The validity of the charter of incorporation was ultimately settled by a statutory confirmation (5 and 6 Vic., c. III), which received the royal assent on the 12th of August, 1842. As a consequence, the control of the police was transferred to the Watch Committee of the Corporation. At the time of the transfer the strength of the force was 300 men, and the population of the borough 183,000. The population is now about 427,000, and the police force is 550 in number, and is both efficient and adequate. The great cost of conveying prisoners and lunatics to the County Gaol and Asylum at Warwick, and the inadequacy of both to the increasing population, rendered the building of a Borough Gaol and Lunatic Asylum at Winson Green a necessity, and as soon as the Corporation obtained the control of the police the gaol was proceeded with and opened in 1849. In the following year the Lunatic Asylum was opened, to which was added, in 1882, another Asylum at Rubery Hill, near Bromsgrove. The year 1851 is memorable in our municipal history for the vesting in the Corporation, for the first time, of complete control over the entire borough by the transfer to it of the conflicting powers and jurisdictions of the other governing bodies (see pp. 18 and 19.) Up to that date the formation and maintenance of the streets, roads, and footways of the town, the lighting and drainage, and all the other important work now undertaken by the Public Works Committee of the Corporation could not be dealt with in any uniform system, because six other governing bodies or officials had statutory powers over the portions of the Borough which were outside the _parish_ of Birmingham. With the year 1852 a new and uniform system commenced, and not an hour too soon, having regard to the rapid increase of the population and the consequent multiplication of new streets and roads. The aspect of the town has been completely changed in the paving of the roads and footways, the lighting of the streets, the widening of many of the principal thoroughfares, and the carrying into operation of a complete and uniform system of drainage and sewerage. To the Public Works Committee belongs also the control of the numerous tramways which lead from the centre of the town to the suburbs in every direction, except the upper part of Edgbaston, the approach to which is rendered difficult by the narrowness of Broad Street. The improved system of drainage and sewerage brought to an issue the serious question of how the sewage of the town was to be dealt with. From the year 1858 this had become a serious and increasing difficulty, involving the Corporation in constant and costly litigation with the neighbouring landowners, resulting in injunctions from the Court of Chancery. In 1871 a special Committee called “The Sewage Enquiry Committee” was instituted, who recommended the course ultimately adopted, viz.: the formation of a board representing the whole drainage area, and