LONDON'S LORD MAYOR

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 26, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 55.

LONDON'S LORD MAYOR.

THE lord mayor of London has far more important and responsible duties to perform than any American mayor. He is, by virtue of his office, the chief judge of the city, alike in civil and criminal cases, as well as the supreme head of the police. Every day, save one legal holiday, he sits at the mansion house to dispense justice, and, inasmuch as all the great interests of the immense British Empire center in the city of London, it will naturally be understood that the cases which he has to decide are often of a weighty character.

In addition to being a judge he will become, from the moment of his installation, in November next, the admiral of the port of London, a general of militia, a dictator of the public markets, a controller of weights and measures, a conservator of the river Thames, and a member of the queen's privy council. He has an official salary of $50,000 for the year of his office, besides a number of allowances, but the expenses of his office are so big that every incumbent of the post is forced to spend at least $100,000 out of his own pocket for the purpose of maintaining its dignity unimpaired. The knighthood or baronetcy which is granted to nearly every lord mayor may be regarded in a measure as a return for this great financial outlay.

The lord mayor maintains a household organized on an absolutely regal scale, the members of which are, fortunately for him, paid by the city. They include a chaplain, secretaries, chamberlains, marshals, sword bearers, physicians, train bearer, and, last but not least, a hangman. The power vested in his hands is simply inconceivable. No government functionary can control him, nor can his actions in any way be questioned by the central power. With his common council he administers public funds and disposes of communal property, and applies and even makes laws without reference to Parliament. Even if the queen wishes to pass the boundaries on her way to St. Paul's Cathedral or to lay some corner stone, she has to ask permission of the lord mayor, and the same formality must be gone through by the Secretary of State for War each time he has occasion to send half a dozen men and a corporal through Fleet Street.—Western British-American.