Whilst the religious activity of the Nonconformists has not abated, they have gained immensely in influence in all the governing bodies and public institutions. For example, for a century previous to the year 1873, no dissenter had been elected a Governor of the Free Grammar School; now there are nine Nonconformists out of the twenty-one Governors. The religious activity of the Church has been widened and deepened by the development of the parochial system, whilst the natural “set” of nonconformist activity towards political and social reforms has won for them the control of political and municipal affairs. This cannot be better illustrated than by a few particulars of the composition of the Birmingham Town Council, which has acquired the reputation of being above the average of Town Councils in the social standing and ability of its members. Of the sixty-four members of which the Town Council is composed, seventeen only are churchmen. Of the sixteen Aldermen (assumed to be elected by the Council on account of services either exceptional in kind or duration) only one is a churchman. The forty-seven members of the Council not belonging to the Established Church, are composed of six Baptists, nine Congregationalists, six members of the Society of Friends, one Jew, one Presbyterian, two Roman Catholics, nine Unitarians, six Undenominational, and seven members of the Wesleyan and other Methodist bodies. The preponderance of Quakers and Unitarians in the Council, in proportion to their numerical strength in the country, is very remarkable. The number of members of the Society of Friends in England and Wales, is about one to every 1,725 of the population, according to the census of 1881. The number of their members and attendants on their services in Birmingham, is about one to every 527 of the population of the Borough; whilst in the Council their numbers are nearly one in ten (accurately 9.375 per cent.) or more than fifty times their numerical proportion. It is not possible to determine so accurately the number of Unitarians, but it may be safely asserted that their representation in the Council is many times in excess of _their_ numerical proportion. BURIAL GROUNDS AND CEMETERIES. Most of the Churches built in Birmingham up to the year 1834 had churchyards added to them. The Churchyard of St. Martin being found inadequate, nearly three acres of land in Park Street was consecrated in the year 1813 as a burial ground, and have been since laid out as a public garden (see St. Bartholomew). There were burial grounds attached to the Old Meeting, to the Baptist Chapel, Cannon Street, and to the Friends Meeting House; there was also a piece of ground in Walmer Lane, appropriated by a Congregationalist, Joseph Scott, for the burial of Protestant Dissenters (A.D. 1779). There were also burial grounds for the Jewish Community in a spot called the Froggery, now part of New Street Station, in Granville Street and Betholom Row.