working order, but when the cost of proving the property of the recipients, with the necessary expenses of office rent, salaries, &c., have been deducted from the ordinary income, the amount left to be distributed among the persons deemed by the officials deserving of assistance is small indeed, the expenses reaching about £330 per year. In 1880 it cost £329 18s. 4d. to give away food, cash, and clothing, &c., valued at £386 16s. 6d., an apparent anomally which would not be so glaring if the kind-hearted and charitable would only increase the income of the Society, or re-organise it upon a wider basis.--For statistics of poverty and the poor see "_Pauperism_" and "_Poor Rates_." ~Charitable Trusts.~--See "_Philanthropical Institutions_," &c. ~Chartism.~--Following the great Reform movement of 1832, in which Birmingham led the van, came years of bad harvests, bad trade, and bitter distress. The great Chartist movement, though not supported by the leaders of the local Liberal party, was taken up with a warmth almost unequalled in any other town in the Kingdom, meetings being held daily and nightly for months in succession, Feargus O'Connor, Henry Vincent, and many other "orators of the fiery tongue," taking part. On the 13th of August, 1838, a monstre demonstration took place on Holloway Head, at which it was reckoned there were over 100,000 persons present, and a petition in favour of "The Charter" was adopted that received the signatures of 95,000 people in a few days. The Chartist "National Convention" met here May 13, 1839, and noisy assemblages almost daily affrighted the respectable townsmen out of their propriety. It was advised that the people should abstain from all exciseable articles, and "run for gold" upon the savings banks--very good advice when given by Attwood in 1832, but shockingly wicked in 1839 when given to people who could have had but little in the savings or any other banks. This, and the meetings which ensued, so alarmed the magistrates for the safety of property that, in addition to swearing in hundreds of special constables, they sent to London for a body of police. These arrived on July 4, and unfortunately at the time a stormy meeting was being held in the Bull Ring, which they were at once set to disperse, a work soon accomplished by the free use they made of their staves. The indignant Brums, however, soon rallied and drove the police into the Station, several being wounded on either side. The latent fury thus engendered burst out in full force on the 15th when the notorious Chartist Riots commenced, but the scenes then enacted, disgraceful as they were, may well be left in oblivion, especially as the best of "the points" of the Charter are now part of the laws of the land. Besides many others who were punished more or less, two of the leaders, Wm. Lovett and John Collins, were sentenced to one year's imprisonment for a seditious libel in saying that "the people of Birmingham were the best judges of their