Part 7

The jewellery trade is not carried out in large factories with tall, towering stacks, powerful steam engines, &c. Machinery may be used in certain branches of the trade for all I know, but, speaking generally, working jewellers sit at their bench, play their blow-pipe, and with delicate appliances and deft hands put together the precious articles of fancy they make.

Handsome lockets are not turned in a lathe. Diamond and ruby rings are not productions that are run through a machine and sold by the gross, "subject." Nor are jewelled pendants made in presses, nor beautiful bracelets banged into shape by the mechanical thump of a stamping machine. The consequence is that jewellery work of the finest fashion is made in small establishments, but as I have said there are so many of these that the "turn-out" in the way of "hands" is a formidable element in our local population.

It is, we know, an ancient saw that tells us that two of a trade cannot agree, but it has always struck me that jewellers belie this generally accepted maxim. I came to this conclusion from knowing and visiting a colony of goldfinches--I mean master jewellers, who are quite civil to each other, will sit at meat and drink together, go to the same place of worship, and generally behave as friends, neighbours, and Christians.

How it was that these employer blow-pipers could maintain and assume such a benign and almost brotherly attitude towards each other was a little puzzling to me till I thought the matter out. Jewellers they might all be, but they did not all jewel alike. They rowed in the same boat, but not with the same sculls--to use Jerrold's old joke, They blowed the same pipe, but played different tunes. In a word they produced different varieties of jewellery, and consequently did not cut each other's throats in competition. One would chiefly make chains, another lockets and pendants, a third studs and sleeve links, a fourth rings, a fifth bracelets and brooches, and another miscellaneous high-class productions, including mayoral chains, &c., &c. Under these circumstances the two or three of a trade to whom I have referred have been able to agree, and will be able to maintain good fellowship till such times as some largely enterprising bold blow-piper forms himself into a large syndicate, resolves to make everything himself, and crush down all competition. But that time is not yet.

In speaking of the jewellery trade in Birmingham, I think I am safe in saying that at any rate until recently the town, now a city, has not enjoyed full credit for the high-class work it produces. For a long time it was regarded as the workshop of cheap "sham" jewellery, and that if you wanted really good things you must go to London and buy in the marts of New Bond Street.

If any such heathen now exist, and I suspect they do, they would be rather surprised if they knew how much London sold jewellery is made in Birmingham. Purchasers have the pleasure of buying in Bond Street, and of having bracelets, bangles, rings and lockets put in cases with a well-known West-end firm's name on it, and that is something of which they are proud, and for which they are willing to pay. And they do have to pay. In proof of which I will tell a true story. Some years ago I knew a Birmingham manufacturing jeweller whose line was gold and silver pencil cases. I was looking over his show cases one day when he picked up a small good pencil case suitable to put on a lady's chain. My friend told me chat his trade price for this article was 3s. 6d., and he had seen it marked--his own make--18s. in Regent Street shops. I have known of others in the fancy trades tell a similar story.

For instance, a manufacturer once told me that he had made gold ware for the Royal table, but not directly. His order came from a West-end house and his name was to be altogether suppressed.

In some preceding remarks I referred to cheap sham jewellery. There is a very considerable amount of it made in Birmingham, and "gilt jewellery" is the name by which it is known. Respecting this trade and its productions I can, perhaps, tell a few of my readers something that may rather surprise them. Not many years ago I wished to see and purchase some of this gilt jewellery in order to make gay and glorious a Christmas tree--Heaven forbid, of course, that my friends or myself should adorn ourselves with such baubles.

I went to a manufacturer of these wares to make my purchases, and hoped to buy cheaply. And I did; at a price indeed that rather astonished me. For instance, I was shown some brilliant looking brooches of good design and finish, and sparkling with diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, of rich lustre--or, I should say, imitations of these precious stones. I looked at these handsome productions and thought a good price would be asked for them. I was, as I have hinted however, rather more than astonished to find that I could make a very good selection at from 15s. to 18s. per dozen.

Just fancy, these brilliant brooches adorned with gems of purest ray serene--that is, to the naked, unexpert eye--well-fashioned in the matter of workmanship, and looking of, at least, eighteen carat gold, and yet they could be purchased at the rate of from fifteen to eighteen pence each. What, however, staggered me still more was to find that there was a lower deep still in the matter of price. On my venturing to remark to the warehouse-man who showed me the articles mentioned, that I supposed they were the very cheapest things in the trade, he remarked, "Oh dear no, we don't do anything in the cheap stuff line. If you want that you must go to Messrs. So-and-So, in Blank Street."

