Birmingham, in no period of her existence, has increased with such rapidity, in people, buildings and commerce, as since the erection of that court; so that depopulation is not one of its inconveniencies.
From a consideration of the prodigious intercourse subsisting in so vast a body of people, and the credit consequent thereon, it was wisely judged necessary to establish an easy, and expeditious method of ending dispute, and securing property.
The inhabitants of Birmingham, therefore, in 1752, procured an act for the recovery of debts under Forty Shillings; const.i.tuting seventy-two commissioners, three to be a quorum. They sit for the dispatch of business in the chamber over the Old Cross every Friday morning, and there usually appear before them between eighty and one hundred causes: Their determinations are final. Two clerks also, const.i.tuted by the act, attend the court to give judicial a.s.sistance; are always of the law, chosen alternately by the lord of the manor, and the commissioners, and to continue for life. Once in every two years, ten of the commissioners are ballotted out, and ten others of the inhabitants chosen in their stead.
LAMP ACT.
Order, is preserved by industry. In 1769 an act was obtained, and in 1773 an amendment of the act, for lighting and cleaning the streets of Birmingham, and for removing obstructions that were prejudicial to the health or convenience of the inhabitants.
These acts were committed to the care of about seventy-six irresolute commissioners, with farther powers of preventing encroachments upon public ground; for it was justly observed, that robbery was a work of darkness, therefore to introduce light would, in some measure, protect property. That in a town like Birmingham, full of commerce and inhabitants, where necessity leads to continual action, no part of the twenty four hours ought to be dark. That, to avoid darkness, is sometimes to avoid insult; and that by the light of 700 lamps, many unfortunate accidents would be prevented.
It was also observed, that in a course of time, the buildings in some of the ancient streets had encroached upon the path, four or five feet on each side; which caused an irregular line, and made those streets eight or ten feet narrower, that are now used by 50,000 people, than they were, when used only by a tenth part of that number; and, that their confined width rendered the pa.s.sage dangerous to children, women, and feeble age, particularly on the market day and Sat.u.r.day evening.
That if former encroachments could not be recovered, future ought to be prevented.
And farther, that necessity pleads for a wider street now, than heretofore, not only because the inhabitants, being more numerous, require more room, but the buildings being more elevated, obstruct the light, the sun, and the air, which obstructions tend to sickness and inconveniency.
Narrow streets with modern buildings are generally dirty, for want of these natural helps; as Digbeth, St. Martin"s-lane, Swan-alley, Carr"s-lane, &c. The narrower the street, the less it can be influenced by the sun and the wind, consequently, the more the dirt will abound; and by experimental observations upon stagnate water in the street, it is found extremely prejudicial to health. And also, the larger the number of people, the more necessity to watch over their interest with a guardian eye.
It may farther be remarked, that an act of parliament ought to distribute justice with an impartial hand, in which case, content and obedience may reasonably be expected. But the acts before us carry a manifest partiality, one man claims a right to an encroachment into the street, of three or four feet, whilst another is restricted to twelve inches.
This inactive body of seventy-six, who wisely argue against the annihilation of one evil, because another will remain; had also powers to borrow a thousand pounds, to purchase and remove some obstructive buildings; and to defray the expence by a rate on the inhabitants, which, after deducting about one hundred and twenty pounds per ann. for deficiencies, amounted in
1774, to 912_l_.
1775, -- 902_l_.
1776, -- 947_l_.
1777, -- 965_l_.
1778, -- 1,012_l_.
1779, -- 1,022_l_.
1780, -- 1,021_l_.
Though the town was averse to the measure, as an innovation, they quickly saw its utility, and seemed to wish a more vigorous exertion of the commissioners; but numbers sometimes procrastinate design. If it is difficult to find five men of one mind, it is more difficult to find a superior number. That business which would run currently through the hands of five, stagnates at fifteen, the number required.
It is curious to observe a body of commissioners, every one of whom conducts his own private affairs with propriety and success, attack a question by the hour, which is as plain as the simplest proposition in the mathematicks, when not being able to reduce it, and their ammunition spent, leave the matter undetermined, and retreat in silence.
In works of manual operation a large number may be necessary, but in works of direction a small one facilitates dispatch.
Birmingham, a capacious field, by long neglect is over-grown with encroaching weeds. The gentle commissioners, appointed to reduce them, behold it an arduous work, are divided in opinion, and some withdraw the hand from the plough; certainly, _the harvest is great, and the labourers are few_. The manorial powers, which alone could preserve order, have slept for ages. Regularity has been long extinct. The desire of trespa.s.s is so prevalent, that I have been tempted to question; if it were not for the powers of the lamp act, feeble as they are, whether the many-headed-public, ever watchful of prey, would not in another century, devour whole streets, and totally prevent the pa.s.senger. Thus a supine jurisdiction abounds with _street-robbers_.
There are cases where the line of the street should inviolably be preserved, as in a common range of houses; therefore all projections above a given dimension infringe this rule.
There are other cases where taste would direct this line to be broken, as in buildings of singular size and construction, which should be viewed in recess. Those of a public nature generally come under this description, as the free-school, and the hotel, which ought to have fallen two or three yards back. What pity, that so n.o.ble an edifice as the theatre in New-street, should lose any of its beauty, by the prominence of its situation!
As Birmingham abounds with new streets, that were once private property, it is a question often discussed, In what point of time the land appropriated for such streets, ceases to be private? But as this question was never determined, and as it naturally rises before me, and is of importance, suffer me to examine it.
