ed of a handsome Lecture
Theatre, a large Museum, with good collections of fossils and minerals,
a Library, Reading Room, &c., in Cannon Street. Like many other useful
institutions of former days, the philosophical has had to give way to
the realistic, its library of dead men's writings, and its fossils of
the ancient world, vanishing in face of the reporters of to-day's
doings, the ubiquitous throbs of the "Walter" and "Hoe" steam presses
resounding where erst the voice of Science in chronicling the past
foreshadowed the future.

~Pillory.~--This ancient machine for the punishment of prigs formerly
stood in High Street. The last time it was used was in 1813. We pillory
people in print now, and pelt them with pen and ink. The Act for
abolishing this method of punishment was not passed until June 30, 1837.
What became of the pillory here is not known, but there is, or was
lately, a renovated specimen of the article at Coleshill.

~Pinfold Street~ takes its name from the "pound" or "pinfold" that
existed there prior to 1752. There used to be another of these
receptacles for straying animals near to the Plough and Harrow in Hagley
Road, and a small corner of Smithfield was railed off for the like
purpose when the Cattle market was there established. The "Jacob
Wilsons" of a previous date held a field under the Lords of the Manor
wherein to graze their captured cattle, but one of the Town Criers
mortgaged it, and his successors lost their right to the land which was
somewhere about Caroline Street.

~Places of Worship.~--_Established Church_.--In 1620 there were 358
churches in Warwickshire, 130 in Staffordshire, and 150 in
Worcestershire; but St. Martin's, Edgbaston, Aston, Deritend, and
Handsworth, churches were all that Birmingham could boast of at the
beginning of last century, and the number had not been increased to a
very large extent even by the year 1800. As will be seen from the dates
given in following pages, however, there was a goodly number of churches
erected in the first half of this century, about the end of which period
a "Church extension" movement was set on foot. The success was so
apparent that a society was formed (Jan., 1865), and in March, 1867, it
was resolved to raise a fund of L50,000, for the purpose of at once
erecting eight other new churches in the borough, Miss Ryland heading
the list of donations with the munificent gift of L10,000. It is
difficult to arrive at the amount expended on chu