The streets, as in most other ancient towns, are irregularly formed, and several of them, it must be admitted, are inconveniently narrow. Many important alterations have however been made, under the provisions of an act obtained in 1821, for removing obstructions, watching, lighting, and the general improvement of the town, the powers of which are vested in trustees, who must be persons occupying property rated at £50 per annum to the street assessment, or worth £2000 above reprizes and resident within the town, or resident and receiving rents to the amount of £80 per annum, or non-resident and receiving rents from premises within the town worth £100 per annum, from whom a committee of management of nine individuals is selected, three of whom retire annually by rotation; and it has been remarked by one of the first members of this committee, “_that if judiciously chosen and faithful to their trust_, _our town may in time assume its due place among the cities of the empire_.” In 1820 a company was established, with a capital of £8000, raised in 800 shares of £10 each, to supply the town with gas. POPULATION. The following official return of the population of the five parishes in Shrewsbury is according to the census ordered by government in 1831:— Parishes. Houses. Males. Females. Total. St. Chad 1583 3496 4224 7720 St. Mary 1080 3087 3033 6120 St. Alkmond 356 820 958 1778 St. Julian 676 1413 1583 2996 Holy Cross 337 656 821 1477 & St. Giles Total population 20,091 ECCLESIASTICAL BUILDINGS. The public structures devoted to the service of Religion are among the first objects that excite the attention, whilst by many they are not unfrequently looked upon with peculiar feelings of veneration and regard. If the source of this feeling were traced, it would be found connected with those principles and associations which every one who acknowledges an all-bountiful Creator, or wishes well to his country, would desire to cherish. Shrewsbury, we learn, did not receive much improvement from its original inhabitants, the Britons; yet what it lost in nominal consequence as the metropolis of a kingdom it ultimately gained in external splendour and real importance: this is evinced, among other proofs, by the erection of five ecclesiastical foundations, all of which were anterior to the Norman conquest, and originated in Saxon piety. Among the earliest of these may be mentioned SAINT CHAD’S, which is ascribed to one of the Mercian kings, who is said to have converted the palace of the kings of Powis into a church, about 780.