ed
that 20,000,000 pins were made every day, either for home or export use,
but the total is now put at 50,000,000, notwithstanding which one can
hardly be in the company of man, woman, or child, for a day without
being asked "Have you such a thing as a pin about you?" Pins were first
manufactured here in quantities about 1750, the Ryland family having the
honour of introducing the trade. It formerly took fourteen different
persons to manufacture a single pin, cutters, headers, pointers,
polishers, &c., but now the whole process is performed by machinery. The
proportion of pins made in Birmingham is put at 37,000,000 per day, the
weight of brass wire annually required being 1,850,000 lbs., value
L84,791; iron wire to the value of L5,016 is used for mourning and hair
pins. The census reports say there are but 729 persons employed (of whom
495 are females) in the manufacture of the 11,500,000,000 pins sent from
our factories every year.

_Planes_.--Carpenters' planes were supplied to our factors in 1760 by
William Moss, and his descendants were in the business as late as 1844.
Messrs. Atkins and Sons have long been celebrated makers, their hundreds
of patterns including all kinds that could possibly he desired by the
workman. Woodwork is so cut, carved, and moulded by machinery now, that
these articles are not so much in demand, and the local firms who make
them number only a dozen.

_Plated Wares_.--Soho was celebrated for its plated wares as early as
1766; Mr. Thomason (afterwards Sir Edward) commenced the plating in
1796; and Messrs. Waterhouse and Ryland, another well-known firm in the
same line, about 1808, the material used being silver rolled on copper,
the mountings silver, in good work, often solid silver. The directory of
1780 enumerates 46 platers, that of 1799 96 ditto; their names might now
be counted on one's finger ends, the modern electro-plating having
revolutionised the business, vastly to the prosperity of the town.

_Puzzles_.--The Yankee puzzle game of "Fifteen," took so well when
introduced into this country (summer of 1880), that one of our local
manufacturers received an order to supply 10,000 gross, and he was
clever enough to construct a machine that made 20 sets per minute.

_Railway Waggon Works_.--With the exception of the carriage building
works belonging to the several great railway companies, Saltley may be
said to be the headquarters of this modern branch of industry, in which
thousand