then it was neglected and thought but little of. In 1849 Mr. Robert
Rawlinson making inquiries, was told by the Town Clerk that "the
chalybeate spring in Duddeston was turned into a culvert by the railway
people when the Birmingham and Liverpool Railway was constructed," to
the great regret of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood who spoke
strongly of the virtues of the water in diseases of the eye. It was
suggested in 1862 that an attempt should be made to reopen the spring
for public use, but as it was nobody's business nobody did it. There was
(sixty years ago) a spring a little below Saturday Bridge opposite
Charlotte Street, which always give forth a constant stream of
beautifully clear soft water. Another in Coventry Road, where 25 years
or so ago an old man stooping to quench his thirst fell head foremost,
and not being able to recover his equilibrium, was drowned, leading to
the spring being covered up. Several mineralised springs existed in
Gooch Street, and thereabouts, and there was one that sprung out close
to where Kent Street Baths are now. The spring which gives name to
Spring Street and Spring Vale, and which has been turned so that its
waters run into the sewers, is estimated to discharge 20,000 gallons of
pure limpid water per hour. The little stream arising from this spring
constituted part of the boundary line between the Birmingham and
Edgbaston parishes and at far less cost than it has taken to waste its
water it could have been utilised for the above-named Baths, less than a
thousand yards off, and with a natural fall of 6ft. or 8ft. Spring Hill
takes its name from a spring now non-existent, but which was once a
favourite with the cottagers who lived near to it.

~Sporting Notes.~--It is not for a moment to be admitted that the men of
Birmingham in past years were one whit more brutal in their "sports"
than others of their countrymen, but it must be confessed they somehow
managed to acquire a shocking bad name to that effect. This of course
must be laid to the credit of the local supporters of "the noble art of
self-defence," the Brummagem bruisers. Bullbaiting and cockfighting were
no more peculiar to this neighbourhood than parson-pelting or woman
ducking at Coventry, where the pillory and ducking-stool were in use
long after they had been put aside in Birmingham.

_Archery_ at one period of history was so little of a sporting nature
that laws were passed for the erection of shooting-butts, the