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* BIRMINGHAM. 112 BIRNEY. 1861) ; Timmins, The Resources, Products, and Industrial History of Birmingham and the Mid- land Tlardaure District (London, 1800) ; Shaw, Mioiicipal Ooiernment in Great Britain (New York, 1895). BIRMINGHAM. A city and the county-seat of .Tetl'orson County, Ala., and an important manufacturinf; centre, '.I7 miles northwest of Montgomery : on the Ceniral Hailroad of Georgia, the Louisville and Nashville, the Southern, the Alabama Great Southern, and the Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham railroads (Map: Alabama, C 2). Birmingham was laid out in June, 1871, by the Klyton Land Company, and in the following Decemljer, with a population of less than 1000, it was chartered as a city. It did not progress rapidly luitil the end of 1880, when the great natural resources of the vicinity began to be developed, and, owing to its situation in a region rich in iron, coal, and limestone, it has become one of the most important and prosperous cities in the South. The chief industry is the manufacture of iron and steel in various fonns. Besides pig-iron furnaces, foundries, engine and boiler works, maeliine - shops, and car - wheel works, it has cotton-factories, packing-houses, cottonseed-oil mills, and extensive iron and coal mining and lumber interests. Birmingham has three parks of great beauty — Capitol, East Lake, and I^akeview parks — an opera-house, and sev- eral fine buildings, prominent among which are the Jefferson Theatre, the Jefferson County court- house, the L^nion passongei'-station. 000 feet long and 200 feet wide, and Saint Vincent Hospital, completed in inOO, at a cost of .$250,000. About five miles northeast of the city, at East Lake, is Howard College (Baptist), organized in 1841. Birmingham is governed under a charter of 18n8-!)n, which provides for a mayor, elected bi- ennially, and a city council, which confirms the mayor's nominations to the board of education. The police commission, of seven members, is elect- ed on the general ticket with other officials. The city expends about .$300,000 yearly, the main items being: Police department, .$.35.000 : tire department, .$45,000; and schools, $30,000, exclu- sive of $20,000 devoted bv the State and countv. Population, in 1S80. 308G ; in 1890, 26,178; in 1900, 3S,415. BIRMINGHAM FESTIVAL, The. A peri- odical musical festival begun in Birmingham, England, in 1708. and given every three years. At one time the programme was made up largely from Handel, and at all times the character of the nuisic lias lieen of the liigliest order. The custom is in a measure a commemoration of the founding of Dr. Ash's hospital in the town in 1700, and the proceeds are given to the perpetua- tion of this institution. BIRNAM, ber'nnm. A hill 1324 feet high, in the east of Perthshire, Scotland, near Dunkeld, 12 miles northwest of Perth, coninumding a line view of the valley of the Tay (Map: Scotland, E 3). It was formerly covered by part of an ancient roy;il forest, which Shakespeare has im- mortalized in his trage<ly of Mncbrth. BIRNBATTMER 'WALD, bem'bou-mer villt (Ger. Birnbdiim. pear-tree + Wald, wood, forest; a translati(m of the Latin ad pirum, at the jiear- tree.) A highland of Carniola, near the river Frigidus, northeast of Triest. Theodosius won a vietorv over Arbogast and Eugenius there in 394. BIRNEY, ber'ni, Datd Bell (1825-C4). An American soldier, the son of James G. Bimey. He was born in Iliintsville, Ala., graduated at Andover, studied law in Cincinnati, and prac- ticed for several years in Philadelphia. He en- tered the Federal Army as lieutenant-colonel in the Twenty-third Pennsylvania Infantry, in April, 1801 ; was raised to the rank of brigadier- general of volunteers in February, 1802: served with great gallantry in the Peninsular campaign, distinguishing liimself particularly at Yorktown and Williamsburg, and afterwards took a con- spicuous part in the second battle of Bull Kun, and in the battles of Fredericksburg and (han- cellorsville. In May, 1803, he became a major- general of volunteers, and during |>art of the battle of Gettysburg commanded the Third Army Corps. From May to June, 1804, lie commanded a division under Hancock, and rendered efficient services in the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania ; and after July of this year he was in command of the Tenth Corps of the .rmy of the James. He died on October 18, 1864, in Philadelphia, of a fever contracted during this last campaign. Consult Vol. XV. of the United Service Magazine (New York, 1865). BIRNEY, James Gillespie ( 1792-1857). An .mericaii leformer, leader of the conservative Abolitionists during the anti-slavery struggle. He was born in Danville, Ky., studied at Tran- sylvania University, and graduated at Princeton in 1810. He then studied law under Alexander J. Dallas in Philadelpliia, began practice in Dan- ville in 1814, and was elected to the State Legis- lature two years later. In 1818 he removed to a plantation in the vicinity of Huntsville. Ala., and in the following year served in the .labama Legislature. He resumed his law practice in Huntsville in 1823, was elected prosecuting at- torney there, and soon became the most success- ful practitioner in northerii Ahibama, but turned liis attention more and more to the .study of the slavery question, and in 1832-33 acted as agent of the Colonization Society (q.v.) for the dis- trict emliracing Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, L(misiana, and -rkansas. In November, 1833, lie returned to Danville, Ky., where he freed his own slaves, and devoted himself with zeal and energy to the cause of gradual emaiicijiation. though he soon became a convert to imniediat- ism. He organized the Kentucky Anti-Slavery Society in 1835, and in the .same year planned an anti-slavery |)aper; but, as he was unalile to find a publisher in Kentucky, lie removed to Cincin- nati, Ohio, where, on .January 1, 1836, he issued the first number of The philanthropist. During the next few years his press was several times destroyed by mobs, and he liimself was repeated- ly tlireatened with persoii;il violence and death; but in spite of opposition his jiapcr rapidly at- tained a wide circulation and exerted a |)ower- ful inlluence among those who, like himself, be- ; lieved in abolition, but opposed the radicalism ! of (Jarrison and his followers. (See Garrison, William Li.ovn.) Both as an editor and as a , speaker, though firm and unflinching in his ad- vocacy of what he believed to be right, he up- held the Constitution, opposed all violence and fanaticism, and was uniformly courteous, toler- ant, and fair. He spent much of his time m