Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/90

78 cornerstone to cornerstone, and cling thereto as he descended.

Football.—See "Sports."

Forgeries.—The manufacture of bogus bank-notes was carried on here, at one time, to an alarming extent, and even fifty years ago, though he was too slippery a fish for the authorities to lay hold of, it was well-known there was a clever engraver in the Inkleys who would copy anything put before him for the merest trifle, even though the punishment was most severe. Under "Notable Offences" will he found several cases of interest in this peculiar line of business.

Forks.—Our ancestors did without them, using their fingers. Queen Elizabeth had several sent to her from Spain, but she seldom used them, and we may be quite sure it was long after that ere the taper fingers of the fair Brums ceased to convey the titbits to their lips. Even that sapient sovereign, James I., the Scotch Solomon, did not use the foreign invention, believing possibly with the preacher who denounced them in the pulpit that it was an insult to the Almighty to touch the meat prepared for food with anything but one's own fingers. Later on, when the coaches began to throng the road, gentlemen were in the habit of carrying with them their own knife and fork for use, so seldom were the latter articles to be found at the country inns, and the use of forks cannot be said to have become general more than a hundred years ago.

Forward.—The self-appropriated motto of our borough, chosen at one of the earliest committee meetings of the Town Council in 1839. Mr. William Middlemore is said to have proposed the use of the word as being preferable to any Latin, though "Vox populi, vox Dei," and other like appropriate mottoes, have been suggested. Like all good things, however, the honour of originating this motto has been contested, the name of Robert Crump Mason haring been given as its author.

Fogs.—Bad as it may be now and then in the neighbourhood of some of our works, it there is one thing in nature we can boast of more than another, it is our comparatively clear atmosphere, and it is seldom that we are troubled with fogs of any kind. In this respect, at ad events, the Midland metropolis is better off than its Middlesex namesake, with its "London particular," as Mr. Guppy calls it. But there was one day (17th) in December, 1879, when we were, by some atmospheric phenomena, treated to such "a peasouper" that we must note it as being the curiosity of the day, the street traffic being put a stop to while the fog lasted.

Folk-lore.—Funny old sayings are to be met with among the quips and quirks of "folk-lore" that tickled the fancies of our grandfathers. The following is to be found with several changes, but it is too good to be lost:-

Fountains.—Messrs. Messenger and Sons designed, executed, and erected, to order of the Street Commissioners, in 1851, a very neat, and for the situation, appropriate, fountain in the centre of the Market Hall, but which has since been removed to Highgate Park, where it appears sadly out of place.

A number of small drinking-fountains or taps have been presented to the town by benevolent persons (one of the neatest being that put up at the expense of Mr. William White in Bristol Road in 1876), and granite cattle-troughs are to be found in Constitution Hill, Icknield Street, Easy Row, Albert Street, Gosta Green, Five Ways, &c. In July, 1876, Miss Ryland paid