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the last four years, but it is doubtful if this will continue any length of time, for, independently of the tendency to strikes which workmen all over the kingdom are now insanely nourishing, and in which the Kidderminster men are not singular, so many looms have been started in other places that the competition may be expected to be keen, and the disadvantages under which Kidderminster labours will scarcely enable the town to hold its own in the conflict. While the rents are low, the average of local rates during the last seven years has been about 8s. in the pound. The largest item is poor-rates, in consequence of the old hands thrown out of work by the introduction of steam. Then it is expected that the projected drainage and waterworks will cost £40,000, so that for the next thirty years, over which this cost may be spread, the local rates cannot safely be returned at less than one-half the entire rental. The removal of so many workpeople from the town, consequent on the change above mentioned, emptied a large number of houses, and the result was a very great downfall of rents; there are more houses rented under than over half-a-crown, per week! At the time of this writing there are in Wood Street a dozen good houses, with two rooms up and down, nice gardens, and all accessories, let at 1s. 6d. per week, and eighteen more at 1s. 9d. Some time ago the landlords talked of raising the rents 3d. a week, but the workpeople organised oppositions, held torch-light meetings, appointed committees and deputations, and effectually frightened the landlords and their agents. Of course there are not many cottages being built under such circumstances, but on the contrary nearly 200 have been pulled down during the last five years. The Land and Building Societies, too, had considerable weight in remodelling the town. Their estates at Chester Lane, Hurcot Lane, Lower Wood Street, and Sutton Common, have been built on by persons who could erect good houses, and a club of Kidderminster men have bought a field at Broadwaters, in Wolverley parish, on which there are now seventy houses.