A MAYOR'S NEST
SIR,—Strix has got this wrong. As a very minor municipal gent. (who is unlikely ever to be accompanied by a mace-bearer) I have a good deal of sympathy with the nine Mayors of Kent. As an ex-temporary officer of HM Forces I have a good deal of sympathy with the Buffs.
If a personage is to visit the town hall and the Mayor invites General Jones to be present and he is not presented, General Jones cannot complain. If General Jones happens to be Colonel of the county regiment and is invited as such, he has every right to feel that his regiment has been slighted if others are pre- sented and he is not.
Mayors attend hundreds of functions in their year of office, but rarely do they stray outside their town halls robed, chained and maced. 'On this occasion they all came thus. The invitation must therefore have been so worded that it appeared to all of them they were to be received with the fullest honours as representatives of their boroughs. They cer- tainly were not the guests of an officer of the regiment as Strix says. Not even if he had undertaken to pay for their refreshment (if they had had any) out of his own pocket.
Apart from that, if you are dressed in robes and chain and preceded by a mace-bearer and are not given a suitably prominent position, you are apt to feel rather like the lady who took her harp to the party.
The answer is, of course, that somebody in the Town Clerks' departments shotild have done a little quiet telephoning to find out exactly what the programme was before the
Mayors decided to go in state. Some modest reciprocal hospitality in mess and parlour should restore the situation to normal.
May I say, finally, Sir, how delighted I am to see the change that has come over your paper in recent months, though I cannot think that you were justified in giving up a whole page to so minor an affair as this, which can be of no general intcrest7—Yours faithfully, ROBERT Non
4 Heathrote Road, Epsom, Surrey
[Strix writes : I hesitate to waste any more space on a matter which Mr. Nott considers to be of no general interest (though I am glad to note that it seems to have interested him). An authoritative answer to his urbane letter can only come from the Buffs.]
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