FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



Yet, stay ! I have to remember that at the 

 present moment 1 am not unburdening myself 

 to Bath citizens alone, most of whom, especially 

 all of Mayoral rank, know and appreciate our civic 

 sword-bearer's worth, and are aware of what he is 

 to a Chief Magistrate. Those at a distance may 

 need to be told, on the authority of an ex-Mayor, 

 that he is nothing less than the guardian-angel 

 of all holders of the office, ever watchful and vigi- 

 lant on their behalf, and with an unsurpassable 

 knowledge of Mayoral manners and customs. His 

 profundity of experience enables him to say off- 

 hand what occasion calls for full-state, what for 

 semi-state, and what for no-state at all. Without 

 such guidance Mayors would be apt to perpetrate 

 all kinds of enormities, such as disporting them- 

 selves in scarlet robes when black were quite good 

 enough, would be adorning their necks with the 

 great gold chain when it was only a collar day : 

 or, maybe, arraying themselves in the red necklet 

 when tradition had ordained that a blue one -was 

 the correct wear. Jordan has these and all other 

 such niceties of civic etiquette at his finger ends, 

 and he pilots you through all the shoals and quick- 

 sands besetting those strange seas which have to 

 be navigated by the municipal neophyte in so 

 gentle and fatherly a fashion, and yet withal with 

 such assured confidence, that unhesitatingly you 

 place yourself in his hands in the happy conscious- 

 ness that all will then be well. Add to these 

 mental qualifications physical attributes which, 

 for such a post, could leave nothing further to be 

 desired, and you will then be able the better to 

 understand the happenings at Oxford. 



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