But metals afford the great staple of employment in Birmingham, and we shall avail ourselves, in describing the leading trades, and touching on the social position of the workmen, of the admirable letters on Labour and the Poor in Birmingham which appeared in the Morning Chronicle in the course of 1850. {81} * * * * * BIRMINGHAM BUTTONS.--"A Brummagem Button" is the old-fashioned nickname for a Birmingham workman. The changes of fashion, and the advances of other manufactures, have deprived that trade of its ancient pre-eminence over all other local pursuits; but the "button trade," although not the same trade which made great fortunes in a previous generation, still employs five or six thousand hands, of which one-half are women and children. In the middle of the eighteenth century a plain white metal button was made, which may occasionally be seen in remote rural districts, on the green coats of old yeomen, wearing hereditary leather breeches. At that period the poorer classes wore coarse horn or wooden buttons, chiefly home made, and the tailor made, as well as the clothes, buttons covered with cloth. By degrees very handsome gilt buttons came into wear, and continued to employ many hands, while the blue coat which figures in the portraits of our grandfathers remained in fashion. In 1826, the Florentine, or covered button, now in almost universal use, which is manufactured by machinery with the aid of women and children, was introduced, and by 1829 the gilt button trade had been almost destroyed. The change produced great distress, vast numbers of persons were thrown out of work, who could not at once turn to any other employment. In 1830 a deputation from the gilt button trade waited upon George IV. and the principal nobility, to solicit their patronage. The application succeeded, coloured coats with metal buttons came into fashion, and dandies of the first water appeared in bright snuff-coloured, pale green, and blue coats, such as are now only worn by Paul Bedford or Keeley, in broad farce. In 1836 a cheap mode of gilding, smart for a day, dull and shabby in a week, completely destroyed the character of gilt buttons, and brought up the Florentine again. This change was, no doubt, materially assisted and maintained by Bulwer's novel of "Pelham," which set all young men dressing themselves up like crows with white shirts.