THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW FOR 1853!
WE perfectly agree with Mr. Alderman Sidney—the Lord Mayor elect—that the great civic show of the Ninth of November is a vital element in our social and commercial life. Whittington's cat still purrs encouragingly down generations. Walworth's dagger is a bright and keen realty; and not the air-drawn blade that the utility-mongers would make of it. The influence of the Lord Mayor's Show is no doubt felt in the remotest parts of this island. The rumbling of the wheels of the state coach is heard in the dreams of youthful sleepers a-bed, it may be, in garrets at the Land's End. Alderman Sidney feels all the poetry of this; therefore the City of London is safe in his enthusiastic keeping.
But Mr. Alderman Sidney—if we may believe a very general report—proposes to endow the Show with a purpose of instruction. He will inform outward bravery with an inward teaching. Thus, as a prosperous tea-merchant, the new Lord Mayor will have a new state coach built and ornamented as a magnificent tea-chest upon wheels; and will further have his coachman and footmen drest after the approved fashion of Tien-Te, in remote but no less sincere compliment to Young China, vice Old China chipped, cracked, and falling to pieces.