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, 1208. 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 L50,000, 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imposed in the fifteenth year of Charles II.'s reign, but repealed in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 L4 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 1823, from the inhabitants of this town, the sum of L27,459 12s.
1-3/4d., though in the following year it was L9,000 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 L30 per ton, being retailed in Birmingham at
4l. per lb. Carriages were taxed in 1747. Armo