I went to the cheap firm he named in Blank Street, and there sure enough found cheap stuff and no mistake. Brooches and lockets at 12s. a dozen and even less, and handsome watch chains at the rate of about 10d. each. I must add, however, that the makers would not dispose of less than a dozen of each article shewn. Perhaps they could hardly be expected to sell retail at such prices as I have named.

Having obtained the "Open Sesame" to the jewelled caves or warehouses of the gilt jewellers I came away loaded with gems, and my purse but very little lighter. So well indeed did some of my purchases look when I got them home that I could not see much difference between them and the real articles. Consequently, when I now see fair ladies gaily bedecked with a superfluity of handsome lustrous trinkets I think of the gilt jewellery trade, and brooches at 15s. per dozen, less a discount doubtless to the trade.

Leaving, now, the gold and gilt jewellery trades, which, as I have said, form a large industry in our midst, let me just briefly refer to some of the odd trades that are carried on in Birmingham. Among these I will first of all mention the manufacture of ship Logs, because it seems somewhat curious that an insular place like Birmingham, whose only suggestion of maritime operations is the canal, should produce Logs--that is, cunningly devised instruments for ascertaining the speed of ships. Yet if I go to north country ports, such as Leith, and if I go south to Dover, or west to Cardiff, I see the "Cherub," the "Harpoon," and other Logs made by the firm of T. Walker and Sons, Oxford Street, Birmingham. As I have said, it seems a little strange, if not funny, that Birmingham should produce ship appliances. Nevertheless, the present Mr. T.F. Walker, and his father before him, have been making and improving ship Logs till their trade name is known and their productions seen in every port of significance here in Britain and abroad as well.

A city, however, that produces Artificial Human Eyes may see its way to make anything; consequently, all sorts of diverse things are produced in Birmingham, from coffin furniture to custard powder, vices to vinegar, candles to cocoa, blue bricks to bird cages, handcuffs to horse collars, anvils to hat bands, soap to sardine openers, &c., &c., &c.

There are also in Birmingham certain trades that without being large industries have taken fixed root in the locality. For instance, there is the glass trade, which employs a good few men, and, perhaps, it used to employ more. On this point I am not certain, but I do know that one large glass manufactory that existed in my younger days--namely, that of Rice Harris, which stood near where now stands the Children's Hospital, Broad Street--was disestablished many years ago.

If I remember rightly Rice Harris's glass works had one of those large old-fashioned brick domes that I fancy are not constructed nowadays. One or two, however, still remain, and I for one feel glad that Messrs. Walsh and Co., of Soho, allow their dome to stand where it did, just as a landmark and to remind me of pleasant bygone days.

I confess, too, that I like to go into one of these big glass hives, or rather glass-making hives, and see the workmen at their "chairs" blowing and moulding the hot ductile glass into its appointed form and patterns; and I like also to see the curling wreaths of smoke ascend and disappear through the orifice at the top of the dome. And when I look at this I wonder how that huge chimney is cleaned, and where the Titanic sweep is that could undertake such a gigantic job. Well, I can hardly say I wonder, because I think I have been told that the way the soot is cleaned from these well-smoked domes is by firing shot at the roof, which brings down the dirt.

When in the winter season I see skates prominently exposed for sale in our shop windows I am reminded of another of the odd or rather side industries of Birmingham. I refer to the steel toy trade. The word toy seems appropriate enough when applied to skates and quoits, but seems a curious word to designate such articles of distinct utility as hammers, pincers, turnscrews, pliers, saws, and chisels, yet these articles and many others of a similar kind are included in the words "steel toys." This steel toy trade, if not a great industry in Birmingham, is an old-established one, and has been carried on for years by good well-known local names, such as Richard Timmins and Sons, Messrs. Wynn and Co., and others.

XIII.

NEW AND OLD STYLE TRADING.

In an earlier part of these chapters I referred to the new style of shopkeeping that has developed in Birmingham with the growing size and importance of the town and city. I now return to the subject again for the purpose of showing that although Birmingham seems to be much to the fore in the matter of up-to-time shopkeeping, there are still a limited number of traders and shopkeepers who keep pretty much to the old lines, and evidently desire to carry on their businesses in the way that their fathers did before them.

