with him in Coventry gaol; a romantic feat not yet, I believe, set to poetry.
West Bromwich has grown in the last half century with the rapidity of an Illinois village. In 1811, its population numbered about 7,500; it now probably exceeds 50,000, and is to have a member of Parliament under the new Act. A great variety of manufactures are carried on here, of which box-irons, stoves, grates, coffee-mills, and iron bedsteads are the most noted and extensive.
A few miles further in the same direction you come to Wednesbury, which looks in print like the middle of the week, but is commonly pronounced "Wedgebury." As its name indicates, it has a Saxon basis and history, being called after the old Saxon Jove, Woden. Here the illustrious princess Ethelfleda, daughter of King Alfred, built a strong castle in 916, on the site of the present parish church, though the proof of its erection is perhaps more legendary than lapidary, as no traces of its existence remain. The Doomsday Book describes the village in 1085 as containing three hides of land, one servant, sixteen villains, and eleven borderers, the latter perhaps being what are called in America "squatters." Another item shows the average condition of the country at the time: "There is a mill of two shillings rent, and one acre of meadow; also a wood two miles in length and one in breadth."
