The same year that Walton was admitted to the freedom (1618) the Ironmongers’ pageant, exhibited a few days previous, and at which, of course, he was unable to be a representative member, was devised by Anthony Munday. There were three special attractions—an ironmine, an ostrich (which eats brass and iron to help its digestion!), and a leopard, the latter a compliment to the Lord Mayor, whose arms bore three leopards’ heads, and whose crest was a leopard. The cost of these was 103_l._ Some of the payments are curious to read:—Six green (wood) men, with four assistants, who threw up fireworks as they marched along, cost 8_l._ 10_s._; two men-of-war ships cost 30_l._; 120 chambers or small cannon, 34_l._, with “4 lbs. of almond comfits put in the bullets in the cannon,” 4_s._; banners and streamers, 36_l._; “a new antient staff with faire guilt head,” 6_s._ 8_d._; thirty-two trumpeters, 24_l._; taffety sarsnet, cloth, fringe, &c., 45_l._; “meat for the children’s breakfast,” 42_s._; and marshalling the show, 3_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ Last, but not least, there was such a gigantic operation performed that it reads like a Chicago event of to-day—“Removing the iron myne to the hall, 2_s._ 8_d._”! The next Ironmongers’ trade pageant (1635) cost 180_l._ The last Lord Mayor’s Show of the seventeenth century which the Ironmongers specially connected themselves with was that of Sir Robert Geffery in 1685, and who subsequently proved himself “a worthy benefactor” to the Company and the founder of their almshouses. It was designed by Matthew Taubman, and cost 473_l._ In his opening speech the author reminds us:— “Though poets place the Iron Age the last, it had certainly a being and was of use before silver or gold had a value among the ancients. To calculate the original founders we must go further than Tubal Cain; nor is it probable the first Cain built such a vast city without materials and instruments proper for so great a design in opening the quarries and diving into the stony bowels of the earth. As the mystery of iron-working is most ancient, so is it most useful to the State, and most profitable to the merchant and artificer. Iron, for the universality of its use, may be called the efficient matter of all other mysteries, being either an ingredient or necessary instrument in all arts and professions. Take away the use of iron, all trading must cease.”