And in touching this question it is worth while considering for a moment how differently two men or two firms in the same trade will carry on their businesses, and yet both succeed. To put it more plainly, one firm will bombard the public with "fetching" advertisements, and get business, so to speak, at the bayonet's point. Another firm in the same line of trade lays siege to its customers in a quiet, systematic way, does its best to prevent any sorties in the direction of rival camps, and is content to keep its connection well guarded and do business in a quiet, undemonstrative way.

Of course the man who goes in for publicity--wide publicity--and assaults the public with "loud" advertisements in all directions, drives the roaring trade, or the trade that roars loudest. He gets larger returns, and if his business is well managed he should secure larger profits. Beside these trade Dives's the humble, quiet, unostentatious Lazarus seems quite out in the cold. Not so, however. The latter picks up some good crumbs, if not some pretty substantial crusts, which he puts into his wallet with a gentle, unostentatious satisfaction which quite contents him.

I could give chapter and verse for what I am now saying, and without hesitation or difficulty could name two firms in Birmingham that are carrying on the same trade, making the same everyday articles of consumption; yet, while the name of one firm is in everybody's mouth and is known to the ends of the earth, the name of the other is hardly ever seen save upon the productions they turn out. Yet I know for a fact that this latter firm make some nice solid profits out of their quiet business, though nothing perhaps at all comparable with their more enterprising rival. It is a case of thousands in one case and tens of thousands probably in the other. But enterprise should, of course, bring its own reward.

I fear I have indulged in a rather full-blown parenthesis, but it was somewhat necessary before going into certain details concerning the two utterly opposed modes of trading and their exemplifications in Birmingham. As I have mentioned before, we have in recent years seen the rise and development of huge establishments and trading concerns that deal in anything and everything. Cutting and competition have gone on till there is nothing left to cut, or no weapon left that is sharp enough to cut finer. The results of all this has been the 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 wines and spirits, such as can be consumed with pleasure and taken without risk. We do not all yet care for Chancellor claret, Hamburg sherry, petroleum champagne, and Dudley port, sometimes called "Bilston pit drink."

Bottled red ink and cider champagne does not suit the taste of those who have a taste worth owning. They prefer to pay a fair price to have a good article, and they consequently go to old firms who are experts in their business.

The most serious form of competition that knocks the legitimate liquor trader on the head is the grocer wine and spirit selling. It may be very convenient to the public to be able to buy a bottle of wine or whisky when they are buying their groceries, but this convenience has been purchased, I fear, at a cost that is not pleasant to consider. I fear it would not be difficult to prove that female home-drinking has been fostered by the grocers' wine and spirit licences. This is a serious matter to contemplate, and if I were a zealous temperance advocate I should strive to get those grocers' licences wiped out.

Besides offering facilities that are calculated to encourage secret home-drinking the grocers' licences operate in another way that is not exactly conducive to morality or integrity. I will explain what I mean. At Cambridge I knew an undergraduate who had a somewhat parsimonious pater. The latter limited his son's allowance, and scrutinized his bills pretty closely. But my Verdant Green circumvented the supervision of his male parent by the opportunities offered by the grocers' shops. Although my undergraduate friend was, I knew, kept pretty "short" in the matter of cash supplies, I noticed that he never seemed short of strong drink. He let the cat out of the bag--or let me say the cork out of the bottle--when one day he innocently remarked to me, "I get all my liquor from the grocer's; the governor never looks much at the grocer's account."

Leaving the question of wines and spirits, I can illustrate my preference for dealing with men who "know you know" what they are selling, and are, indeed, experts in their trades. Although I am not a good or bad Templar, nor yet a small brass Band of Hope, I confess to a large weakness for tea--good, nice, well-flavoured tea. I have, however, found it somewhat difficult to obtain. Occasionally I taste it at the houses of friends who buy their tea in chests at a time; but as for getting such tea at the usual grocers' shops I have found it difficult, if not impossible. Yet I have been willing to pay up to get some real prime Souchong, Assam, Orange Pekoe, or what not. I do not expect to get a one and twopenny tea with a fine two and ninepenny flavour. Bather recently I have paid 3s. 6d. a pound to get my little luxury; moreover, I tried many and various shops, but all more or less in vain. At last, however, I found salvation by going to a house--a retail shop indeed--that dealt in scarcely anything else but tea. And I now get tea full of delicious fragrance and flavour. It breathes such a splendid aroma before it is tasted that it almost seems a sin to drink it. When, however, I do taste a well-made cup of this infusion I am so happy and benign that (to paraphrase some words of the late Bishop of Oxford) my own wife might play with me.

