s, and a variety of
ornaments are displayed, in addition to the tea-trays and tea-chests in which
the art of japanning first became known to us.

Although Messrs. Jennens and Co. have the largest establishment in
Birmingham, there are several others who produce capital work; among them may
be named Mr. Thomas Lane and Messrs. M'Callum and Hodgson, who both exhibited
specimens of great merit at the last Birmingham Exhibition of manufactures.

But metals afford the great staple of employment in Birmingham, and we shall
avail ourselves, in describing the leading trades, and touching on the social
position of the workmen, of the admirable letters on Labour and the Poor in
Birmingham which appeared in the Morning Chronicle in the course of 1850.
{81}

* * * * *

BIRMINGHAM BUTTONS.--"A Brummagem Button" is the old-fashioned nickname for a
Birmingham workman. The changes of fashion, and the advances of other
manufactures, have deprived that trade of its ancient pre-eminence over all
other local pursuits; but the "button trade," although not the same trade
which made great fortunes in a previous generation, still employs five or six
thousand hands, of which one-half are women and children.

In the middle of the eighteenth century a plain white metal button was made,
which may occasionally be seen in remote rural districts, on the green coats
of old yeomen, wearing hereditary leather breeches. At that period the
poorer classes wore coarse horn or wooden buttons, chiefly home made, and the
tailor made, as well as the clothes, buttons covered with cloth. By degrees
very handsome gilt buttons came into wear, and continued to employ many
hands, while the blue coat which figures in the portraits of our grandfathers
remained in fashion.

In 1826, the Florentine, or covered button, now in almost universal use,
which is manufactured by machinery with the aid of women and children, was
introduced, and by 1829 the gilt button trade had been almost destroyed.

The change produced great distress, vast numbers of persons were thrown out
of work, who could not at once turn to any other employment. In 1830 a
deputation from the gilt button trade waited upon George IV. and the
principal nobility, to solicit their patronage. The application succeeded,
coloured coats with metal buttons came into fashion, and dandies of the first
water appeared in bright snuff-coloured, pale green, and blue coats, such as
are now only worn by Paul Bedf