he whittling away
of a good many old-fashioned shops and traders; but they are not all
gone, and some long--established businesses still survive and prosper in
our midst.

I will just mention one or two. If the reader of these lines will walk
down the Lower Priory, which leads out of the Old Square--or what was
the Old Square--he will see at the bottom of the said Lower Priory, on
the right hand side, a sedate and solid brick building. He will see a
brass knocker on the door and a brass plate bearing the name of
Smallwood and Sons--"only this, and nothing more." This is the business
house of the oldest firm of wine merchants in Birmingham, and I believe
that these premises in the Lower Priory have been in the possession of
the Smallwood family since the days of the Commonwealth; and, further,
that the present active members of the firm are the fifth and sixth
generation of Smallwood and Sons, wine merchants. There is no big shop
window full of bottles of cheap heterogeneous wines and spirits. It
might be the house of some good old doctor, or the office and home of
some ripe old lawyer. If you step inside the office, you see few signs
of Bacchus or his bowl, but you do see some antiquated rooms, some
quaint furniture, and a nice dry, well-seasoned appearance that denotes
age. There are full and capacious cellars on the premises of
course--cellars containing a sort of well in which the books of the firm
were buried at the time of the Birmingham riots; but, so far as outward
appearance is concerned, Sir Wilfrid Lawson or the top Major-Domo of the
Band of Hope might pass by the lintels of the doorway in Lower Priory
without a sigh. With regard to Messrs. Smallwood's cellars, their
subterranean premises are honeycombed with catacombs containing the
remains of some grand old spirits and big bins of choice vintage and
various other wines.

It might be thought that such a very unbusiness-looking place would be
quietly draining away, especially in face of the flaring competition in
the wine and spirit trade. I am, however, glad to think and know that
such old-established houses as Smallwood and Sons can bear up against
the levelling down processes that characterise the more pushing branches
of the wine and spirit trade. There are still a fair number of people
who like to buy their wine from dealers who seem to have inherited
certain trade instincts and experiences, and who can be relied upon to
supply what they know to be good