that to the present day, the workers in brass have steadily increased, until they now number about 10,000 persons employed in that department. But the manufacture of firearms may be considered to have been the great distinctive industry of the town for more than 200 years. Up to the middle of the seventeenth century London monopolized the fabrication of these weapons of war, when it was transferred to Birmingham. Indeed, its skill and labour all the way back to the morning twilight of written history have wrought upon the scythes, sickles, and reaping hooks of war "for home and exportation." On the battle grounds of Hastings, Lewes, Evesham, Tewkesbury, and Flodden Field, hundreds of these tools bearing the Birmingham brand lay scattered about with hacked edges or broken points. Perhaps thousands of the tomahawks lifted by North American Indians against "the pale faces" of New England and Canada wore the same mark. And since firearms superseded these weapons of hand-to-hand fight, it is doubtful if a single battle has taken place in the civilized or uncivilized world in which muskets and rifles manufactured here have not played their part in the work of slaughter. Ill-natured persons of a suspicious turn of mind, might infer or expect that the people of Birmingham would delight in foul weather and ill winds to other communities, and would cry with Ephesian
