WITH THF LORD MAYOR OF LONDON IN THE MANSION HOUSE.

Southland Times, Issue 581, 22 October 1866, Page 3

WITH THF LORD MA Y OR OF LONDON IN THE MANSION HOUSE.

I (From All the Tear Round.) Up at half-past seven in the morning ! Fancy that to begin with. Didn't ymi think, how, that when you became Lord Mayor you would be able to lie to what hour' you liked ? Of course you did. Bat you will find that a Lord Mayor's life is not all gilt-coach, turtle, and champagne. The very first duty of the day is one that few of us would care to be bound to— "the duty of reading letters and signing a large number of documents before breakfast. And the letters which the Lord Mayor receives are frequently calculated to take away his appetite before breakfast. For example, when he came into the breakfast-room, the other morning to snatch a hasty meal, he brought with him, by way of something pleasant to communicate to his family, a letter addressed outside to the " Dishonorable the Lord Mayor," and containing inside, the agreeable and appetisingintimation that he would be shot next Friday morning : I expected his family to go off into hysterics in a body, and I was quite prepared" to join in the chorus ; but I found they took it coolly. It is quite an every-day occurrence. There is al- | ways somebody threatening to shoot the I Lord Mayor. Letters pour in upon the i Lord Mayor of London in cart-loads. i They are from all classes" of persons, upon every kind of business and idle folly, and come from all quarters of the world. Frenchmen write to him in the idea that he is autocrat of all London and prime minister of the sovereign ; mad Germans send him. cramped screeds of besotted political philosophy ; indignant Irishmen claim him as a son of Erin, and beg a trifle in the name of their common country ; schoolboys who are not happy at at home ask him for situations in the City. This morning he received a long letter from a German, giving him a history of his own career. According to his correspondent's account, he, the Lord ' Mayor, was born in Hamburgh, of I German parents, and was brought up as a tailor. There is not a kind of lunacy under the sun, which does not vent itself in a letter to the Lord Mayor of London. Of course the cart-load of communications is well sifted by his secretary, but there is always a large re; luum which demands his personal attention. He is asked to patronise charities, to take the chair at dinners, to open exhibitions, to be present — whatever his creed and denomination — at church sermons, to lay foundation-stones, and generally to give up the whole of his time, and spend a good deal more than the whole of his fortune, for the benefit of the human race. The Lord Mayor does not wear a smooth brow when he comes in to breakfast of a morning. Care vaults upon his shoulders the moment he is out of bed. How shall lie answer all these applicants ? To which shall he say " Yes," and to which <Xo ?" He will have to preside in the justice-room by-and-bye. What if^ the assassin should be there, waiting to shoot him according to obliging promise !

It is not all cooking that goes on in the basement story of the London Mansion House. If you enter by the little door under the grand portico, you will observe a nest of offices, filled with ledgers, ac-count-books, and deed-boxes. Clerks are busy at the desks preparing a^ large number of documents, every one of which the Lord Mayor must sign with his own haad. One of these departments is called the Cocket Office. There, a record is kept of those imports of corn, coals, fruit, &c, which pay toll to the city. It is the Lord Mayor's duty to give receipts for those dues, and every morning after breakfast he signs, on an average, 250 receipts. It is calculated that in the course of his life of office, the Lord signs his name to official documents 50,000 times. "While he is signing away at lightning speed, " parties" are waiting to see him in his business parlor, previous to the opening of the court. Here, he gives audience to attorneys and barristers making applications, grants warrants, and pesides over what are called " private hearings." While his Lordship is being badgered in. his own parlor by a pert "junior," let us occupy ourselves more pleasantly with an inspection of the department of pleasure.

Mark this. As you must pass through j the Cocket Office to arrive at the kitchen, j so the Lord Mayor has to pass through many arduous duties before he can sit down quietly to enjoy his dinner. Let us peep into the servants' hall in passing. Head the inscription over the mantelpiece, and mind your manners. " Swear not, lie not, nor repeat old grievances. Whosoever eats or drinks in this hall with his hat on, shall ferfeit sixpence or ride the wooden horse." The wooden horse is a stout pole bearing the above inscription, and painted like a constable's staff. The offender is mounted upon it, and two servants seizing the ends, make him ride the stang. I was informed that the last person who offended against the rules of the hall, and was compelled to ride the wooden horse, — I blush to write it — " a gentlemai : the Press." Eor two or three hours a-day it is the Lord Mayor's painful task to ait in that chair and be a witness to every form of human misfortune, misery and crime ; his the stern duty to reprove when reproof seems a cruelty ; to condemn, when fate has condemned already. jSTo man of feeling G-iu sit in that chair with an unwrung heart.

