Electric Light.—­The light of the future.  The first public exhibition of lighting by electricity, was introduced by Maccabe, a ventriloquial entertainer of the public, at the entrance of Curzon Hall, September 30, 1878.  On the 28th of the following month, the novelty appeared at the Lower Grounds, on the occasion of a football match at night, the kick-off and lighting-up taking place at seven o’clock.  At the last Musical Festival, the Town Hall was lit up by Messrs. Whitfield, of Cambridge-street, and the novelty is no longer a rarity, a company having been formed to supply the houses, shops, and public buildings in the centre of the town.

Electro Plate.—­As early as 1838, Messrs. Elkington were in the habit of coating ornaments with gold and silver by dipping them in various solutions of those metals, and the first patent taken out for the electro process appears to be that of July 6, 1838, for covering copper and brass with zinc.  Mr. John Wright, a surgeon, of this town, was the first to use the alkaline cyanides, and the process was included in Elkington’s patent of March 25, 1840.  The use of electricity from magnets instead of the voltaic battery was patented by J.S.  Wolrich, in August, 1842.  His father was probably the first person who deposited metals for any practical purpose by means of the galvanic battery.  Mr. Elkington applied the electro-deposit process to gilding and silverplating in 1840.—­See “Trades,” &c.

Electoral Returns.—­See “Parliamentary.”

Emigration.—­In August, 1794, Mr. Russell, of Moor Green, and a magistrate for the counties of Warwick and Worcester, with his two brothers and their families, Mr. Humphries, of Camp Hill Villa, with a number of his relatives, and over a hundred other Birmingham families emigrated to America.  Previous to this date we have no record of anything like an emigration movement from this town, though it is a matter of history how strenuously Matthew Boulton and other manufacturers exerted themselves to prevent the emigration of artisans and workpeople, fearing that our colonies would be enriched at the expense of the mother country.  How sadly the times were changed in 1840, may be imagined from the fact that when free passages to Australia were first being offered, no less than 10,000 persons applied unsuccessfully from this town and neighbourhood alone.  At the present time it is calculated that passages to America, Canada, Australia, &c., are being taken up here at an average of 3,000 a year.

Erdington.—­Another of the ancient places (named in the Domesday Book as Hardingtone) surrounding Birmingham and which ranked as high in those days of old, though now but like one of our suburbs, four miles on the road to Sutton Coldfield.  Erdington Hall, in the reign of Henry II., was the moated and fortified abode of the family of that name, and their intermarriages with the De Berminghams,