than
the observance; and towards their opinion seems to incline that of the
chief performers in the modern "_mystery_"--the M.P. himself, whose
nerves, proprieties, and objections have unitedly rebelled against
submission to these antiquated practices of this antiquated place. It is
therefore scarcely what _is_, but what _has been_, that we have to
commemorate in our detail.

When the onerous duty of selecting a representative of the people's
voice, wishes, and will in the councils of the nation has been completed
by the calm, deliberate, dispassionate, and disinterested decision of the
enfranchised tithe of the city's populace, the successful candidates are,
or _were_, wont to receive installation from the hands of their
constituents by a "toss up," not, we would inform our countrymen of the
"_sheeres_," (meaning all other counties save Norfolk, Suffolk, and
Kent)--not that they engage in any little gambling speculation, such as
is usually known under a similar name, but that they are required to
submit to be made shuttlecocks for some few hours, for the amusement of
the admiring multitude; and seeing that the fun and frolic thus afforded
is, or _was_, the sole share of nine-tenths of the population in the
transaction of electing the "unruly member" that is to speak the hopes,
wants, dissatisfactions, and grumblings of a large city, it may seem
somewhat hard to them that they should be deprived of it. The order of
carrying out this provincial mode of installation, consists in forming a
grand procession, as it is called, made up of as many carriages and
horsemen as the stables of the city and neighbourhood, private and
public, may contrive to turn out, the _colour_ and popularity of the
candidate of course exercising its influence upon _quantity_ and
_quality_. The days of velvet doublets and liveries of silver and gold
being passed, the candidate makes no pretensions to display in the
toilettes of the gentlemen--plain, sober black predominates throughout
the mass; no shadow of a variation, save and except in the "dramatis
personae," who take their stand upon the battledores provided for them,
arrayed in full court costume or regimentals, as the case may be. To
particularize more closely, it should be stated, that the battledores, as
we have chosen to designate them, are wooden platforms, borne upon the
shoulders of some two or three dozen men; the platform supports a chair
elaborately ornamented, blue and silver, o