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12 the time when letters were directed to Birmingham, near King's Norton, or, "near Wednesbury." It must have been "The Black Country" that built Birmingham, and supplied it with the raw material of its manufactures 300 years ago; so that these wares indicate how far back this mineral district was worked for coal and iron.

Birmingham, in its mechanical industries and productions, has followed the fashions and customs of the world very closely, and supplied every art and occupation with all the working tools and appliances it needed. It has worked to order" without asking questions for conscience sake in regard to the uses made of its articles of iron and brass. It has made all kinds of cheap and showy jewels for the noses and ears of African beaux and belles, and stouter bracelets of iron for the hands and feet of slaves driven in to the sea-board. In the same shops and on the same benches, gilt and silver buckles were made by the million for the shoes of the nobility and gentry when Charles II came back to the throne and brought with him the court fashions and moralities of the continent. That was what archæologists would call the bronze period, when articles of brass slightly gilt or washed with silver were in high fashion in the upper ranks of society. Buckles and metal buttons then began to compete with iron wares in the business of the town; and from