TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14512, 19 December 1912, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

To be banqueted every A other night of the week Year for a whole year may apof pear a delightful prosBanquets, pect to some people, but such a succession of feasts would soon begin to pall even on' the gourmand. To attend some 165 official dinners during his year cf office is one of tho social duties of the Lord Mayor of London, and it needs a man with a strong constitution indeed to live through such a tremendous j programme. A tendency to dine heartily would soon have the VSect of working havoc with the Mayoral digestion. This formidable round of dinners com-, rcences with the banquet of November tho 9 th, and continues unabated through the whole year save perhaps in August and September. During May and June as many as 21 or 23 official dinners have to be attended in the month. This year's retiring Lord Mayor. Sir Thomas Crosby, has come through tho ordeal unscathed. Though 82 years of age he is still hard and tough and wiry, and, as the "Standard" remarks, he is no relic of tho great Gargantian Dickensiam era, when corpulence was inevitably associated with the Mansion House tenantry. During his year's office ho lived according to a caTef ul system, of which the chief feature was early hours. His carriage was always ordered at 10 o'clock, and at that hour the Lord Mayor always left. Speeches had to bo got through by that hour, and to this end the custom of having musical items between tho toasts was abolished. In this way Sir Thomas Crosby always contrived to get to bed before 11 o'clock, and it is to this that he attributes his present physical fitness. Eor tho duties of the Lord Mayor aro many and arduous, and by no means confined to eating. On 1 some days, Sir Thomas says, ho had to work so hard that half an hour's rido in a motor 'bus was all the leisure ihe was able to snatch. In ad- | dition, the office is an expensive one ito keep up, and to do the thing properly it is necessary, as Sir Thomas Crosby found, to draw upon one's own private supply to supplement the annual allowance. For the Mansion Houso possesses a reputation for hospitality on a grand scale which has to be kept up. And certainly Sir Thomas Crosby does not seem to have failed in his duty, for he retires from office as quite the most popular Lord Mayor of recent years.

A Japanese gentleman I Selecting named Ichiba, who is a said to be an author of Wife. somo repute in his native country, but is still better known for an abundance of those, ec- , ocntricitics which are held to be the infallible indication of genius, lately Ic-st his wife. Straightway ho set about, supplying the deficiency, but in his own curious way. Notifying all his friends and acquaintances of his j matrimonial intentions, he instructed them to keep their eyes open tor the right sort of wife, and for their quid- ! ance he drew out a scheme of tabulated conditions which the winning lady would have to fulfil. First of all "the lady must have passed through all the various conditions of life, and the various phases of society from A to Z. a*s only "by ripe experience could perfection be attained." Or to put it more

briefly "none but ladies with pasts need apply." Possibly the ulterior object lurking behind this demand for 3 wife with a variegated career was to secure a permanent fund of materials for future literary efforts. But in addition to this the lady must be in a ''hard-up" condition. "Except the clothes she should stand up in, she should havo no worldly possessions whatsoever." The reeson for this provision is not so obvious. Furthermore "she must be stvered from her family entirely." There is a note of finality, of peremptoriness almost about this injunction. Presumably Mr Ichiba has known what |t> is to have a mother-in-law and is firmly resolved not to repeat tho experience. His wife was to be comely (according to Japanese criteria), that is to say ''she must stand oft high in her shoes. and her limbs and body must be of proper plumpness," but she must be by no means solely ornamental, for "she must contract to keep the kitchen and bathroom absolutely spick and span and ready for instant use." Nor must there be anything of the foreign about her attire. "Her style of hair-dress-ing must be ;i la mode Japonaise —no foreign frills, pads, switches or toupets to bo permitted." Candidates rolled up in crowds, but only one of them— the forty so. enth—suoccced in getting through tho entrance examination. Tho lucky lady was only twenty-eight years of age, according to her own reckoning, but stio succeeded in convincing Mr Ichiba that she had had all tho experience he wanted. Sho also mentioned that she literally fulfilled the second qualification and proceeded to borrow half a sovereign from him as an earnest of his intentions. They were married, and tho marriage was as weird cs tiro courtship. Priest*, registrars, wedding guests, and all else who might reasonably have expected to have tho right of entry, wero strictly barred. "When the ceremony was over Mr Ichiba appeared at the front door and told those waiting outside that they conld go away home, as he did not propose to spoil his wedding day by a reception. So the guests went, leaving the curious pair to their wedded happiness.