10 MAY 1935, Page 6

As in private duty bound (though there is no need

to go further into that) I" must salute the historic •city of Plymouth on its acquisition of a Lord Mayor. The" mayors of Plymouth go back to the thirteenth century or thereabouts, and there are many famous and honoured names in the list. But the best known, probably, of them never existed. That was the Mayor of Plymouth in Kingsley's Water Babies, who went lobster-fishing on the Mewstone, outside Plymouth Sound, and being captured by his intended captive was held firm-gripped by the indomitable lobster while the rising tide pro- ceeded slowly to submerge him. The story would have been even more impressive with a Lord Mayor as victim. Some holder of the new honour might feel it proper to make fiction fact.

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