Jubilees.—­Strange as it may appear to the men of the present day, there has never been a National holiday yet kept equal to that known as the Jubilee Day of George the Third.  Why it should have been so seems a great puzzle now.  The celebration began in this town at midnight of the 24th October, 1809, by the ringers of St. Philip’s giving “five times fifty claps, an interim with the same number of rounds, to honour the King, Queen, the Royal Family, the Nation, and the loyal town of Birmingham.”  At six o’clock next morning the sluggards were aroused with a second peal, and with little rest the bells were kept swinging the whole day long, the finale coming with a performance of “perpetual claps and clashings” that must have made many a head ache.  There was a Sunday school jubilee celebrated September 14, 1831.  The fiftieth year’s pastorate of Rev. John Angell James was kept September 12, 1855, and the Jubilee Day of the Chapel in Carr’s Lane, September 27, 1870; of Cannon Street Chapel, July 16, 1856; of the Rev. G. Cheatle’s pastorate, at Lombard Street Chapel, January 11, 1860; of the Missionary Society, September 15, 1864; of Pope Pius the Ninth, in 1877, when the Roman Catholics of this town sent him L1,230. being the third largest contribution from England.

Jubilee Singers.—­This troupe of coloured minstrels gave their first entertainment here in the Town Hall April 9, 1874.

Jury Lists.—­According to the Jury Act, 6 George IV., the churchwardens and overseers of every parish in England are required to make out an alphabetical list before the 1st September in each year of all men residing in their respective parishes and townships qualified to serve on juries, setting forth at length their Christian and surname, &c.  Copies of these lists, on the three first Sundays in September, are to be fixed on the principal door to every church, chapel, and other public place of religious worship, with a notice subjoined that all appeals will be heard at the Petty Sessions, to be held within the last day of September.  The jury list for persons resident in the borough, and for several adjoining parishes, may be seen at the office of Mr. Alfred Walter, solicitor, Colmore Row, so that persons exempt may see if their names are included.

Justices Of the Peace.—­The earliest named local Justices of the Peace (March 8, 1327) are “William of Birmingham” and “John Murdak” the only two then named for the county.—­See “Magistrates”.

Kidneys (Petrified).—­In olden days our footpaths, where paved at all, were, as a rule, laid with round, hard pebbles, and many readers will be surprised to learn that five years ago there still remained 50,000 square yards of the said temper-trying paving waiting to be changed into more modern bricks or stone.  Little, however, as we may think of them, the time has been when the natives were rather proud than otherwise of their pebbly paths, for, according to Bisset, when one returned from visiting the metropolis, he said he liked everything in London very much “except the pavement, for the stones were all so smooth, there was no foothold!”