378 CITY OF WORCESTER.

with the Clerk of the Peace, and only six received tha sanction of the Legislature. The cholera of '32 and '49 created much consternation, but on the first visit there were only seventy-nine deaths out of 293 cases, and at the last forty-three out of eighty-nine. Since then the city has been efficiently drained and supplied with water from the Severn at a cost of between £50,000 and £60,000. Among the other improvements of the century was that of the Severn navigation and the preservation of the salmon fishery, now happily provided for by statute, through the exertions of the Worcester Association. The Worcester and Birmingham Canal was opened in 1815, just twenty-four years after the Act had been obtained. A Gas Company was formed in 1818; but, becoming corrupt and extortionate, a few years ago were compelled to hand over their concern to a new company, who, in their turn, must mend their behaviour, or take the consequences. The old Corporation of the city refused to take warning by tbe signs of the times, and were all bundled out in 1835, when out of thirty-six Councillors, thirty-four Reformers were chosen. Mr. J. W. Lea was the last Mayor of the old body, and the late Mr. Hebb was "twice freely elected" to preside over the new one. A good cellar of municipal wines was dispersed when the old Corporation marched out, and a jovial annual dinner (to which the Corporation had voted £150 yearly) was put an end to by the rudeness of this reform. In many other respects there has been a great change for the better during the period we are now contemplating. For instance, in the year 1800 no fewer than twenty-three persons were condemned to death in Worcester for various offences many degrees below murder, and though they were not all executed that was mainly attributable to a growing detestation of the barbarities of the law. Then there was cockfighting in 1805, at the Pheasant, New Street, which was openly advertised in the local papers; and bull-baiting took place on Pitchcroft as late as 1818, when the poor animal was barbarously mangled. When the great fight between Spring and