They took themselves very seriously, the burghers of old. Here on the facade of the town hall at Tunstall, one of the great Victorian industrial towns, you can just see the words 'Truth and Justice' inscribed above the capitals, though they are much faded now.
(In fact, the town hall is much faded - being just a shell of a building, most of it).
Would anyone dare write such portentous words on any public building today?
