irst effects of the sheathing of the sword
was a collapse in prices of all kinds, and a general stagnation of
trade, of which Birmingham, made prosperous through the demand for its
guns, &c., felt the full force. Bad trade was followed by bad harvests,
and the commercial history of the next dozen years is but one huge
chronicle of disaster, shops and mills closing fast, and poverty
following faster. How to employ the hundreds of able-bodied men
dependent on the rates was a continual puzzle to the Overseers, until
someone, wise in his generation, hit upon the plan of paying the
unfortunates to wheel sand from the bank then in front of Key Hill House
up to the canal side, a distance of 1-1/2 miles, the payment being at
the rate of one penny per barrow load. This fearful "labour test" was
continued for a long time, and when we reckon that each man would have
to wheel his barrow backwards and forwards for nearly 20 miles to earn a
shilling, moving more than a ton of sand in the process we cannot wonder
at the place receiving such a woeful name as Mount Misery.

~M.P.'s for Borough.~--See "_Parliamentary_."

~Mules.~-These animals are not often seen about town now, but in the
politically-exciting days of 1815 they apparently were not strangers in
our streets, as Mr. Richard Spooner (who, like our genial Alderman
Avery, was fond of "tooling" his own cattle), was in the habit of
driving his own mail-drag into town, to which four mules were harnessed.
With Mr. Thomas Potts, a well-to-do merchant, a "bigoted Baptist," and
ultra-Radical, Mr. Spooner and Mr. T. Attwood took part in a deputation
to London, giving occasion to one of the street-songs of the day:--

"Tommy Potts has gone to town
To join the deputation;
He is a man of great renown,
And fit to save the nation.
Yankee doodle do,
Yankee doodle dandy.

Dicky Spooner's also there,
And Tom the Banker, too;
If in glory they should share,
We'll sing them 'Cock-a-doodle-doo.'
Yankee doodle do,
Yankee doodle dandy.

Dicky Spooner is Dicky Mule,
Tom Attwood is Tom Fool;
And Potts an empty kettle,
With lots of bosh and rattle.
Yankee doodle do,
Yankee doodle dandy."

Another of the doggerel verses, alluding to Mr. Spooner's mules, ran--

"Tommy Potts went up to town,
Bright Tom, who all surpasses,
Was drawn by horses out of town,
And in aga