is made, are situated at West Bromwich.  The proprietors have benevolently and wisely made arrangements for the education of their workmen and their families, which are worthy of imitation in all those great factories where the plan, which originated in Lancashire, has not been already adopted.  A letter of introduction will be required in order to view Messrs. Chance’s establishment, of which we shall say more when noting the social state of the Birmingham operatives.

Papier mache.—­Messrs. Jennens and Bettridge’s works are so well known that it is only necessary to refer to them for the purpose of saying that in their show-rooms some new application of the art which they have carried to such perfection is constantly to be found.  Pianos, cradles, arm-chairs, indeed complete drawing-room suites, cornices, door-plates, and a variety of ornaments are displayed, in addition to the tea-trays and tea-chests in which the art of japanning first became known to us.

Although Messrs. Jennens and Co. have the largest establishment in Birmingham, there are several others who produce capital work; among them may be named Mr. Thomas Lane and Messrs. M’Callum and Hodgson, who both exhibited specimens of great merit at the last Birmingham Exhibition of manufactures.

But metals afford the great staple of employment in Birmingham, and we shall avail ourselves, in describing the leading trades, and touching on the social position of the workmen, of the admirable letters on Labour and the Poor in Birmingham which appeared in the Morning Chronicle in the course of 1850. {81}

* * * * *

Birmingham buttons.—­“A Brummagem Button” is the old-fashioned nickname for a Birmingham workman.  The changes of fashion, and the advances of other manufactures, have deprived that trade of its ancient pre-eminence over all other local pursuits; but the “button trade,” although not the same trade which made great fortunes in a previous generation, still employs five or six thousand hands, of which one-half are women and children.

In the middle of the eighteenth century a plain white metal button was made, which may occasionally be seen in remote rural districts, on the green coats of old yeomen, wearing hereditary leather breeches.  At that period the poorer classes wore coarse horn or wooden buttons, chiefly home made, and the tailor made, as well as the clothes, buttons covered with cloth.  By degrees very handsome gilt buttons came into wear, and continued to employ many hands, while the blue coat which figures in the portraits of our grandfathers remained in fashion.

In 1826, the Florentine, or covered button, now in almost universal use, which is manufactured by machinery with the aid of women and children, was introduced, and by 1829 the gilt button trade had been almost destroyed.