policy on the part of such moneyed men as the late Sir Josiah Mason, Isaac Horton, and others of somewhat similar calibre.  Going away from the immediate centre of the town architectural improvements will be noted on all hands, Snow Hill, for one place, being evidently in the regenerative throes of a new birth, with its Gothic Arcade opposite the railway station, and the new circus at the foot of the hill, where for so many long years there has been nothing but a wreck and a ruin.  In close neighbourhood, Constitution Hill, Hampton Street, and at the junction of Summer Lane, a number of handsome houses and shops have lately been erected by Mr. Cornelius Ede, in the early Gothic style, from designs by Mr. J.S.  Davis, the architect of the Snow Hill Arcade, the whole unquestionably forming a very great advance on many former street improvements.  The formation in 1880 of John Bright Street as an extension of the Bristol Road (cost L30,000) has led to the erection of many fine buildings in that direction; the opening-out of Meetinghouse Yard and the alterations in Floodgate Street (in 1879, at a cost of L13,500), has done much for that neighbourhood; the widening of Worcester Street and the formation of Station Street, &c., thanks to the enlargement of the Central Station, and the remodelling of all the thoroughfares in the vicinity of Navition Street and Worcester Wharf, also arising therefrom, are important schemes now in progress in the same direction; and in fact there is hardly any district within the borough boundaries in which improvements of more or less consequence are not being made, or have been planned, the gloomy old burial grounds having been turned into pleasant gardens at a cost of over L10,000, and even the dirty water-courses known as the river Rea and Hockley brook have had L12,000 worth of cleaning out bestowed upon them.  It is not too much to say that millions have been spent in improving Birmingham during the past fifty years, not reckoning the cost of the last and greatest improvement of all—­the making of Corporation Street, and the consequent alterations on our local maps resulting therefrom.  The adoption of the Artizans’ Dwelling Act, under the provisions of which the Birmingham Improvement Scheme has been carried out, was approved by the Town Council, on the 16th of October, 1875.  Then, on the 15th of March, 1876, followed the Local Government Board enquiry; and on the 17th of June, 1876, the provisional order of the Board, approving the scheme, was issued.  The Confirming Act received the Royal assent on the 15th of August, 1876.  On the 6th of September, 1880, a modifying order was obtained, with respect to the inclusion of certain properties and the exclusion of others.  The operations under the scheme began in August, 1878, when the houses in New Street were pulled down.  In April, 1879, by the removal of the Union Hotel, the street was continued into Cherry Street:  and further extensions have been made in the following order:—­ Cherry Street