ity of goods sent out, though it is
questionable whether the profits of trade now reach L3,000,000 per year.
Notwithstanding the adverse times the failures have rather decreased
than otherwise, there being 13 bankruptcies and 313 arrangements by
composition in 1883 against 14 and 324 respectively in 1882. To get at
the number of tradesmen, &c., is almost as difficult as to find out the
value of their trade, but a comparison at dates fifty years apart will
be interesting as showing the increase that has taken place in that
period. A Directory of 1824 gave a list of 141 different trades and the
names of 4,980 tradesmen; a similar work published in 1874 made 745
trades, with 33,462 tradesmen. To furnish a list of all the branches of
trade now carried on and the numbers engaged therein would fill many
pages, but a summary will be found under "_Population_," and for fuller
particulars the reader must go to the Census Tables for 1881, which may
be seen at the Reference Library. The variety of articles made in this
town is simply incalculable, for the old saying that anything, from a
needle to a ship's anchor, could be obtained in Edgbaston Street is
really not far from the truth, our manufacturers including the makers of
almost everything that human beings require, be it artificial eyes and
limbs, ammunition, or armour; beads, buttons, bedsteads, or buckles;
cocoa, candlesticks, corkscrews, or coffee-pots; door bolts, dessert
forks, dog collars, or dish covers; edge tools, earrings, engines, or
eyeglasses; fire irons, fiddle-bows, frying pans, or fishhooks; gold
chains, gas fittings, glass toys, or gun barrels; hairpins, harness,
handcuffs, or hurdles; ironwork, isinglass, inkstands, or inculators;
jewellery, javelins, jews' harps, or baby jumpers; kettles, kitchen
ranges, knife boards, or knuckle dusters; lifting-jacks, leg irons,
latches, or lanterns; magnets, mangles, medals, or matches; nails,
needles, nickel, or nutcrackers; organ pipes, optics, oilcans, or
ornaments; pins, pens, pickle forks, pistols, or boarding-pikes; quart
cups, quoits, quadrats, or queerosities; rings, rasps, rifles, or
railway cars; spades, spectacles, saddlery, or sealing wax;
thermometers, thimbles, toothpicks, or treacle taps; umbrellas or
upholstery; ventilators, vices, varnish, or vinegar; watches,
wheelbarrows, weighing machines or water closets. A Londoner who took
stock of our manufactories a little while back, received information
that led