THE MAKING OF MAYORS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3376, 2 March 1920, Page 2

THE MAKING OF MAYORS

QUAINT OLD CUSTOMS STILL IN VOGUE. Each November sees several hundred new mayors come into office, (says an English contemporary), and in many towns the old customs which attended their election will be revived this year.

The new mayor of Hanley, for instance, will drink champagne from a glass a yard long, and so will his councillors, in ruder days anyone failing to finish his draught had the heel taps poured down his shirt-front by two stalwart cup-bearers. The Mayor of Wycombe will be weighed, while the Mayor of Cork will cast a dart into the waters of the harbour as a sign of the corporation's sovereignty over its waters. Limerick's Mayor will receive a ton of coal from the colliers who use that port.

The Mayor of Cardiff must present a marriage dowry to a domestic servant, one who has been at least eight years in the tame place, -and who bears a good character. The money is the interest of a gift of £I,OOO from a former Marquis of Bute, and amounts to about £3O. The mayor on this occasion must delner a short ! sermon or discourse on the solemnity I of matrimony.

That is not so bad as having to sing the "Old Hundredth." which is the lot of the Mayor of St. Ives, in Cornwall. Not to every mayor falls this task, for the particular ceremonial which involves it. the procession to Knill steeple, occurs only once in five years.

The Mayor of Ripon has a horn blown outside his mayoral residence at nine at night This happens every evening and inust become monotonous before his year of office is over. The quaintest of all mayoral customs is now extinct. In the ancient borough of Leicester the candidates for office sat ir. a cj-cle, each with his hat full of beans on nis lap. Then an old sow was introduced into the. circle, and he was elected mayor from whose hat fhe animal first ate.