The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-30
OLD ENGL4AH CUSTOMS.

Day-WoiRhing a Mayor Into Office x Hlrings-Curfew and the Morning Ss HcIi-Greveyard CeIebrattons-Annu. x III Sermons Heating tho Bounds.
 < S53 London, Nov 20.
 Hap the Editor of the Journal and Courier: < m eearching for what is new and pro-
 grensive in English life one certainly in Ssafhe9e days does not have to search in < nin, yet he constantly meets, amid ,SsN SsN43verwhelming evidences of improve
 s411ent, customs and practices of the x AQary part which seem to defy change ana make their up-to-date surround 73ngs. the product of long years of re- fss form, look as though they were no more
 sfhan stage setting for what is eccen- x stric and antiquated. To the mind of a K #TefOrmer the Lord Mayors show, gro-
 tesque as 1t is in some of it's features,
 17 a pageant far more likely to sadden Khan amuse, for it strikingly illustrates the English tendency to cling to what is old, despite the wrongs bound up in \ and notwithstanding that new times x are clamorously calling for new meth |8 8#0uR, Londoners themselves take little
 fnterest in this third-rate circus pa s.2StH HAde. It is almost wholly spectacle X 3Qr the amusement of children and
 GQu1try cousins and foreigners. To the
 etepayers of city within a city, hfch, owing to it's privileged isolation,
 oes not bear it's just part of the local
 xes and thus adds to the financial
 burdens of those sections of London x thich.are poorer than itself.
 Ss From his conspicuous position and MS8&he fuss and feathers investing him and &Sthe mark of royal favor he usually x ga9s5falkes with him when his year is up, zone might suppose that the Lord May &SsQr of London was the chief mogul and S SGontrolling factor in this great city's #4sRpvernment. But there are twenty 43ght other mayors in this metropolis E4Ad the same number of borough coun- SEils, and each of these centers of ad
 administration is as really vital force in |g3a3aAking the city what it ought to be as
 5z l6 that which poses in so much state at 3#ax Inc Guildhall and the Mansion House. " Because, too, the Mansion House sec
 <i0n of the city's administration is not
 ETAted at its full value. all the others, nd especially those having in them '&4he largest representation of wage earn sS3rS are assessed for the citys support
 EonSt derably more than they ought to |&s fe Then, too, there is the London sNcounty council That is the real gov
 0rliing body, and to that is London in x ss8lsbted for nearly all the measures that xAHNe lifted this worlds metropolis out 4d91 It's ruts of old fogyism. Perhaps in a%TearH to come there will be an annual a pRTade of the civic forces of London <. flich will render honor where honor is 8slt1e. Al spectacle of that kind would be &SN0rth seeing and it's yearly recurrence would be great stimulus to civic pro- sS4fees Tn such a procession the chief sBlace would be given to the London xpnhty council and then would come tiie twenty nine mayors, attended by ''.staeir borough councils. the Lord Mayor tGking his rightful place as no more
 4iiah one amongst many.
 ss Hut we must not expect old customs x to f1ie out in England very rapidly and is perhaps as we'll that they should z Hot. People ought not to forget what 2tlieir past has been, and, after all, the sky in which at unexpected turns some x III 6ctice hoary with age hobs up to meet !, >fs part of the excitement if not one 's54 the charms of living here. It was a few days before the Lord May z33l show that this writer, having for EW0tten the old cry, Remember, re-
 atiemiber, the fifth of November" came
 4Apgerously near making fool of him
 eIf by calling the police to put a stop R6o what seemed to be an act of street
 Tu1llanism. A gang of boys, armed
 Wffh all sorts of sticks and cudgels, |fW&re cruelty belaboring an old man who SR4g being drawn along in hand cart
 Ry some other boys who seemed anxious &o pull him as quickly as possible out of s4lik reach of these street miscreants &B0r moment my blood boiled, but the next moment, fortunately, revived re- s6Q@lection turned anger into smile, for Itt was Guy Hawkes. day, annually ob- seerved in England for three hundred Wears to commemorate the fact that as sd0i1g ago as that certain enemies of the Satate were intending to blow up the
 king and his parliament, but were pre- |Wented. The poor old man to whom A5xy eympathies had gone out was only, NJ found, a stuffed figure, but scarcely NeIt that my sympathies had been vast ed when I saw, upon coming closer. that this butt of so many boyisf blows had been labelled Kruger. The eff1gies which figure on Guy Tawkes day are at night made part of a Bonfire and go up in smoke. Formerly they were never supposed to be other 1han rag and saw-dust representations bf Guy Hawkes. himself, but of late wears this national celebration has had Ifl1Sit an element of yiciousness. It has sb3cn quite too brutally modernized. Twelve months ago, when by Lord l
 Roberts and the government the South | African war was declared to be ended, l 'itawas almost universally an anti-Kru | Ter demonstration. The English people l at that time burned at least as many | Iefi1gfes of Dom Paul as Kruger's men | had killed of their soldiers. That, how ever. no more brought tfe war to q real l end than did the seif-satisfed pronun- l ciamentoes of blundering government, l and 1t Is pleasant to know that there | was "let up" this year toward the G. | 70. M. of the TraEsvaal. It was excep- | fional for the Guys" of a week ago to | figure before the pcpulace as either | Kruger or any of the Boer command | CTS. Tn many cases GUT own all too in- | Famous Czolgoea had to bear in effigy l | l4e ,nx ecra tione of the people. But in |