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 trespass 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 passenger.  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 noble 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.