lated roofs constitute a country landscape the present
denizens cannot complain. The ground belongs to the Grammar School, the
governors of which leased it in 1789 to Mr. Charles Norton, for a term
of 120 years, at a ground rent of L155 10s. per year, the lessee to
build 34 houses and spend L12,000 thereon; the yearly value now is about
L1,800. On the Crescent Wharf is situated the extensive stores of
Messrs. Walter Showell & Sons, from whence the daily deliveries of
Crosswells Ales are issued to their many Birmingham patrons. Here may be
seen, stacked tier upon tier, in long cool vistas, close upon 6,000
casks of varying sizes containing these celebrated ales, beers, and
stouts. This stock is kept up by daily supplies from the brewery at
Langley Green, many boats being employed in the traffic.

~Cricket.~--See "_Sports_."

~Crime.~--A few local writers like to acknowledge that Birmingham is any
worse than other large towns in the matter of crime and criminals, and
the old adage respecting the bird that fouls its own nest has been more
than once applied to the individuals who have ventured to demur from the
boast that ours is _par excellence_, a highly moral, fair-dealing,
sober, and superlatively honest community. Notwithstanding the character
given it of old, and the everlasting sneer that is connected with the
term "Brummagem," the fast still remains that our cases of drunkenness
are far less than in Liverpool, our petty larcenies fewer than in Leeds,
our highway robberies about half compared with Manchester, malicious
damage a long way under Sheffield, and robberies from the person not
more than a third of those reported in Glasgow; while as to smashing and
coining, though it has been flung at us from the time of William of
Orange to the present day; that all the bad money ever made _must_ be
manufactured here, the truth is that five-sixths of the villainous crew
who deal in that commodity obtain their supplies from London, and _not_
from our little "hardware village." But alas! there _is_ a dark side to
the picture, indeed, for, according to the Registrar-General's return of
June, 1879 (and the proportionate ratio, we are sorry to say, still
remains the same), Birmingham holds the unenviable position of being the
town where most deaths from violence occur, the annual rate per 1,000
being 1.08 in Birmingham, 0.99 in Liverpool, 0.38in Sheffield, 0.37 in
Portsmouth, the average for the kingdom being even less than tha