Lunch is on the table. "Where is the Lord Mayor. Busy in the justice-room signing commitments. We go to lunch without him and his lordship does not appear for half an hour. "When he comes ia, looking careworn and pre-occupied, tue turtle soup is allgone; the pullets are mangled and cold, the pies are exhausted. Never mind, he will have a chop. And we, his family and his guests, having feasted upon all the delicacies of the season, and having talked about plays and amusements, retire to the drawing-room, leaving bis unfortunate lordship to eat his plain chop and potatoe, while his private secretary reads over to him the letters

which have come iri by the mid-day post. Meantime the business parlor is full oi visitors clamorously waiting for the audience. It is a very elegant, luxurious drawingroom ; but come to the window and look out between those rich lace curtains. What is that below in the street ? _ The prisoners' van. Everywhere, amid the splendour, start up the skeleton and the death's head. Mr G-ibbs, his lordship's private secretary, a gentleman well versed in all the routine of the office, well verged, too, in the history and antiquities of the City, finds a few spare moments to show us the cells. They are below stairs, quite close to Alladin's cave, within hearing of the clink of silver and gold, within nose-shot of the roasting baron of beef, and the simmering pate. Cages of Tantalus ! Look ! - Behind the bars, huddled up in a corner, crouches the shivering pauper in the branded sackcloth. In the next cage is an idle and dishonest apprentice. Did he ever dream 'of being Lord Mayor of London, and living in the Mansion House ? Poor lad, he has entered <he Palace in the City by the wrong gate. Mr G-ibbs is well acquainted with every nook and corner of the palace — for palace it is, and a very magnificent one too. Was notr its noble Egyptian Hall built after the model of the wonderful Egyptian Hall described by Yitruvius? We may trace its proportions, here, among the wine-cellars. There are streets of wine- cellars, their sombre doors looking like the entrances to # tombs. Only there are no " dead men " in those tombs. Here we come upon another of the Lord Mayors' cares. The foundation of the Mansion House, laid down before concrete was understood, has lately been giving way. Workmen have for some | time been engaged in laying a new basis. In the process of excavation they turned up many curious things, amongst others, the smallest horned ox's head ever seen. Perhaps the animal fell a victim to mediaeval Einderpest. Item, a human skull with the finest set of teeth ever seen. I don't fancy that the owner of that skull could have been an alderman, for his grinders seem to have found exercise on the very hardest food. Yol-au-vent and patties were not known, I should say, in his time, or, if they did not fall to his sLare. Passing once more through the Cocket Office, Mr G-ibbs directs our attention to the bill of costs and charges for^ the banqueif"on Lord Mayor's Day :— Dinner and wine £1600. "Eancythat! All gether the expenses of that grand day were £3102 11s. 4d. Some of the items are curious. I will note a few : — Pickford and Co., cartage of armour, .£4l; gas, £100; hire of looking - glasses, £40 ; insurance of pictures, &c, £5 7s 3d ; wai^ds and decorations, £70 7s 6d ; gravelling the streets, £7 10s ; decorating Ludgate-hill, £40. In Hone's Table Book I find the bill of a Mayor's feast in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Certainly he was the Mayor of Norwich ; but *he entertained the Queen and all her court : — Total charge for the feast, £1 12s 9d. Three of the items will be sufficient to show how the banquet cost so little : — Eight stone of beef at 8d per stone and a sirlion, 5s 8d ; a hindquarter of veal, lOd; bushel of flour, 6d ; two gallons of white wind and canary, 2s. Gfoing upstairs, we find the Lord Mayor still occupied in his business parlor. Applicants are still besieging his door. Another cart-load of letters has been shot upon his table. One appeals to him as the most benevolent gentleman on the face of the earth ; another declares that he is a villain of the deepest dye, and is not fit to live upon the face of the earth. Meantime, I find that he has presided at the Court of Aldermen ; and an intimation has just come in, that it will be his duty to preside to to-morrow at the Court of Common Council. He has scarcely got through all his business when it is time to dress for dinner. This evening he entertains — and it is part of his duty, observe — the Ward of Farringdon Within ; to-morrow it will be his duty to entertain the Ward of Farringdon Without ; and in the course of ! his year of office, it will be his duty to feast the City Companies, the Corporation, her Majesty's Ministers, the Judges, j the Bishops, andrnany other public bodies. k± each of these banquets he has to make about a dozen speeches in proposing toasts, which iB no light work of itself. A worthy woman in the crowd, on Lord Mayor's Day, was heard to exclaim " Ah, I wonder how the ex Lady Mayoress feels this morning ! " which plainly expresses the popular idea that it is a fine thing to jbe Lady Mayoress. So it is, perhaps ; but I should say, that on the day when her husband goes out of ofiice, the Lady Mayoress feels very much relieved. And if you, my reader, do become Lord Mayor of London, all I can say is — that the citizens ought to be very much obliged to you.