YE MAYOR!

Globe, Volume I, Issue 87, 10 September 1874, Page 2

YE MAYOR!

YE BFSHOP!! AND YE SUPEEINTEKDENT!!! A MUNICIPAL DRAMA IN PROSE. The glorious orb of day was slowly sinking in the West behind the snowclad summits of the Alpine Langes which bound the horizon to the N.N.W., 5.5.8., &c., of the City of the Plains, when two individuals might have been seen in a vehicular conveyance urging on their wild career through the city But hold, this style of commencement seems familiar; besides, let us pause, and prior to coming to the denouement relate the stirring events which led to the terrible events related hereafter.

But to our tale! A keen observer taking a walk through the busy haunts of men into the street of Hereford, and eke that of Colombo, on Wednesday last, could not fail to see that some terrible event had occurred. The usual jargon of business talk flowed not with its accustomed fluency in the marts of commerce ; Mr Blythe stood aghast at the decreased consumption of luncheon by our city magnates, and yet the gloom increased. Let us now for awhile leave the noisy bustling streets. Go with us, gentle reader, to that rus in vrbe the City Council Chamber. As an American poet with tender pathos has observed t’was the deceitful calm which precedes the earthquake, the thunder, the devastating simoom, or the cheerful nor’wester, outwardly everything looked as usual;

the lofty towers of the chamber lifted their heads to the beams of the afternoon sun, which, glinting from the diamond-paned windows, fell in glorious radiance upon the portraits of Christchurch rulers, there enshrined. In an inner chamber, convulsed with grief, is the faithful servitor of a long-descended line of Mayors. We need not say who it is; let us draw a veil over the scene ; his grief is by far too sacred to be revealed to the eyes of the world his name in full. Let us therefore disguise it. “ ‘Twas the To-n Cl-rk. The cause of his grief he will reveal. He wanted a Returning Officer II As we have said the whisper had gone forth, “ Hart has resigned; he won’t act,” and the faces of those who in many a hard won battle (with a pint of colonial), had never blenched, now were “ sickbed o’er with the pale cast of thought.” Away ! away ! a cab is called —the horse a wild courser of the desert, spotted as to colour, driven by a slim youth of some sixteen stone, and the t—wn cl—rk and the s—l—c—t—r speed forth on their perilous mission. The bridge is won ; the buildings reached, but where, and oh where, is the Superintendent gone ? Emissaries are dispatched in all directions, and at last his Honor is discovered. But the troubles of our two voyagers are not yet ended ; again they urge upon their wild career, for has not an Executive to be held ? Now, oh long-suffer-ing cabbies, now Cornelius Sexton is your cup of revenge brimfull. Have ye not got two of your direst foes within your clutches, and can you not charge whatever you like. But they were magnanimous ; not more than twice the usual fare did they charge.

But to resume. The Council meets in solemn conclave, the now almost exhausted Town Clerk—worn out by grief at being Mayor-less—again urges on his wild career to the residence of the Bishop, armed with his appointment as Returning Officer and exeunt omnes , ring down the curtain on act the first of the drama.