it is once set running. It is only the first step that costs him a little thought and effort. He must get one burgess or voter of the borough to sign the following voucher:
"I, the undersigned, being a burgess of the Borough of Birmingham, declare that I believe
occupationageof No.
to be a person to whom books may be safely intrusted for perusal; and I hereby undertake to replace, or pay the value of any book belonging to the Corporation of Birmingham, which shall be lost or materially injured by said borrower."
This condition is not designed nor expected to diminish or restrict the use of the Library. It serves to impress upon every would-be reader the conviction that the privilege is worth a little personal thought and effort on his part. No burgess would refuse to sign such a voucher for any honest applicant. Up to the end of 1866, 7,148 persons had been qualified as borrowers. During that year 164,120 books were lent out to the people of the town, making an average daily issue of 588. In the same department is the News Room, in which is spread out to all who would read nearly all the leading journals and periodicals of the kingdom. As it was intended, the working men of the town constitute perhaps the largest number of callers. An interesting fact will show how eagerly they use and enjoy the privilege. They are allowed an hour for dinner, and a large number employed within an accessible distance from the Library spend in it half the time allotted to the meal; thus making twenty or thirty minutes' reading a portion or condiment of their mid-day repast.
Liberal provision has also been made for remote districts of the town, and several branch libraries have been opened on the same basis. In addition to these free sources of knowledge and mental entertainment, there are many other libraries established, where books may be had on easy terms. One of these. The Old Library, in Union Street, was founded under the direction of Dr. Priestley, and now numbers between thirty and forty thousand volumes. There is also a unique and interesting collection of books in a room adjoining the great Reference Library, which will afford much entertainment to the admirers of the great Warwickshire bard, as men of local ambition venture to call him. It is called The Shakespeare Memorial Library, and is designed to contain a complete collection of all the editions of Shakespeare's works, and of the books which have emanated from them. Very satisfactory progress has been made in the collection, and it promises to realize the best hopes of its founders. In a word, it is doubtful if any town of equal population in Great Britain or America has opened a larger or cheaper provision of books for its population, and no English town can show a larger muster-roll of readers per thousand of its inhabitants. Thus a large and broad basis has been laid on which to erect the structure of public opinion in Birmingham, and to increase its force and effect upon the country and its government.
I have interpolated the Town Hall and Free Libraries among the educational institutions of Birmingham, because they really occupy a middle place in the agencies of popular training and knowledge. As it is probable that a considerable number of American readers of these notes will be passing through the town in course of the year. I would suggest to them that they should visit the Blue Coat Charity School, which partly walls in St. Philip's Churchyard on the northeast. They will see in the entrance hall how a beautiful institution grows by that it feeds upon; or how it reproduces, perpetuates, and expands itself. This hall is hung with tall and wide tablets, recording, in gilt letters, the names and donations of benevolent patrons for more than one hundred years. It will be interesting to count up the bequests of £1,000 and upwards, as a proof of the munificent good-will which the institution has won from the beginning. Some of the records are full of pleasant reminiscence. They are the donations of Blue Coat Boys who have gone out and made a good position and fortune in the world, and remembered gratefully the Alma mater that trained them for useful life. The average number of children in the school is one hundred and forty boys and sixty girls, who are lodged, fed, clothed, and educated in the building. In the election of children for admission, preference is given to orphans, or those who have lost one parent.
Spring Hill College, both as an edifice and an institution, is an educational establishment of high rank and eminent usefulness. It is a theological school for the training of ministers of the Independent body; and it has sent out many able preachers and teachers who have made their mark, and a good and deep one. It was first opened in 1838, in the private mansion of the family of George Storer Mansfield, who founded it with certain landed estates he devoted to the object. It soon outgrew its limited and inconvenient accommodation, and a new and noble edifice, larger than any one conected with Harvard University or Vale College in New England, was erected on a beautiful and picturesque site near the village of Moseley, called Spring Hill. The expense of the building, land, and furnishing amounted to about £18,000, raised by the voluntary contributions of friends. It has an able corps of professors, not only of Theology and Ecclesiastical History and Polity, but of Philosophy. Classical and Oriental languages. It supplies studios and dormitories for thirty-six students, and, adopting a figure pertaining to water-works, it acts as a very important feeder to the pulpits of the Independents throughout the kingdom.
