Considering all that its acceptance entails upon the wearer, it can easily be understood that there should be some reluctance to have anything to do with it within the ranks of the eligible. If it were an understood thing that the burgesses of the town must buy their bacon and butter from the Mayor during his term of office, the problem of the Mayoralty might become less acute--assuming that a bacon and butter candidate were available; but no suggestion of this sort has ever been made so far as I can gather, and thus the difficulty is increasing year by year with the using up of all the available material for Mayors in the rough. The fact is, that a great deal too much is expected from the Mayor. There is an inaugural banquet every year at which some two hundred burgesses, and several of the local gentry, and Members of Parliament, with a bishop, a rural dean, and an occasional chaplain to the forces, sit down on the invitation of the incoming Mayor.--He is expected to pay for everything, and as the feast is founded on the noblest traditions of civic catering, his bill cannot but be a heavy one. In no way is the menu inferior in interest to that to be found on the table of the Mansion House in the City of London. As a matter of fact, I believe that the turtle soup served at the Mallingham banquet is a trifle richer than that in the Mansion House, and the champagne is possibly a little sweeter. But the status of the large proportion of the guests at the one is widely different from that of the majority at the other. In Mallingham the tradesmen--gas-fitters, grocers, tobacconists, hair-cutters, newsagents, and the like--who are probably accustomed to a midday dinner of a cut from the joint, two vegetables, cheese, and a glass of ale, and want nothing better, work their way through a long and elaborate succession of dishes, between the _hors d'ouvres assortis_ and the home-grown pineapple, drinking glass after glass of Ayala, _cuvée reservée_. Of course they may appreciate some of the simpler delicacies--_vol-au-vent_ or the _faysans rotis_--but the most of the dishes are mysteries to them and, though very expensive, altogether obnoxious to the uneducated palate.