PAGEANTRY IN LONDON

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 January 1928, Page 10

PAGEANTRY IN LONDON

A REMARKABLE DINNER.

The Lord Mayor’s Show, goes back to 1209, when Sir Henry Fitz Alwin went by river to the Courts of Law at Westminster. The Lord Mayor’s Show, in its present form, only dates from 1883, when the Lord Mayor and sheriffs took the oath at the new Law Courts in the Strand for the first time. It is a pity that the show occurs in murky November, instead of in June or July, when Dominion and American tourists are in London. The coach in which the Lord Mayor rides was built in 1757. Last year’s procession included 15 military bands, and at least 2000 people had a part in the pageant. Elaborate tableaux, on wheeled cars, have been a feature of the Lord Mayor’s Show ever since the water procession in civic barges was abandoned in 1856. Last year they were exceptionally interesting, including Dick Whittington, who was shown with his cat, sitting by the milestone on Highgate Hill, listening to the bells of Bow Church, and a model of Captain Cook’s Endeavour set upon a car led by Australian stockdrivers. The Australian car was provided at the expense of the Orient Steam Navigation Company, and was followed by one picturing the Great Eastern, which laid the first Atlantic submarine cable in 1886. Hard upon it came a representation of. the cable ship Dominia, launched by the Eastern Telegraph Company in 1926. A wireless car, equipped by the Marconi Company, showing methods of wireless signalling at sea, and a full-scale model of a London to Paris air liner equipped for 18 passengers, were other novelties. Finaly came the Lord Mayor, in his State coach drawn by six horses, and attended by his chaplain, his swordbearer, and the mace. The Lord Mayor’s Show was followed by an evening feast at the Guildhall, which was attended by the Prime Minister and nearly 1000 guests. Practically all the guests were in uniform: Cabinet Ministers being in Privy Councillors’ dress, and the city men in the robes of the companies with which they are associated. More than 300 cooks, waiters, and kitchen hands were needed to serve the meal. Nevertheless, epicures do not admit that a Guildhall banquet constitutes dining at its best.

Four hundred chefs of European fame sat down to a meal at the new Park Lane Hotel, in Piccadilly, specially prepared by M. Francois Perrin. His choice of dishes was very different from those served to the 1000 guests at the Guildhall. Holding that oysters have lost their novelty, M. Perrin opened with grape fruit, served with kummel; lie continued with 15 varieties of hors d’oeuvres, specially collected from France, Italy, Spain, Russia and Greece. Celery soup was followed by a DoVer sole, each roll being served with a slice of lobster and a bunch of asparagus points. M. Perrin’s lamb, cooked in butter and garnished with chopped parsley and breadcrumbs, had hung for seven days before it was judged fit for the 400 epicures. The beans came from Algeria, and the “button” mushrooms from France; both were brought to London specially by aeroplane. “Poularde Poelee Careme” denoted Surrey fowl, cooked according to a French recipe, 200 years old, which experts still regard as the best method of retaining the flavour of the flesh. The meal ended, with sweets, the bonbonniere being in baskets of spun sugar—golden, pink, green, and v.iolet.