he occasion of a football match at night, the
kick-off and lighting-up taking place at seven o'clock. At the last
Musical Festival, the Town Hall was lit up by Messrs. Whitfield, of
Cambridge-street, and the novelty is no longer a rarity, a company
having been formed to supply the houses, shops, and public buildings in
the centre of the town.

~Electro Plate.~--As early as 1838, Messrs. Elkington were in the habit
of coating ornaments with gold and silver by dipping them in various
solutions of those metals, and the first patent taken out for the
electro process appears to be that of July 6, 1838, for covering copper
and brass with zinc. Mr. John Wright, a surgeon, of this town, was the
first to use the alkaline cyanides, and the process was included in
Elkington's patent of March 25, 1840. The use of electricity from
magnets instead of the voltaic battery was patented by J.S. Wolrich, in
August, 1842. His father was probably the first person who deposited
metals for any practical purpose by means of the galvanic battery. Mr.
Elkington applied the electro-deposit process to gilding and
silverplating in 1840.--See "_Trades_," &c.

~Electoral Returns.~--See "_Parliamentary_."

~Emigration.~--In August, 1794, Mr. Russell, of Moor Green, and a
magistrate for the counties of Warwick and Worcester, with his two
brothers and their families, Mr. Humphries, of Camp Hill Villa, with a
number of his relatives, and over a hundred other Birmingham families
emigrated to America. Previous to this date we have no record of
anything like an emigration movement from this town, though it is a
matter of history how strenuously Matthew Boulton and other
manufacturers exerted themselves to _prevent_ the emigration of artisans
and workpeople, fearing that our colonies would be enriched at the
expense of the mother country. How sadly the times were changed in 1840,
may be imagined from the fact that when free passages to Australia were
first being offered, no less than 10,000 persons applied unsuccessfully
from this town and neighbourhood alone. At the present time it is
calculated that passages to America, Canada, Australia, &c., are being
taken up here at an average of 3,000 a year.

~Erdington.~--Another of the ancient places (named in the Domesday Book
as Hardingtone) surrounding Birmingham and which ranked as high in those
days of old, though now but like one of our suburbs, four miles on the
road to Sutton Coldfield. Erdington Hall,