LONDON AT PLAY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6704, 30 December 1908, Page 8

LONDON AT PLAY

FUN AT TUB LORD MAYOR’S SHOW.

(From Our Special Correspondent). LON DON, Novum her 13.

The Lord Mayor’s Show as seen (and hoard) Inst Monday from tho window's of tho London office of the *‘Ncw Zeal and Times” alfordod a good deal of innocent amusement to the company seated thereat. During the numerous halts of tho various portions of tho

procession one heard some queer remarks passing between the crowd on the pavement and the kings, poets, playwrights and other celebrities composing the pageant. One gentleman impersonating King Henry YIII. was thus saluted by a man of tho labouring classes;— “Wotcher Bill,” a-nd “Bill,” otherwise Henry, replied, “Elio Alf, ole boy.” ‘‘Could yer blow the froth off a pot Bill?” says Alf, and Henry VIII., curling his tongue round his lips, made answer with. emotion “Not arf!” Then there was William Shakespeare. It is to be feared that the organisers of tho procession had not consulted any of the “authorities” ere selecting the representative of the Bard of Avon for Monday’s procession. He bore as much resemblance to the accepted notion of Shakespeare’s style of beauty, as Landseer's lions in Trafalgar square do to the half-starved, browbeaten “King of Beasts” that is tp.be found in the ordinary travelling circus, And his moustache was a source of endless trouble to him, and merriment to other people. It would not stop in its proper place, and William’s attempts to re-affix it caused yells of

laughter. He had no looking-glass you seo.

Another figure that caused a good deal of chaff, ‘‘pointed as a bayonet and delicate as the butt-ond of a gun,” was Caliban. He was really a very excellent representation, of the savage and deformed slave of Prospero —that “freckled wlelp of Sycorax” whom Coleridge describes as “all earth, all condensed and gross in feelings and images.” But to the erowd at large ho was simply “too funny for words,” and tho pavement wit who, inspired by Caliban’s fearful head of tousled hair, invited hie neighbours to gaae upon “the first introduction o’ the door-mat inter Hingland,” had ample reward in shrieks of laughter. The three witches of “Macbeth” came in for a fearful ragging. At every halt invitations to “ ’ave a drop o’

(Now appearing in “The Thief” at the Opera House).

(Now appearing in “Tho Thief” at the Opera House).

gin, h.o were freely extended to them by the lookers on. and genial suggestions made that they would look much morn at home on broomsticks than on horseback. They were also wilfully mistaken for Suffragettes, and many an ironic shout of ‘’Votes for Women” marked their passage through tho crowded streets.

If Lord Mayor Trusootfc thought ho was going to improve the minds of his follow citizens with his “literary pageant,” his knowledge of the London crowd was greatly at fault. High good humour completely triumphed over any desire for historical education

that may have possessed, any of those who witnessed flhe show. Everybody was out for fun, and dignity was at a big discount. The show, as Lord Mayor’s shows have gone for years past, was a good one, but "the fun of the fair” which used to precede and succeed the passage of the show through Fleet street, has to a very great extent departed. In the "bad old days” a vast amount of amusement used to be derived from the practice of throwing slhovelsful of hot pennies into the street, and watching the antics of the juvenile proletariat as they sought to possess themselves' of the coins. This primitive and somewhat cruel form of amusement has long been banned by the police, who have put their foot down upon a much more, innocent diversion for which the printers’ devils of Grub street were primarily responsible and which caused perhaps more fun than anything on. Ford Mayor’s Show day.. From the narrow entrance to Bouverie or Whitefriars street would emerge a crowd of young fellows apparently intent on lynching some unfortunate fellow creature. Up in the air would fly what at first blush looked

like a human being. Down came the body and then there were sounds' of savage kicking. Then high up again in the air the “body” would be flung to descend with whatever might be adhering to it, on the beads of the crowd. Then there would be a rush of laughing policemen, who made halfhearted attempts to rescue 1 the “corpse,” but usually failed to do no, until the crowd wm tired of the fun, or the “corpse” had been reduced to fragments of clothing and wiepe of straw. ' Those days hare apparently gone never to return. Horse play, “ticklers,” confetti throwing, “seent squirts,” all »««m to "Bo barred by the lord Mayor's Show crowds of to-day. and nearly all that remains of the old “fun of the fair” is the interchange of badinage and repartee, not always either delicate or edifying.