The Sun.
London, England, 1853-11-09 00:00:00

LORD MAYOR'S DAY.

To chronicle the events of " Lord Mayor's Day"
is generally a rather dull affair. There are few in
" Cockaigne" proper, or indeed in the whole metro-
polis, who are not by ocular demonstration familiar
with everything appertaining to the great annual
civic pageant ;. and beyond giving an account of
the rows, broken heads, and other mishaps which
invariably attend the progress of " the first magis-
trate': through the capital to Westminster, the
journalist has little more to do than to fall back on
the records of past years. So simple, in fact, is his
task, that he might accomplish it with an ease and
an accuracy that would astonish the uninitiated,
far away from the sound of Bow-bells, ere be leaves
his breakfast-table. Thousands have passed from
boyhood to old age, and seen the same procession;
the same ceremony, without any variation in the
slightest particular. There is the old lumbering
but glittering triumphal carriage, contemptuously
dubbed "gilt gingerbread," but to simple juveniles
nothing less than solid gold, brought by some civic
argosies, or paid as tribute to the city potentate by
his subjects in bygone times ; there is " milord,"
in awful state, blossoming in vermilion and golden
manacles, but apparently rather uncomfortable,
being squeezed up in the interior between the Mace-
bearer, the Chaplain, and the grim Sword-bearer,
and looking more like an illustrious criminal pro-
ceeding to execution than a Mayor undergoing his
inauguration ; there is the odd decoration on Mr.
Sword-bearer's cranium, which is nothing more
than a perpendicular muff, large enough to contain
all the charters of right in possession of the cor-
poration ; there is the " man in brass," who is
obliged on each side to be supported on his steed,
and who serves as a butt for the gibes and ridicule of
the crowd, and at the same time shows what dege-
nerate beings we must have become, when the
armour of our forefathers, instead of being a pro-
tection, actually renders a man as helpless as a
child. Then comes "ye ancient ceremonie in ye
Court of Exchequer." Here, again, every one
knows how the Lord Mayor asserts his independ-
ence, by politely insulting the learned barons,
which he does by keeping on his uncomely hat,
decorated with an undertaker's plume of raven
black feathers ; how the learned barons return the
compliment by covering their big wigs with a yard
of black cloth, which gives them an extremely odd
appearance, and raises a general titter in the co art ;
how the learned Recorder, we shouldebe sorry to
say for what hundredth time, sings the praises of
the past Lord Mayor, details his successor's gene-
alogy, which, to the astonishment of all, extends
as far back as the Norman Conquest, and if it does
not distinctly connect Mr. Alderman Tea Dealer
or Mr. Alderman Free Vintner with loyalty itself,
proves that his forefathers have always been devout
loyalists ; how, lastly, the Lord Chief Baron com-
pliments both, in a neat, set speech, denies that
what is seen on this day is an idle pageant, evi-
dently with a conviction that everybody thinks
it is, and lauds it as a proceeding symbolical of the
freedom and privileges of the greatest city in the
world.

All this, and a good deal more, might be related
without even putting a foot inside Temple Bar, or
approaching near Westminster Hall. But Mr.
Alderman Sidney's advent to office possesses an
interest which has not belonged to similar occa-
sions in preceding years. First of all, for
reasons well known to everybody, there has
been an interregnum of 24 instead of 12 months
since the last Lord Mayor's Show paraded the
streets of London. Then who knows but what,
with a Royal Commission of Inquiry actually sit-
ting, and a Government measure of reform looming
in the distance, that this may be the last, or nearly
so, of such displays ? In the next place, Alderman
Sidney, following in the footsteps of his Aldermanic
brother Musgrove, has looped off the absurd por-
tions of the spectacle, such as the knights in armour,
and other things equally ridiculous ; and, taking a
hint from the more tasteful public processions in
France and Belgium, has replaced them by pic-
turesque personifications of " Justice," " Indus-
try," " Peace and Prosperity," and so forth, and
by living representations of the inhabitants of all
foreign countries. But what distinguished to-day
from all other 9ths of November within our recollec-
tion, was the extremely propitious state of the wea-
ther. Let it be recorded for once, if only once,
that there was no November fog, no rain, no sleet
—that the sky was as unclouded as any we can
boast of in London, and that the sun shone forth
with an effulgence rarely seen except in the height
of summer. It would almost seem as if the weather
deities had repented of their long course of injus-
tice to the city monarch in this respect, and was
desirous of making amends now at the eleventh
hour.

It were supererogation -to say that the route of
procession is crowded, for is it ever otherwise,
even when the streets are deluged with rain, the
mud ankle deep, and the fog so dense as to pre-
vent one seeing beyond a' few yards in advance ?
But the combination of circumstances to which we
have alluded brought together a greater throng
of people than is usually witnessed at such times,
and, with the exception of a few hours in the morn-
ing, business was at a complete stand still in the