The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-16 00:00:00

THE CITY POLICE.

The Lord Mayor is understood to have received
a communication from Sir George Grey apprising
him that it is the intention of the Goverumeut to
introduce a bill in the House of Commons, having
for its object to place the whole of the metropf lis,
including the City, under one system of police. The
Aldermen have been summoned to attend a meeting
at Guildhall to-day, for the express purpoke of
hearing the letter of the Home Secretary read and
shaping their course of action.

For years past nothing has occurred to cause
greater excitement and alarm among the members
aetehitghheierstpotolictehewiltohwtehsat tthoefythmeamy ehterospaiodliste. Fhertuanp
in arms at the suggestion,
of the Corporation than the proposition to amalga-
mate
and already a great
amount of bitter party feeling has been engendered,
which is chiefly directed against Sir George Grey
and Sir Richard Mayne. Ward meetings are
being
held all over the City to protest against the
threatened innovation, which is denounced in
speeches and resolutions as being opposed to the
principle of local self-government, akin to centra-
lisation, aimed at some of the time honoured pri-
vileges of the Corporation. A favourite figure of
speech is, that it is an attempt to introduce " the
thin end of the wedge," and that, once deprived of
the management of their police, the right of elect-
tinhgemtsheelvires, would own
and a stipendiary would
be substituted for an unpaid magistracy. It would,
however, be an error to suppose that the pub.in
m a
follow,gistrat es ton which they pride
feeling in the city of London on this or on any
other occasion is at all fairly reflected in
these assemblies. They are usually held in some
little schoolroom capable of holding fifty or a
hundred people, as at toe election of an alderman
or a common councilman, and any more than in
numbers they cannot be said to represent in
any considerable degree the intelligence or wealth
of the citizens. A notable instance is at
hand. The ward of Langbourn, which is
located in the midst of the populous and wealthy
community in Fenchurch and Lombard-streets,
and in the neighbourhood of the old East India
House, has a constituency for civic purposes of less
than 270, and at the recent hotly contested election
for an alderman, not more than 200 of them took
the trouble to record their votes. It was considered
a proud circumstance that a banker on the one
side and on the other had been allured from his,
business for half an hour to propose or second the
candidates on the day of nomination, and six
hours of the following one were spent in polling
the 200 voters.

But it is not only in the wards that resistance is
made to the contemplated change. Appeals are
being addressed directly or indirectly to the corpo-
rate bodies throughout the kingdom, with the view
to enlist their sympathy and assistance, by allega-
tions that it also concerns them, as a blow aimed at
municipal institutions. 'The petitions to Parliament,
too, are being sent in some instances to leading
members of the Opposition, with the obvious in-
tention of making it a party question.

This partizan spirit betrayed itself in the Court
of Aldermen on Tuesday during a conversation as to
the distribution of a sum of money which had been
forwarded from her Majesty to the Lord Mayor, to
be given to poor people who had suffered injuries
in the City on the night of the illuminations. One
member of the Court went so far as to call it an act
of indiscretion, judging it from its alleged effect in.
eliciting the number of accidents, such as they were.
The tone of the whole conversation was to deride
the notion that there had been such a thing as an
accident in the City on the occasion, barring, of
course, the six or eight lives which were sacrificed,
and a few black eyes, and it was not until an ob-
servation by Alderman Mechi, gently adverting to
the humane feeling which had prompted the Royal
donation, that the subject was allowed to drop.—
Times.