Curiosa: Six in the Middle of Paradise-street

History fascinates me, particularly the narrative sort, but I can also happily plunge into anything that gives me a sense of the "thereness" of a place-in-time. So I spent far too much time browsing William West's History, Topography and Directory of Warwickshire (1830) when I should have been cataloging it, and it is with great regret that I surrender it to the closed stacks.

First of all, there's the prose. Nobody writes like sentences these anymore -- where now such round phrases, such flowing periods? Who in this degenerate era would begin an exposition of demography on this wise?

"Instances of persons living to a great age, are not particularly numerous or remarkable in Birmingham, considering the extent of the place; it would therefore appear that a less number of persons die here at an early or middle age, than in many other large towns, and that the general habits of industry, and the almost universal use of ale, instead of ardent spirits, are such, as to cause the great mass of inhabitants to live to the natural age of man."

Note the assumption that the reader will have no trouble wending his or her way through all the coordinate and subordinate clauses to the meat of the sentence. These were the days when literacy really meant something. But it's not all about heigh stile. Want to get a feel for another time on the neighborhood level? Check out the Yellow Pages-equivalent for Birmingham, its "Directory," and take a walk through the socioeconomics of the first half of the nineteenth century via its lists of professions and those who profess 'em. Sure, you'll see plenty of carpenters and smiths, clothiers and fruiterers, but cheek-by-jowl with those pursuits sit ...

"Blind (Venetian) Makers," "Brass Moulding, Desk Railing, Stair Rod, and Astragal Manufacturers" (an "astragal" is a kind of column molding), "Cock Founders" (a branch of the gunsmithing trade -- what did you think?), "Compass and Pincer Makers," "Coral and Jet Carvers," "Die Sinkers" (engravers of printing dies), "Felmongers" (dealers in animal hide), "Felons' Iron Makers," "Gimlet Makers," "Glass Toy Chandelier Ornament, &c. Makers," "Hame and Chain Makers" (a "hame" is part of a horse collar), "Jack Makers" (probably roasting jacks), "Japanners" (artisans in black lacquer), "Mangle Makers," "Pearl Shell Delrs. (See also button mkrs. Pearl)," "Sovereign Balance Makers," "Straw, Chip, & Leghorn Hat Makers" (a category distinct from "Milliners"), "Tortoiseshell, Ivory, &c. Box, Case & Caddee Makers" ...

and so on and so forth.

Finally, all those who've ever stared at a taxi's price-for-mileage chart and tried to figure out whether the meter's rigged will appreciate the long pedigree such incomprehensible mathematical formulas have. I give you the pièce de résistance: Birmingham's regulations concerning carriages-for-hire.

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Ah, the found poetry of lines like "Six in the middle of Paradise-street". Inspiring, isn't it? And what a fund of information for the budding historical novelist. (Mechanical timekeeping of reasonable accuracy is clearly assumed here, for instance.) Remember, research in primary source material such as this is your friend (as is the humble bibliographer, toiling in obscurity that these treasures might be opened unto you).