Mrs. Ellen Jackson, a widow, 34 years of age, through poverty and despondency, poisoned herself and two children, aged seven and nine, on Sunday, November 27, 1881.  One child recovered.

Frederick Serman, at the Four Dwellings, near Saltley, Nov. 22, 1883, shot Angelina Yanwood, and poisoned himself, because the woman would not live longer with him “to be clemmed.”

James Lloyd, Jan. 6, 1884, stabbed his wife Martha, because she had not met him the previous afternoon.  She died four days after, and he was sentenced to death, but reprieved.

Mrs. Palmer and Mrs. Stewart were shot by Henry Kimberley at the White Hart, Paradise Street, Dec. 28, 1884.  Mrs. Palmer died, and Kimberley was hung at Winson Green, March 17, 1885.

James Davis, policeman, while on his beat at Alvechurch, was murdered Feb. 28, 1885, by Moses Shrimpton, a Birmingham poacher and thief.

Elizabeth Bunting, a girl of 16, was murdered at Handsworth, April 20, 1885, by her uncle, Thomas Boulton.

Museums.—­No place in England ought to have a better collection of coins and medals, but there is no Numismatic Museum in Birmingham.  Few towns can show such a list of patentees and inventors, but we have no Patent Museum wherein to preserve the outcome of their ideas.  Though the town’s very name cannot be traced through the mists of dim antiquity, the most ancient thing we can show is the Old Crown public-house.  Romans and Normans, Britons and Saxons, have all trod the same ground as ourselves, but we preserve no relics of them.  Though we have supplied the whole earth with firearms, it was left to Mr. Marshall, of Leeds, to gather together a Gun Museum.  Fortunately the Guardians of the Proof House were liberal and, buying the collection for L1,550, made many valuable additions to it, and after exhibiting it for a time at 5, Newhall Street, presented it to the town in August, 1876.  There is a curious miscellany of articles on exhibition at Aston Hall, which some may call a “Museum,” and a few cases of birds, sundry stuffed animals, &c., but we must wait until the Art Gallery now in course of erection, is finished before the Midland Metropolis can boast of owning a real Museum.  At various times, some rich examples of industrial art have been exhibited in the temporary Art Gallery adjoining the Midland Institute, and now, in one of the rooms of the Free Library, there are sufficient to form the nucleus of a good Museum.  We may, therefore, hope that, in time, we shall have a collection that we may be proud of.  Mr. Joseph Chamberlain (April 26, 1875) gave L1,000 to purchase objects of industrial art, and it has been expended in the purchase of a collection of gems and precious stones, than which nothing could be more suitable in this centre of the jewellery trade.  Possibly, on the opening of the new Art Gallery, we shall hear of other “thousands” as forthcoming.

Musical Associations.—­There were, of course, the choirs attached to the churches previous, but the earliest Musical Society is believed to be that established by James Kempson, in 1762, at Cooke’s, in the Cherry Orchard, and the founding of which led to the Musical Festivals.  The members met for practice, and evidently enjoyed their pipes and glasses, their nightly song being:—­