s of hands are employed. The Midland Railway Carriage and Waggon
Co. was formed in 1853, and has works of a smaller scale at Shrewsbury.
The Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Waggon Co. was originated in
London, in 1845, but removed to Saltley in 1862, which year also saw the
formation of the Union Rolling Stock Co. The capital invested in the
several companies is very large, and the yearly value sent out is in
proportion, more rolling stock being manufactured here than in all the
other towns in the kingdom put together, not including the works of the
railway companies themselves. Many magnificent palaces on wheels have
been made here for foreign potentates, Emperors, Kings, and Queens,
Sultans, and Kaisers, from every clime that the iron horse has travelled
in, as well as all sorts of passenger cars, from the little narrow-gauge
vehicles of the Festiniog line, on which the travellers must sit back to
back, to the 60ft. long sleeping-cars used on the Pacific and Buenos
Ayers Railway, in each compartment of which eight individuals can find
sleeping accommodation equal to that provided at many of the best
hotels, or the curious-looking cars used on Indian railways, wherein the
natives squat in tiers, or, as the sailor would say, with an upper and
lower deck.

_Ropemaking_ is a trade carried on in many places, but there are few
establishments that can equal the Universe Works in Garrison Lane,
where, in addition to hundreds of tons of twine and cord, there are
manufactured all sorts of wire and hemp ropes for colliery and other
purposes, ocean telegraph cables included. Messrs. Wright introduced
strain machinery early in 1853, and in the following year they patented
a rope made of best hemp and galvanised wire spun together by machinery.
On a test one of these novelties, 4-1/4in. circumference, attached to
two engines, drew a train of 300 tons weight. To supply the demand for
galvanised signalling and fencing cords, the machines must turn out
15,000 yards of strand per day.

_Rulemaking_, though formerly carried on in several places, is now
almost confined to this town and the metropolis, and as with jewellery
so with rules, very much of what is called "London work" is, in reality,
the produce of Birmingham. Messrs. Rabone Brothers are the principal
makers, and the boxwood used is mostly obtained from Turkey and the
Levant, but the firm does not confine itself solely to the manufacture
of wood rules, their steel tapes, ma