Hide and Skin Market.—­The sale of these not particularly sweet-smelling animal products was formerly carried on in the open at Smithfield, but a special market for them and for tallow was opened May 25, 1850; the same building being utilised as a wool market July 29, 1851.

Vegetable Market, so long held in the Bull Ring, is now principally held in the covered portion of Smithfield, which promises to be soon a huge wholesale market.

Marriages.—­This is the style in which these interesting events used to chronicled:—­

“Sept. 30, 1751.  On Monday last, the Rev. Mr. Willes, a relation of the Lord Chief Justice Willes, was married to Miss Wilkins, daughter of an eminent grocer of this town, a young lady of great merit, and handsome fortune.”

“Nov. 23, 1751.  On Tuesday last, was married at St. Mary-le-Bow, in Cheapside, Mr. W. Welch, an eminent hardware man of Birmingham, to Miss Nancy Morton, of Sheffield, an agreeable young lady, with a handsome fortune.”

“June 4, 1772 (and not before as mentioned by mistake) at St. Philip’s Church in this town, Mr. Thomas Smallwood, an eminent wine merchant, to Miss Harris, a young lady of distinguished accomplishments, with a fortune of L1,500.”

Masshouse Lane.—­Takes its name from the Roman Catholic Church (or Mass House, as such edifices were then called) erected in 1687, and dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen and St. Francis.  The foundation stone was laid March 23, in the above year, and on 16th August, 1688, the first stone of a Franciscan Convent was laid adjoining to the Church, which latter was consecrated Sept. 4.  The Church was 95ft long by 33ft. wide, and towards the building of it and the Convent, James II. gave 125 “tuns of timber,” which were sold for L180; Sir John Gage gave timber valued at L140; the Dowager Queen Catherine gave L10 15s.; and a Mrs. Anne Gregg, L250.  This would appear to have been the first place of worship put up here by the Romish Church since the time of Henry VIII., and it was not allowed to stand long, for the Church and what part of the Convent was built (in the words of the Franciscan priest who laid the first stone) “was first defaced, and most of it burrent within to near ye vallue of 400lb., by ye Lord Dellamer’s order upon ye 26 of November, 1688, and ye day sevennight following ye rabble of Birmingham begon to pul ye Church and Convent down, and saesed not until they had pulled up ye fundations.  They sold ye materials, of which many houses and parts of houses are built in ye town of Birmingham, ye townsmen of ye better sort not resisting ye rabble, but quietly permitting, if not prompting them to doe itt.”  The poor priests found shelter at Harborne, where there is another Masshouse Lane, their “Masshouse” being a little further on in Pritchett’s Lane, where for nearly a century the double work of conducting a school and ministering to their scattered Catholic flock was carried on, the next local place of worship built here being “St. Peters’s Chapel,” off Broad Street, erected about 1786.  It is believed that St. Bartholomew’s Church covers the site of the short-lived “Mass House.”