The Queen's College, almost facing the Town Hall, is another foundation institution, for which the town is indebted to the munificent generosity and public spirit of Mr. Sands Cox. The building itself is worthy of the object of the College when realized to the full wish and expectation of the founder, a consummation not yet attained. It furnishes accommodation to seventy students, fitting themselves for Medicine and Surgery. Arts. Laws. Civil Architecture and Engineering. In connexion with the College are Museums of Human and Comparative Anatomy, containing more than 3,000 specimens. In a word it has all the raw material of an important and first-rate institution, which must inevitably be utilized hereafter to larger results than it has yet produced.
The Proprietary School, situated on the Hagley Road, near the intersecting point called the Five Ways, is an energetic and well-conducted establishment, in which instruction of a high order is given in classical and commercial education. It is a first-rate middle-class school, with a large force of teachers and a principal of eminence. Dr. Badham, one of the best Greek scholars in England, was for many years at the head of the school, which attained a high reputation under him.
The Diocesan Training College, at Saltley, is another very creditable and useful institution, founded by private contributions. It is a training school for the education of teachers for the dioceses of Lichfield. Worcester, and Hereford, and was opened in 1852. There is also the Reformatory Institution in Saltley, for the rescue of juvenile vagrants and criminals from a life of vice and misery, and for training them for usefulness and happiness in the world. Here they are apprenticed to various occupations—farming, shoe-making, tailoring; printing, &c.; and when they have acquired these trades, places are sought for them, not only in England but in Australia. Canada, and other British colonies. Both these institutions are greatly indebted for their origin and support to the Hon. C. B. Adderley, who gave the land which they occupy, and, what is equally valuable, his earnest sympathy and generous goodwill. The institution has grown to meet the demand for its benevolent offices, and now has sufficient accommodation for 100 boys.
There are many other reformatory and educational institutions in Birmingham and its suburbs, established on the voluntary principle for which the town is distinguished. Indeed, one who looks forward in the expectation or hope to see a uniform or unsectarian system of education adopted, must notice, with a little concern; the rapid rise and extension of denominational schools. The number of churches and chapels that have opened day schools as an integral part of their establishments, seems to be increasing to an extent which may interpose an obstacle to a national system. In many cases, the school house is a part or continuation of the church or chapel building, and frequently numbers several hundred children. It is a matter of common occurrence to hear of the opening of a chapel and school room, as if they were part and parcel of the same denominational establishment. Although an earnest educationalist may feel as St. Paul did with regard to the preaching of the gospel, and say he cares not for any amount of contention in the education of children so they be instructed, still this contention or competition may oppose a serious difficulty to what we in America called a Common School System, and which a vast number of enlightened men in England wish to see established in the United Kingdom.
Few towns of equal population equal Birmingham in ample and varied provision for the sick, poor, and afflicted. The charitable institutions represent every form of sympathy with suffering; and are too numerous to notice singly or in detail. Two, however, deserve a fuller description than these pages will allow. The General Hospital is truly a noble institution, and ranks among the first in the country for its capacity and liberality of accommodation. But there is a unique feature distinguishing it from other establishments of the same character. Never yet on the face of the earth. I am confident, was there a building that listened to so much groaning within its walls and yet produced so much music outside of them. Never did suffering and song so act and re-act upon each other. As it has already been noticed, once in three years there is the most luxurious banquet of music, lasting for four consecutive days, in the Town Hall. Nothing in England or Europe can equal it, both for place and performers. All present at the great Festival in 1867 must have carried away this impression. Well, the invalids and sufferers in the General Hospital had some, thing more and better than the crumbs that fell from this table so loaded with precious delicacies. The solos of Sweden's other nightingale, of Titiens, Sherrington, Reeves, and Santley, and the grand choruses that by turns lifted the entranced thousands half-way to heaven and held them there in sublime fascination, these did more than "raise a mortal to the skies"—they "drew an angel down" with cordials, medicines, good clothing, and tender watch and care for all the suffering inmates of the Hospital for a whole year long. Miriam's Song, in the "Israel in Egypt," gives songs of gladness and gratitude in a hundred nights to crippled scores of men and women within the dim, still wards of the asylum. The voices that swell and meander through the glorious harmonies of "Elijah" set a thousand ravens a-wing with sustenance and solace for these poor and afflicted children of suffering and sorrow.
The Queen's Hospital is another and supplementary institution of the same character and object. Among other means adopted for the support of these establishments, one developed by the Rev. Dr. Miller, Rector of St. Martin's, is an instrumentality which produces more than money. Through his influence the system was adopted of having the claims of these hospitals presented simultaneously on a given Sunday in all the churches and chapels of the town, and a collection taken in their behalf. Thus the whole churchgoing population of all denominations, including Jews and Roman Catholics, on that day, have their thoughts concentrated upon these charitable institutions, and are thus disciplined in general philanthropy as well as local benevolence.
