The National tribune., 1883-10-04
A SPLENDID CITY.
Birmingham, England, and Something
About Its Corporate Control.
Special Correspondence National Tribune.

BIRMINGHAM, sept. III.
In my last three letters / have described, |
somewhat minutely, the village life of the I
neighborheod OF Birmingham, and, if / have |
succeeded in conveying my own impressions, /
have made your readers acquainted with a /
district in which life is sterner battle with |
sorrier rewards to the victors than in any place |
that have ever seen. This impression, more
over, is deepened By the contrasts Of life pre-
sented by the splendorS of Birmingham. No |
where are there more splendid municipal |
buildings, more beautiful avenues, more charm |
ing suburbs than In Birmingham The past
ten years have seen large tracts of city land
cleared of ancient and unwholesome dwelling
places and covered with stately avenues of
noble architecture. This is no careless use of
words, The English builders of to-day have a
noble opportunity, and they use it as it deserves.
In the center of Birmingham there stands q
group of buildings which an American, from
whatever city he may come, cannot look upon
without regret that his own city's opportunity
had not been thus nobly used. Here, in an
ample space, are the Municipal Building, the
Town Hall, the POst-O Office, the Art Gallery,
and the Free Public Library, and such group
OF ofbuildings so ample, SO stately so wisely built,
out of wealth and noble PRIDE for use and good
and civic honor, have nowhere seen. The solid
English character has delighted in massive
architecture from the days of the Castle of
Dover and the Tower of London through the
age of the cathedrals and the later building of
palaces, down to this generation of makers of
buildings for tho common possession and the
noble uses of the peoples of cities.
Whatever the mystery of the government of
cities and towns, the English people have pene-
trated It, and there was no dissent when Mr.
Bright announced, at the opening of the Cob
den Coffee House the other day, that of all the
legislation of his time, none had proved more
serviceabie than the corporation act of 1885,
,rln,, ,,.I
The excellence of the local administration,
proclaimed to the new conner by the superb
architecture of the center of the city, is attested
IN detail throughout a visit to every part.
Clean streets, good drainage, pure water, effect
i've police, these things-eSsentia though they
are, and unattained as yet in the greatest
American cities-are fundamental necessities,
secured as matters of course in Birming gham
Indeed, had Birmingham no other claim TO
the attention of American travellers than this,
that from being squalid, unwholesome and
disorderly abode, it is now, by its own effort,
possessed of these four municipal essentials,
pure water, clean streets, good drainage, and
effective police, Birmingham would yet be one
of the most instructive places in all the world
to which the administrators of American local
government could betake themselves. But
these requisites are merely the foundation of
the Birmingham municipal housekeeping
They are, as / have said matters of course
While an American traveller may look with
envy upon these arrangements, q citizen of
| Birmingham, proud of his town, would point
to wholly different features as the reason of
| his pride.
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
| First of these would be the group of public
| buildings to which | have referred, the most
| interesting of which to American eyes is the
| Public Library. This is a superb building, with
ample reading rooms open to all eomers, and
with books at the service of every person
| vouched for by rate-payer. The most signih-
cant element of the Public Library admins
] tration, however, is not discovered at first.
| This clement is the distribution of books among
all classes of citizens by means of branch libra
ries in various parts of the town, whence books
| may be easily reached by laborers whose hours
| of work prevent them from reaching the CEN
tral library.
After the municipal buildings and the re-
Gently widened avenues, perhaps the most
! noteworthy feature of Birmingham is its abun-
dance of breathing spaces, not within the city,
unfortunately, but girdiing il, and as easy OF
| access as circumstances have permitted them
| to be made. Here too as IN the case of the
public libraries, the number and distribution
of the parks is wisely arranged for the good OF
| all the citizens. There is not, as in New York
| and Philadelphia, one vast tract of land set
| apart in such a way that the class of citizens
who need it most, the very poor, to whom a
carfare and weary ride are Obstacles are de-
| barred its use. On the contrary, Aston Hall
| Park, for instance, is on the confines of the
very quarter of Birmingham in which the sur
| viyal of ancient leases prevents that widening
of streets and removal of obsolete dwellings
| which the corporation is pressing with benign
effect elsewhere. And Aston Hall is made as
interesting as possible, the story of King
Charles visit in the palmy days of the Hal
being kept fresh, and the break in a great OAK
| stair being preserved as Cromwells cannon
balls left 1.-THE balls themselves lying
near by. And on a snltry Sunday morning
when the only other public places open II
the people of Birmingham were the churches
and the public houses, it was good to see ths
crowds that focked from the courts of tht
neighboring wretched quarter TO the shade o
| the Aston Hall Park trees. True, not all The
Birmingham parks are secured ut the cost OF tht
corporation, for one has been leased through
nine hundred and ninety-nine years at an an
nual rent of five shillings, payable by the cor
poration TO the owners estate, but the gooC
administration OF the corporations own park:
has encouraged this generosity. The same sen
sible view of the functions of parks which ha
led TO their distribution, has led also to tn,
establishment of cricket and tennis and bowl
ing greens within the parks, that one injury o
city life may be neutralized in part at least,
THE WORK OF EDUCATION.
Nor is this all. The corporation, having Sc
cured pure water, good drainage, clean streets
efficient police, a public library with brauehe
numerous and accessible and series of park
for the good of all its citizens of all ages an'
conditions is now proceeding to arrange will
especial care and effectiveness, for the wellar
of its rising generation. The work of eduea
J | ton and the administration of the compulsor,
law is of course, left by the national govern
ment to the local authorities, subject TO tn
r stimulus of national grants to supplement tn
| funds derived from local taxation. As wou
naturally be expected from the administration
5 of the other functions of local government thi
is thoroughly administered in Birmingham
and not only are children watched over an
r compelled to attend school, but they are slim
ulated to acquire habits of thrift by the use Q
penny school banks, the local supplement- of tn
National Penny Postal Savings Bank. An III
school, too, formerly helped by the nationa
: | government, is now found self-sustaining an
able to do efficient work.
!, In great center of metal industries such a
- Birmingham the publication of the atmospher
| is problem not yet solved, complicated as
r is by the use of biLuminous coal and the recil
;, rocal complaints of masters and men as to tn
responsibility for violations of the smoke SUP
J, pressian laws. Certain it is that the smok
, nuisance exists to an exceedingly unwholesom
= extent Whatever the difficulty in removin
}, this, the corporation has begun efficiently
palliate it, by supplying public baths not absc
lutely free, but SO cheaply that there is no eA
!. cuse for anyone who neglects them.
SiENDIoANCY.
Indeed except in the suppression OF tn