When building leases are granted, if the road be narrow, as was lately the case at the West end of New-street, the proprietor engages to give a certain portion of land to widen it. From that moment, therefore, it falls to the lot of the public, and is under the controul of the commissioners, as guardians of public property. I allow, if within memory, the grantor and the lessees should agree to cancel the leases, which is just as likely to happen as the powers of attraction to cease, and the moon to descend from the heavens; in this case, the land reverts again to its original proprietor.
Though the streets of Birmingham have for many ages been exposed to the hand of the encroacher, yet, by a little care, and less expence, they might in about one century be reduced to a considerable degree of use and beauty. In what light then shall we be viewed by the future eye, if we neglect the interest of posterity?
RELIGION AND POLITICS.
Although these two threads, like the warp and the woof, are very distinct things; yet, like them, they are usually woven together. Each possesses a strength of its own, but when united, have often become extremely powerful, as in the case of Henry the Third and the clergy.
This union, at times, subsisted from a very early date.
Power is the idol of man; we not only wish to acquire it, but also to increase and preserve it. If the magistrate has been too weak to execute his designs, he has backed his schemes with the aid of the church; this occurred with King Stephen and the Bishops.
Likewise, if a churchman finds his power ascendant in the human mind, he still wishes an addition to that power, by uniting another. Thus the Bishop of Rome, being master of the spiritual chair, stept also into the temporal.
Sometimes the ecclesiastical and civil governors appear in malign aspect, or in modern phrase, like a quarrel between the squire and the rector, which is seldom detrimental to the people. This was the case with Henry the Eighth and the church.
The curses of a priest hath sometimes brought a people into obedience to the King, when he was not able to bring them himself. One could not refrain from smiling, to hear a Bishop curse the people for obeying their Sovereign, and in a few months after, curse them again if they did not; which happened in the reign of King John. But, happy for the world, that these retail dealers in the wrath of heaven are become extinct, and the market is over.
Birmingham, in those remote periods of time, does not seem to have attended so much to religious and political dispute, as to the course music of her hammer. Peace seems to have been her characteristic--She paid obedience to that Prince had the good fortune to possess the throne, and regularly paid divine honours in St. Martin"s, because there was no other church. Thus, through the long ages of Saxon, Danish, and Norman government, we hear of no noise but that of the anvil, till the reign of Henry the Third, when her Lord joined the Barons against the Crown, and drew after him some of his mechanics, to exercise the very arms they had been taught to make; and where, at the battle of Evesham, he staked his life and his fortune, and lost both.
Things quickly returning into their former channel, she stood a silent spectator during that dreadful contest between the two roses, pursuing the tenor of still life till the civil wars of Charles I. when she took part with the Parliament, some of whose troops were stationed here, particularly at the Garrison and Camp-hill; the names of both originating in that circ.u.mstance.
Prince Rupert, as hinted before, approaching Birmingham in 1643 with a superior power, forced the lines, and as a punishment set fire to the town. His vengeance burned fiercely in Bull-street, and the affrighted inhabitants quenched the flames with a heavy fine.
In 1660, she joined the wish of the kingdom, in the restoration of the Stuart family. About this time, many of the curious manufactures began to blossom in this prosperous garden of the arts.
In 1688, when the nation chose to expel a race of Kings, though replete with good nature, because they had forgot the limits of justice; our peaceable sons of art, wisely considering, that oppression and commerce, like oil and water, could never unite, smiled with the rest of the kingdom at the landing of the Prince of Orange, and exerted their little a.s.sistance towards effecting the Revolution, notwithstanding the lessons of _divine right_ had been taught near ninety years.
In the reign of Queen Anne, when that flaming luminary, Dr. Sacheverel, set half the kingdom in blaze, the inhabitants of this region of industry caught the spark of the day, and grew warm for the church--They had always been inured to _fire_, but now we behold them between _two_.
As the doctor rode in triumph through the streets of Birmingham, this flimsy idol of party snuffed up the incense of the populace, but the more sensible with held their homage; and when he preached at Sutton Coldfield, where he had family connections, the people of Birmingham crowded in mult.i.tudes round his pulpit. But it does not appear that he taught his hearers to _build up Zion_, but perhaps to pull her down; for they immediately went and gutted a meeting-house.
It is easy to point out a time when it was dangerous to have been of the established church, and I have here pointed out one, when it was dangerous to profess any other.
We are apt to think the zeal of our fathers died with them, for I have frequently beheld with pleasure, the churchman, the presbyterian, and the quaker uniting their efforts, like brethren, to carry on a work of utility. The bigot of the last age casts a malicious sneer upon the religion of another, but the man of this pa.s.ses a joke upon his own.
A sameness in religious sentiment is no more to be expected, than a sameness of face. If the human judgment varies in almost every subject of plain knowledge, how can it be fixed in this, composed of mystery?
As the true religion is ever that which a man professes himself, it is necessary to enquire, What means, he that is right may use, to convert him that is wrong?
As the whole generations of f.a.ggot and torture, are extinct in this age of light, there seems only to remain fair arguments founded in reason, and these can only be brought as evidences upon the trial: The culprit himself, _by indefeasible right divine_, will preside as the judge. Upon a close enquiry it will be found, that his sentiments are as much his private property, as the coat that covers him, or the life which that coat incloses.
Is there not as much reason to punish my neighbour for differing in opinion from me, as to punish me, because I differ from him? Or, is there any to punish either?
If a man"s sentiments and practice in religious matters, appear even absurd, provided society is not injured, what right hath the magistrate to interfere?
The task is as easy to make the stream run upwards, as to form a nation of one mind. We may p.r.o.nounce with confidence, an age of bigotry is no age of philosophy.
The gentle hand of Brunswick, had swayed the British sceptre near half a century, ere all the sons of science in this meridian, were compleatly reconciled to this favourite line.