The improvements in Birmingham, within my own personal remembrance and observation, indicate the public spirit of its inhabitants. New Street would be almost unrecognizable to one returning to the town after twenty years absence; especially when the Midland Bank, now arising on its foundations, shall have been completed. The Great Central Railway Station, into which five different lines converge in the heart of the town, has not its equal in the kingdom for the roofed space it encloses. The area within the walls is 1,100 feet long and 212 feet wide, and the whole of this great breadth is spanned by single arches resting simply on pillars on each side. No other arched roof of 212 feet span has been attempted in England, or perhaps in the world. The Exchange flanks this great station building on the north, and is a centre-piece of which the town may be justly proud, whatever improvements may follow hereafter. Bingley Hall is another building of great capacity and utility, especially for annual exhibitions of cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, and poultry, which have attained a first-class rank for the quality and number of agricultural implements and productions, as well as of animals presented. Curzon Hall, another building of large and good dimensions, was erected and opened in 1866, and may be called, in close resemblance to a celebrated Venetian edifice, the Dogs' Palace. Although a circus occasionally performs within its walls, it is really devoted to the greatest provincial parliament of dogs in Great Britain. Hundreds of every lineage, use, name, size, stripe, and language, arc here assembled about Christmas time, and discuss questions of canine and social economy with a gravity and earnestness which few human conventions frequently imitate. Great lion-faced St. Bernarders and little Scotch terriers, with their spiteful eyes peering through moppy meshes of hair, take part in these animated debates. It is one of the most interesting reunions in the animal world that an amateur of it can witness.
Birmingham, like many large and growing towns both in England and America, had filled a great area with long and intersecting streets of houses, shops, and factories, before it thought of leaving a goodly breathing and recreating space for the people. In this respect it followed the habit of many New England towns, whose first settlers cut down all the trees, both great and small, to make a proper "clearing" for their houses, without thinking how much their children would prize the shade and ornament of some of the majestic and primeval oaks thus brought low by the axe. This mistake they discovered by the time those children were born, and tried to rectify it by planting little scions by the decaying stumps of the monarchs of the forest which they had levelled. Thus Birmingham had a population of 250,000 before it had a public park, or a single green acre which they could call their own as a community. The first, comprising a space of twelve acres, was the generous and opportune gift of the Hon. C. B. Adderley, at Saltley: it was opened in 1856, and made one of the munificent benefactions to which the town is indebted to his philanthropy. A second was opened the following year, containing thirty acres, presented by Lord Calthorpe, and bearing his name. But, as in the case of the Free Library, the people resolved to have a Drinking Fountain of Air of their own, purchased by their own money, and not the gift of one aristocratic and wealthy patron. Aston Hall—a stately, baronial-like mansion, just in the greenest outskirt of the town—came into the market, with all its stately appurtenances of trees, lawns, walks, drives, histories, legends, rime, and romance of antiquity. It had come down through several centuries of varied occupation, with but a dim record of the families that had inhabited it. A company was formed to buy up this estate, which failing to effect the purchase, the corporation, assisted by private subscriptions of £7,000, came to the aid of the enterprise, and secured the valuable property for the use of the people. The park contains forty-two acres, affording sufficient space for recreation, while it is so situated as to appear only the central point of view to a park of a dozen miles in extent, picturesquely wooded and dashed with gleams of water pleasantly interspersed with the green and gold of the variegated landscape. Then, standing on a gently-rounded eminence, commanding all this lovely scenery, is the great hall with its turrets, terraces, stables, and outbuildings. It has been turned into a museum; so that, when tired of walks or sports in the park, young and old may season their recreations with a little useful knowledge. In a word, no other town in the kingdom has such a baronial estate for the free use of its people.
Aston Church is a noble old structure, "to the manor born," though probably several hundred years before the present hall was erected, to which it seems to have been an apanage. The external is more impressive than its interior aspect, as it looks to be larger at a little distance than it really is. Perhaps this impression is produced by the massive tower and its tall and graceful spire. Both pedestal and statue are as graceful as colossal. Its "God's Acre" holds the dust of a dozen generations, and is filled to its walls with monuments of every grade and shade. While walking among them with Capern, the postman poet, an incident occurred which I hoped would stir his muse to some appropriate reflections. The clock, high and deep in the old church tower, tolled the funeral of four sunny hours, as if it were never to greet the birth of another in time. The sound came out into the still air through those massive walls with the silvery quavers of centuries. It seemed to take hold of the deceased hours by their middle minutes, and to breathe over them a plaintive requiem, half sigh and half sob, melting away in a querulous murmur over the cross streets of human graves surrounding the church. While we listened thoughtfully to the murmur as it fluttered outward upon the still blue air, a sharp, piercing screech split the silence of nature, startling the sleeping leaves to a quiver of alarm. What a transition! There, on a high embanked railway just across the brook, was the huge black serpent of a coal train, with all its loose vertebra grating and rocking at their joints, when, just at this point, as if a sharp agony had seized it, the engine put forth the horrid ejaculation of anger or defiance. The contrast between its smoky blast, and the pathetic, silvery benediction of the old clock in the church tower, brought us back from thoughtful communion with the departed spirits of past centuries to the sharp and rugged realities of this utilitarian age.
