lar Club and Institute.~--The members having bought the remainder
of lease (32 years) of No. 18, Crescent, for L340, have fitted it up for
the purposes of their club and on June 1, 1877, the foundation-stone was
laid of a lecture hall at the rear, 70ft. long by 19ft. wide. St.
George's Hall, Upper Dean Street, was their former meeting place.

~Sewerage and Sanitary Works.~--The disposal of the sewage of a large
town away from the sea or tidal rivers has at all times been a source of
difficulty, and Birmingham forms no exception to the rule. When it was
in reality but the little "hardware village" it has so often been
called, the Rea was sufficient to carry off the surface waters taken to
its channel by the many little rills and brooks of the neighbourhood,
but as the town increased, and house drainage defiled that limped
stream, it became necessary to construct culverts, so as to take the
most offensive portion of the sewage to a distance from inhabited
houses. A great improvement was looked for after the introduction of the
Waterworks, allowing the use of water-flushed closets in the better
class of houses, instead of the old style of accommodation usually
provided at the end of the garden, but even this system became a
nuisance, especially to residents near the river Tame, the receptacle of
all liquid filth from our streets, closets, middens, and manufactories,
and legal as well as sanitary reasons forced upon the Corporation the
adoption of other plans. Our present sanitary system comprises the
exclusion, as far as possible, of closet refuse and animal and vegetable
matters from the sewers, and secondly, the purification by filtration,
&c., of the outpourings of the sewers, after the partial separation
therefrom of the more solid constituents. In 1871, when the real
sanitary work of the borough may be said to have practically commenced,
out of about 73,200 houses only 3,884 were provided with water-closets,
the remainder being served by middens, drained and undrained, the
greater part uncovered and polluting the atmosphere, while the soakage
fouled the earth and contaminated the wells. From these places in 1873
there were removed 160,142 loads of ashes, &c., the number of men
employed being 146, and the cost, allowing for sales, over L20,000, or
L55 10s. per 1,000 of the Population. In the following year the Council
approved of "the Rochdale system," closet-pans and ash-tubs taking the
place of the old style with midd