I fear, however, I am getting rather rhapsodical on this question of tea. There are other--what I will call specialist old-style--traders besides those in the teetotal and unteetotal line to which I wish to refer. But these must be reserved for another chapter.

XIV.

OLD-ESTABLISHED SHOPS.

Considering the pace at which Birmingham moved forward during the latter half of the nineteenth century, it is not, perhaps, surprising that few shops and houses of old date are now to be seen in the chief centre streets of the city. A few, however, remain to remind us that Birmingham was not built yesterday, and that it has a respectable past, and is not a place of that mushroom growth which comes into existence in a night.

Chief among the old order of retail trading establishments still flourishing in our midst I may particularly mention the shop of Mr. William Pearsall, silversmith, &c. As many of my readers are aware, it is situated in High Street, opposite the end of New Street, and is conspicuous for its pretty--I had almost said petite--quaintness and its genuine old-time appearance and origin. There are the small bow windows, the little panes of glass, that are so suggestive of the architecture of a century ago, and outside the shop everything bespeaks a past which was not exactly of yesterday.

This great-grandfather shop, so to speak, has, indeed, been established for more than a century, and when the present proprietor first went to the business the trade done was chiefly in silver and silver made goods, whereas now it is largely in electro plate, in jewellery, cutlery, &c. The proprietor, indeed, like others in his position, has found himself obliged to keep in step with the times or go under. He has preferred the former course, but without abandoning what I may call the antique department of his business.

It is, indeed, a most attractive kind of shop, especially for ladies of a matured taste and mind who like to see pretty things, some of which have a quaint charm which is often especially dear to the feminine soul. I can fancy ladies going there and spending a right down happy time in looking at the dainty specimens of antique silver, and also the modern reproductions of old patterns in electro plate. I can, indeed, by a stretch of the imagination picture in my mind ladies who will go and look at many things at such a shop, admire all, and buy none.

Indeed, I do not know that I should mind indulging in this little luxury myself, but, being of the masculine order of creation, I, perhaps, hardly like to spend hours in a shop and leave the shopkeeper with the cold comfort of a promise that I will "think about it." Quaint and inviting shops, however, stocked with articles that form a little exhibition in themselves must pay the penalty of their attractiveness, and possibly the proprietors have no objection.

It goes, of course, without saying that a business that has been carried on for over a century has seen great changes in regard to custom and customers. Consequently, it is not surprising to learn that wealthy iron-masters, the country gentry, and prosperous farmers no longer make the purchases of silver and fancy wares they did in the days that are no more. Black country magnates have discovered they can now do without many solid silver services, and even fairly well-to-do rural people find they can at a pinch put up with electro plate.

I confess I like to look at the bijou shop in High Street and think what it must have seen and heard in its time. It must have heard the bells of St. Martin's toll for the death of Nelson and ring out joyous peals after Waterloo. It must have seen disorderly crowds march past its doors at the time of the Birmingham riots; more than this, it felt something of the lawlessness that prevailed, since the shop was looted and some of its contents carried off by the rioters.

Yes, as I have said, it must have heard some pealing and tolling of the St. Martin's Church bells--and what charmingly mellifluous and melodious bells they are! I do not profess to be a campanologist or a bell hunter, but I have a loving ear for a sweet-toned church bell, and can think of few belfries whose contents surpass St. Martin's, Birmingham. Although I have not heard the "Bells of Shandon" immortalised by Father Prout, I have, however, heard Great Tom of Lincoln. I have listened to the "bonny Christ Church bells" of Oxford, and my ears have dwelt upon the sweet jinglings of the Carrillion at Antwerp and in other Flemish cities. I have also heard the dulcet chimings of many village church bells in various parts of the land, and I have listened with undelight to the unmusical tones of Big Ben of Westminster, but so far as mellow tone is concerned, I rarely hear any ordinary church bells that are more dulcet and harmonious than the bells of St. Martin's, Birmingham.