The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-07 00:00:00

THE LORD MAYOR'S DAY.

In former days the Lord Mayor's pageant was a very
showy affair. Allegorical in its design it was elaborately
got up, each party, animal, or figure representing a part,
illustrative of the whole, which ea masse typified corn'
coerce, industry, and the vast resources of the metropolis
of this great empire. There were, wo find, generally()
specific actors who had special parts to perform.
of the earliest pageants extant were written by Piele,
Webster, mad other early dramatists.
For some years, it appears, the City
was usually engaged from
poet larreate, but a person h had
had a regular
of Charles theno
year to 3 ear to compose those
share in the establishment.
City, and when the Civic
hpeargeeiagnntso,
government of the
First, when the Lord Mayor un-
controlledalnndtAlderamrieentolicaradcythoefthe
Court was composed of the mercantile.
'
City, much extravagance was
conduits d
scommltte' of which the
in the
streets
played following are recorded
and ewer,
instances :
andOyneMathYgenarn-e lddenYrmen the
gave Prince Charles a
thteheQKueieeg Queen
a gold basin a
diamond, which cost
4,oool.roerstehn t 7 osfo don Wein Lord,
To such a desperate plight were the revenues
forced doen in consequence of these extravaganoies,
present
f.° ; ° la. n;d
that, in order to pay for the above gifts, after having
advanced LOC., the Aldermen arranged to liquidate
the remainder of the debt by instalments of 1,0001. per
annum until the whole was paid. These, however, were
tames when the Aldermen bad sole control of the
funds of the Corporation, and when they would not
permit the Common Council to interfere, or, indeed, to
hold any meetings, whenever they could help their doing
so. Hence we find that, during the year 1633, not a
single Court of Common Council was held, and in the
preceding and succeeding years only one. The result of
this loose state of things was that, upon an examination
of the cash account of the City's estate some time before
tl:e Commonwealth, it was found that 15 then living
Aldermen, and the executors of four others who had
died, owed the City upwards of 30,0001., and that up-
wards of 10,0001. was then due to the Trust Fund for
arrears of interest.
The cost of the procession on Lord Mayor's dal?' i.s
.
regulated, of course, by the extent to which it is carried.
Last year and the year before the expense nesbytith:
5001. each year, the extra amount being Pala
Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs conjointly,
w en Sheriff
except in the
instance of Alderman Sidney's Mayoralty
Wire had to pay the sums
Lord Mayor and Sheriff
Wallis refused to subscribe, the result being that the
.verve cost of the enter-
tainment's set down at 2,2001.,
charged between them.
by the Corporation f
moieties by the Lord sMurilayoor
The
paidLamorodunMtaoyfor2'9sTodlh.a-yiare
Halm,
2,0001. is defrayed in equal"for
ng
and the two Sheriffs.
-
The allowance to the Lord Mayor, to enable his lord;
is about
ytehaerdignity_ of his high office,
; but this amount is very frequently
:the expen i ure of a liberal chief magis-
trate.d'tesBhx,
oci ship
exceeded
ds furu sbtt. sustain
Civic
h' tory furnishes one instance, and only
one, of a gentlemanis who was chosen by his fellow
citizens to fill the civic chair refusing to do so. As the
circumstance is singular, we furnish the entry as it apJ
pears in the archives of the Corporation, and thus end
our notes of the Lord Mayor's show, and its associations,
for the present :

" Sir Benjamin Hammet elected Lord Mayor, Mi.
chaelmas, 1797, excused serving on paying a fine of
1,0001,"--Correspondent of tli,e Morning Advertiser.