The old church in Handsworth is an antique building showing a smattering of various orders of architecture, with old-fashioned square pews, designed for families, facing inward upon each other instead of looking at the minister. But it is a kind of Westminster Abbey to Birmingham, consecrated to the memory of its great dead, whose names have won illustrious fame. First and foremost is a chapel dedicated to James Watt, with a life-size statue in a sitting posture, which ranks among the master-pieces of Chantrey's chisel. Then there are monuments erected to Boulton, his partner and right-hand man, and to others whose lives and labours deserve a respectful memory.
One of the most beautiful little churches in England is the Edgbaston Old Church. Its beauty is not in architectural proportions or pretensions, but in the charm which nature has given it. In the first place, it is picturesquely situated under the eaves of a stately grove that veils Edgbaston Hall and its park and pool from the road. Then it is completely netted to the very top of its tower with ivy. Hardly a square inch of its bare walls can be seen at a few rods distance. No garden summer-house or bower could be greener from bottom to top. Robed thus by nature in the best vestment she could weave for a sanctuary, it seems to have a more sacred consecration to the worship of God than an archbishop could give to it. One might well feel that Nature joined in the prayers and psalms and spiritual songs within; and it may be hoped that the congregation recognize her presence and participation in their devotions. In the little churchyard, which looks like a hopefully-sculptured doorstone of eternity, sleeps the dust of a sister of Washington Irving, who was the wife of one of the fathers of the town—the venerable Henry Van Wart.
A mile or two further in a westerly direction is the parish church of Harborne, which only lacks the ivy surplice to be even more attractive than that of Edgbaston. It drew me to that rural suburb, and has become as home-like and dear to me as the church of my native village in America. In situation it conforms religiously with the Fourth Commandment. It retires meditatively from the six days' labour, and all its noise, dust, bustle, and sight; and far from the public roads, invites the worshippers of the village to its quiet sanctuary. They come at the cheering voice of its sabbath bells, which ripples outward across the green valleys to homesteads half hidden and half revealed. And the congregation comes across the broad fields by footpaths that converge from every direction into the solemn aisles of the churchyard trees. The main avenue is nearly a third of a mile in length, with a lofty roofage half the way. The church has no gorgeous east window of coloured glass pictured over with olden saints in fantastic robes of mediæval conception; but Nature, from some tall over-shadowing trees, has hung a curtain of leaves just outside the plain, untinted panes, and thus substituted her cheap and pleasant artistry for the more costly and lifeless pictures done by the painter in oil.
The skirt of Birmingham is very ample and variegated. Though the half that it turns to the fire of The Black Country is badly scorched, crimped, and ragged, the other half is a flowing robe embroidered with emerald and gold. Moseley, Edgbaston, and Harborne are embraced in the latter, and are as goodly suburbs as any town in England can show. Hills, dales, gentle slopes, valleys, and streams, make a picturesque scenery. The residences of many of the prosperous business men of the borough are interspersed in this landscape, and their ornamental grounds form a pleasant feature. Edgbaston especially is full of these elegant houses and gardens; but nearly all of them are built upon the pan of a lease-trap, which, one of these years, will spring up and catch every one of them, with all their lawns and external embellishments. The evening scenery enjoyed by these suburbs is very unique and even grand. Although the sky is slightly dashed with smoke in the best days. The Black Country reveals itself only at night, and then in its own aurora borealis. As the sun descends in the west it hangs the horizon with curtains of its own crimsoning. Its red twilight softens first into gold, then into pearl, and melts out of the evening sky; then comes the after-glow of the region of fire and smoke. Then upsprings the aurora borealis of The Black Country—the swaling light of a hundred furnaces and forges roaring all through the night. It runs up and down the horizon like summer lightning, crimsoning the edges of the clouds, and the patches of sky between. This light is the halo around the brow of swart and patient Labour—that knows no rest while wealth is dreaming in its sleep.