~Missionary Work.~--About a million and a quarter sterling is yearly contributed in England to Foreign, Colonial, and Home Missionary Societies, and Birmingham sends its share very fairly. The local Auxiliary, to the Church Missionary Society, in 1882, gathered £2,133 8s. 6d.; in 1883 (to June both years) it reached £2,774 17s. 8d., of which £2,336 6s 11d. was from collections in the local churches. The Auxiliary to the London Missionary Society gathered £1,050, of which £991 was collected in churches and chapels. The Baptist Missionary Society was founded in October, 1792, and branch was started here a few months afterwards, the first fruits totting up to the very respectable amount of £70. A branch of the Wesleyan Missionary Society was formed here in 1814 for the Birmingham and Shrewsbury district, and the amounts gathered in 1882 totalled £4,829 10s. 3d. To the Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, the Birmingham Auxiliaries in 1883 sent £323. There are also Auxiliaries of the Church of England Zenana, of the South American, and of one or two other Missionary Societies. The Rev. J.B. Barradale, who died in China, early in 1879, while relieving sufferers from famine, was educated at Spring Hill College. He was sent out by the London Missionary Society, and his death was preceded by that of his wife and only child, who died a few weeks before him, all from fever caught while helping poor Chinamen. ~Moated Houses.~--The Parsonage, as well as the Manor House (as noted elsewhere), were each surrounded by its moat, and, possibly, no portion of the United Kingdom could show more family mansions, and country residences, protected in this manner, than the immediate district surrounding Birmingham. Many more or-less-preserved specimens of these old-fashioned houses, with their water guards round them, are to be met with by the rambler, as at Astwood Bank. Erdington, Inkberrow, Yardley, Wyrley, &c. Perhaps, the two best are Maxtoke Castle, near Coleshill, and the New Hall, Sutton Coldfield. ~Modern Monasteries.~--The foundation-stone of St. Thomas's Priory, at Erdington, for the accommodation of the Monks of the Order of St. Benedict, was laid on Aug. 5, 1879, by the Prior, the Rev. Hildebrand de Hemptinne. Alter the date, and the reader might fancy himself living in Mediæval times. ~Monument.~--The high tower erected near the Reservoir has long borne the name of "The Monument," though it has been said it was built more as a strange kind of pleasure-house, where the owner, a Mr. Perrott, could pass his leisure hours witnessing coursing in the day-time, or making astronomical observations at night. Hence it was often called "Perrott's Folly." It dates from 1758--See also "_Statues_," &c.