Register Offices.—­The custom of hiring servants at “statute fairs” and “mops” still exists in theory if not in practice, in several parts of the adjoining counties but thanks to the low scale for advertising, such a system is not needed now.  The introduction of register offices was a great improvement, the first opened in Birmingham being at 26, St. John Street (then a respectable neighbourhood), in January 1777, the fee being 6d. for registering and 3d. for an enquiry.  There are a number of respectable offices of this kind now, but it cannot be hidden that there have been establishments so called which have been little better than dens of thievery, the proprietors caring only to net all the half-crowns and eighteen-pences they could extract from the poor people who were foolish enough to go to them.

Rejoicing, Days of.—­Great were the rejoicings in Birmingham, October 9, 1746, when the news came of the battle of Culloden.  The capture of Quebec, in 1759, was celebrated here on December 3, by a gneral illumination; the peace-loving Quakers, however, had to rejoice over broken windows, for the mob smashed them, one unfortunate Friend having to provide 115 squares of glass before his lights were perfect again.  We were loyal in those days, and when we heard of our gallant boys thrashing their opponents, up went our caps, caring not on whose heads lay “the blood-guiltiness,” and so there was shouting and ringing of bells on May 20, 1792, in honour of Admiral Rodney and his victory.  The next great day of rejoicing, however, was for the Peace of Amiens in 1802, and it was notable the more especially from the fact of Soho Works being illuminated with gas, for the first time in the world’s history used for such a purpose.  In 1809, we put up the first statue in all England to the hero of Trafalgar, and we made the 6th of June the day to rejoice over it, because forsooth, it happened to be the jubilee day of George the Third.  What he had done for us to rejoice about would be hard to tell; even more difficult is the query why we were so gleeful and joyous on February 1, 1820, when his successor was proclaimed.  George IV.’s Coronation was celebrated here by the public roasting of oxen, and an immense dinner party in front of Beardsworth’s Repository.

Religious Queerosities.—­Among all its multifarious manufactures it would have been strange, indeed, if Birmingham had not produced something new in religious matters, and accordingly we find that in 1840 some of our advanced townsmen had formed themselves into a “Universal Community Society of Rational Religionists.”  We have not met with a copy of their rules, though Tidd Pratt registered them as of a Friendly Society (under cap. 4, Will.  IV.), but the county magistrates, at the November Quarter Sessions would not pass them nor seal them.  Of late years there have been introduced amongst us several other curiosities in the way of religious bodies, like the Theists, the Polytheists, the Positivists, the Secularists, the Latter-day Saints, and others.