THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW AND OTHER THINGS
We have now seen a good deal of London, and know something about it; but
there are a few facts that do not come very well into any of the
preceding chapters, and so to end up I am going to make a chapter about
the odd things.
You remember that when Dick Whittington, weary and disheartened, would
have gone away from London, he heard the bells of Bow Church ringing,
and what they seemed to say to him was, 'Turn again, Whittington, thrice
Lord Mayor of London.' And he was so much encouraged that he did turn
again, and persevered, and in the end he rose so high as to be Lord
Mayor, not once, but three times.
It is a great thing to be the Lord Mayor. He is chosen every year, and
rules the city for a year, and then resigns his grand position to his
successor. There is a splendid house right in the heart of the City
called the Mansion House, and here the Lord Mayor lives while he is
Lord Mayor, and here he gives great banquets. Sometimes the King and
Queen come to lunch with him, and all the great people from abroad who
visit England go to see the Lord Mayor. When the King makes a procession
through London in state he is met at Temple Bar, where the City begins,
by the Lord Mayor, who hands him the keys of the City; not that there is
any longer any gate that needs unlocking, but this ceremony is kept up
in memory of the time when London was surrounded by a high wall, which
prevented anyone getting in except by the gates.
The ninth of November is Lord Mayor's Day. On that day the new Lord
Mayor, who has been chosen for the year, makes a procession all round
London. This is a great holiday; the shops are shut, and people put on
their best clothes and turn out into the streets, and very early in the
morning the police begin to stop the omnibuses and cabs that are going
down the City streets and turn them into other streets more out of the
way. Then the crowds grow thicker and thicker, walking all over the
roadway, so that there would be no room for anyone to drive through even
if it were permitted. At last the signal is given that the procession
is coming. Then the police hurry about and push the people back, and
make a way for the procession, and everyone stands on tiptoe and strains
to see over his neighbour's shoulders. First come bands playing gay
tunes and soldiers marching, and then more soldiers and more bands, and
then perhaps sailors, and it may be the fire-engine, not racing along to
put out a fire, but with the horses trotting gently, while the people
shout and cheer, for everyone admires the Fire Brigade.
These are followed by the lifeboat men, who save life at sea, and fight
with the waves as the firemen fight with the flames. They have a great
lifeboat on a car, and the people cheer themselves hoarse at the sight
of it. Then follow shows, with people dressed up to represent India or
Asia, dragged along on great cars. One year there were men dressed up to
represent all the Lord Mayors there had been in the City since very
early times, and the gay colours and the curious old-fashioned clothes
were very pretty. There may follow next the Duke of York's little
soldier boys that you have read about, marching along with their band
playing, and enjoying themselves very much. It is a holiday for them.
There are also carriages with the officers of the City, the sheriffs
and aldermen, who help the Lord Mayor with his duties, and who will
perhaps themselves take his place in turn; and at last there is a great
shouting and cheering, and a huge coach appears painted with crimson and
gold, like the glass coach that the fairy godmother made for Cinderella.
It comes swinging along with the Lord Mayor inside. There are four
horses covered with rich harness, and the fat coachman on the box, with
his three-cornered hat and brilliant livery, looks very proud of himself
and his position.
When the procession has passed the people close in over the road again,
and jostle and push and laugh, and everyone seems to be going in
different directions, and Lord Mayor's Show is done for another year.
When I began writing about the Lord Mayor I mentioned Dick Whittington
and Bow bells. Bow Church is a very famous church. One way of expressing
the fact of being a Londoner used to be to say 'born within sound of Bow
bells.'
The old church was burnt down with all the others in the Fire, and the
church that now stands was built by Sir Christopher Wren. In the old
church it was a rule that the bell should be rung every night, and when
the shopmen heard the bell they shut up their shops. Now, the men who
rang the bell sometimes were late, and this made the apprentices, the
young men who worked in the shops, very angry, for they wanted to get
away from their work and go out into the streets to enjoy themselves;
but their masters would not let them go until the bell rang. So the
young apprentices made up a rhyme:
'Clarke of the Bow bell, with thy yellow lockes,
For thy late ringing, thy head shall have knockes.'
And the clerk was frightened, and said:
'Children of Cheape, hold you all still,
For you shall have Bow bell rung at your will.'
Cheape was the name of the street where the church stands, and it is now
called Cheapside. I expect the clerk kept his promise, for the young
apprentices were very sturdy, and they would have given him 'knockes' at
once. I do not know how they liked being called children.
On the top of Bow spire there was a figure of a dragon, which looked
very fine when the sun shone; and in another part of the City, near the
Bank and the Mansion House, there was on the top of the Royal Exchange a
grasshopper, which was the sign of a great merchant of Queen
Elizabeth's time, who built the first Exchange. Now, there was an old
saying that when the grasshopper from the Exchange and the dragon from
Bow Church should meet, the streets of London would run with blood. But
this did not seem at all likely to happen, for there is a long distance
between the Exchange and Bow Church. But rather less than a hundred
years ago the dragon was taken down to be cleaned, and at the same time
someone thought the grasshopper wanted repair, and, as it happened, he
took it to the very same builder's yard where the dragon was, and the
dragon and the grasshopper lay side by side. Then someone remembered
that old saying, and was terrified; but there was no fighting, and the
streets of London did not run with blood, which shows that old sayings
do not always come true.
London City is now lighted by electricity, which has almost displaced
gas, but there was a time not so long ago when the only lighting of the
streets was done by candles, and every man who owned a window looking
out on to the street was forced to burn a candle there from six to ten
o'clock every night.
You can imagine that these candles did not make a very good light, and
there was plenty of opportunity for thieves and ruffians to annoy
honest men. When people went out at night they used to hire boys with
torches to run beside them. These boys were called link-boys, and they
waited in the streets to be hired, just as cabmen wait about now. The
torches they carried were flaming pieces of wood, which burned very
brightly and made many sparks and much smell, and one would have thought
they were very dangerous, as they might have set alight the ladies'
dresses, but we never hear of any such accidents having happened.
Well, this is all I am going to tell you about London at present, but it
is by no means all there is to tell; only some things are not easy for
children to understand, and others are difficult to describe in writing.
For these you must wait until you are older, and until you can go to see
them for yourselves. But if you understand ever so little from this book
what a great and wonderful town London is, you will not have wasted your
time in reading it.
THE END
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