The Children's Book of London

by G. E. Mitton

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

PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., LONDON AND EDINBURGH