Page:A century of Birmingham life- or, A chronicle of local events, from 1741 to 1841 (IA centuryofbirming02lang).pdf/343



, but surely, the town is encroaching on the country, and, bit by bit, Birmingham is losing its rural picturesqueness and country aspect. It will be a long time yet before all its gardens and pleasant suburbs are absorbed by the growing demand for new habitations for the ever-increasing people. The rapid growth of population is especially due to the enormous immigration which was continually going on from all the surrounding towns and villages, and from places far away throughout the kingdom. We shall see that the pleasant vales and beautiful hill country of Wales send their quota of food-seekers here, who formed quite a little colony to themselves. From the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, they came: and all strangers were welcome. For Birmingham was a free town. No guild or corporation imposed rules of restriction upon citizenship: and so the industrious, the ingenious, and the persevering found this their natural home, where each could develop his abilities unfettered, and at once profit by the gifts with which he was endowed. Still, notwithstanding this perpetual flow of immigrants, the town continued for some years yet to wear those country robes of garden and field, which, combined with its admirable situation, made it, even in the memories of men not farther advanced towards the "sere and yellow leaf" than the present writer, a place lovely to behold. The stranger visiting us in this year of grace, 1868, can form no idea of the extreme beauty of the Birmingham of the present decade.

We now proceed to cull a few examples illustrative of the appearance of the town between 181 and 1821. And first we quote two advertisements of gardens at Summer Hill:—

March 16, 1812,—To be Sold, and immediate Possession given, a Garden, No. 72, in the Upper Walk, facing the Bottom of Summer Hill Terrace, in a high State of Cultivation,