THE SERGEANT-AT ARMS AND HIS BAUBLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume I, Issue 93, 22 July 1879, Page 3

THE SERGEANT-AT ARMS AND HIS BAUBLE.

Why should the Serjeant-at-arms of the House of Commons shoulder a largo silver -gilt niaeo when he escorts the Right Honourable the Speaker in solemn procession from the Commons to the Lords ? What is the signification of a Sergeant-at-Arms; and, in fine, what does the Mace itself (which Cromwell irreverently callod " a bauble ") symbolise ? You may esteem these to be extremely triviul questions ; but, to my mind, everything has a definite meaning, and we are bound to find out that meaning if we can. Gene* ral Servan, in his " Histoiro des Guerres des Gaulois et des Francais en Italic" (Paris, 1805), remarks that in the year 1199, the horrible system of assassination organised by the Old Man of the Mountain (the first employer of special correspondents who travelled to all parts of the earth, writing in the " slashing " style) furnished Philip Augustus with a pretext for surrounding his person with a company of guards armed with heavy brazen maces, who left him neither by day nor by night, and kept all strangers from. him. " Such was the origin " writes General Servan, "of Sergeants-alarms." The inst itution spread allover Europe ; our municipal corporations as well as Parliament have, at present, their maces and mace-bearers ; and Mr Bumble the Beadle'e silver-knobbed staff, even, may be considered as a very remote emblem of the anxiety of the parochial authorities to protect themselves from the " Special Correspondents" of the Old Man of the Mountain. — lllus. London News.