L100.  As there is a good market here for pearls, no doubt many others have been found that “have not come to light.”  A few years back, “pearl fisheries” of rather an extraordinary kind were here and there to be found in the outskirts, the prices of good workable shell having risen to to such an extent that it paid to hunt for and dig up the scrap flung away in former years, as much as 15s. to 20s. per bag being obtained for some of these finds.  One smart little master who recollected where his scrap was deposited some years before, in the neighbourhood of St. Luke’s, paid the spot a visit, and finding it still unbuilt upon, set to work, and carted most of it back, and having improved tools, made a handsome profit by this resurrection movement.—­ See “Trades.”

Pens.—­The question as to who made the first steel pen has often been debated; but though Perry and Mason, Mitchell and Gillott, and others besides, have been named as the real original, it is evident that someone had come before them; for, in a letter written at least 200 years back (lately published by the Camden Society), the writer, Mary Hatton, offered to procure some pens made of steel for her brother, as “neither the glass pens nor any other sort was near so good.”  Silver pens were advertised for sale in the Morning Chronicle, in June, 1788, as well as “fountain pens;” and it has been claimed that an American supplied his friends with metallic pens a dozen years prior to that date.  There was a Sheffield artisan, too, before our local men came to the front, who made some pens on the principle of the quill, a long hollow barrel, pointed and split; but they were considered more in the light of curiosities than for use, and fetched prices accordingly.  Mr. James Perry is said to have given his workmen 5s. each for making pens, as late as 1824; and Mr. Gillott got 1s. each for a gross he made on the morning of his marriage.  In 1835, the lowest wholesale price was 5s. per gross; now they can be had at a trifle over 1d. per gross.  Even after the introduction of presses for the manufacture of steel pens (in 1829), there was considerable quantities of little machines made here for cutting quill pens, the “grey goose quill” being in the market for school use as late as 1855, and many bankers and others have not yet discarded them.  In May, 1853, a quantity of machinery was sent out to America, where many skilled workmen had gone previously; and now our Yankee cousins not only make their own pens, and run us close in all foreign markets, but actually send their productions to Birmingham itself.—­See “Trades.”

People’s Hall.—­The foundation stone of the People’s Hall, corner of Loveday and Princip Streets, was laid on Easter Monday, 1841, by General (then Colonel) Perronet Thompson.  The cost of the building was L2,400, and, as its name implies, it was intended, and for a short time used, as a place for assemblies, balls, and other public purposes.  Like a number of other “institutions for the people,” it came to grief, and has long been nothing more than a warehouse.