The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-11 00:00:00

COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL.

Yesterday a meeting of the Common Council was
held at Guildhall, for the despatch of business, the
Lord Mayor presiding. The court was much
thronged on the occasion, as well by members as
by strangers. At the request of the Chairman of
the City Lands' Committee (Mr. Robert Taylor),
the Town Clerk read resolutions of the Court,
passed at their meetings on the 18th November
and 9th December last, to the effect that the
Court, being desirous of testifying in an
enduring form its high appreciation of the ser-
vices of Mr. Thomas Henry Fry, deputy, ;as
chairman of the Improvement Committee
throughout the execution of the Holborn
Valley works, recommended that he be pre-
sented ith a service of plate, at an expense
not exceeding 500 guineas. The service of plate
consists of a handsome centre-piece, two elegant
candelabra, and a large oval salver, designed in
renaissance style, each piece forming in itself a
work of high art. The larger pieces bear the arms
of Mr. Fry, those of the Corporation, and the
following inscription : —" Presented by the Cor-
poration of London to Thomas Henry Fry, Esq.,
Deputy, the Chairman of the Improvement
Committee, in testimony of their high appre-
ciation of his zealous and unremitting labours
in connection with the Holborn Viaduct,
February, 1870." Mr. Deputy Fry replied
in a brief address, in which he sketched the
history of the undertaking in connection with which
his name had been so generously mentioned. He
expressed his gratitude for the presentation which
had been made to him through the Lord Mayor. A
petition was presented from the inhabitants of the
ward of Walbrook, by Mr. Deputy Fry, in favour
of the presentation as an open space of the piece
of ground opposite the western side of the Man-
sion House. There was also a similar petition
from the Royal Institute of British Architects,
in which, in addition to the request that the
space should be preserved, it was asked that the
Corporation should contribute a reasonable share of
the expense of the improvement. The reasons ad-
vanced by the petitioners for the step were that the
improvement, if effected, would greatly facilitate
the traffic in that part of the City, and contri-
bute much to the beauty of the new Queen
Victoria-street. On the motion of Mr. Deputy
Fry, the petition was referred to the City Lands
Committee. Some other business of no general
interest having been transacted, the proceedings
terminated.

GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL.

There seems to be a chance that even yet the year
1870 may prove an eventful one for the profession
of medicine. We are informed that the members
of the General Medical Council are specially sum-
moned to meet on the 24th inst. to take into consi-
deration a communication received from the Lord
President of the Privy Council. Our readers must
wait until the meeting of the Council for the text
of the Lord President's letter; but it is understood
that it expresses the Lord President's wish and
readiness to co-operate with the General Medical
Council in legislating for the medical profession, pro-
vided that the Medical Council will definitely inform
his Lordship as to its wishes or wants, supposing,
of course, that those wishes and wants are of a cha-
racter that he can approve. The Lord President
especially asks whether the Council is prepared to
institute a single examining board in each division
of the United Kingdom by a voluntary union of the
examining bodies, or by giving the Council compul-
sory legislative powers for the purpose. We commend
his Lordship's communication especially to the con-
sideration of the Scottish and Irish examining bodies,
who, it is well understood, have shown the greatest
reluctance to join in any plan proposed by the
English corporations for the formation of national
examining Boards. The Lord President's letter
can have but a single meaning. It is simply this,
that if the medical corporations and Universities
will not sink their jealousies and differences, and,
renouncing selfish ends, terminate " the battle of
the shops," and join in giving the public and pro-
fession a uniform and high standard of medical
examination, the State will take the business cf ex-
amining and licensing medical practitioners into
its own hands.-112edica/ 7 lines and Gazette.

The Committee of the Nletropolitau Free Hos-
pital havo received official notice of a legacy of £3OO
under the will of the late Alfred Davis, Esq.

. _
Those of our readers who are not in the secrets
of the Palace wi:l certainly be startled to hear that the
c Luse of the frequent visits of the Prince of Augustenburg-
Sonderburg to Windsor will, in a few weeks, be explained
to her Majesty's loyal subjects in a manner calculated to
cause them tho highest gratification, and to withdraw our
gracious Queen from the privacy in which she has spent
her widowhood.—Latest (The new paper edited
by Tom Hood.]