The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-10 00:00:00

cumstance, as well as the knowledge of your desire on
all occasions to see justice done to small and great, has
induced me to address you on this matter. I must first
tell you, that I have been requested to act as Honorary
Secretary to the Committee appointed to carry out the
objects of the resolutions passed at a general meeting of
the public of Calcutta. I have taken the liberty of for-
warding to you the proceedings of that meeting,
by which you will learn, that besides an address
unamiously voted to Sir George Pollock, a prize was
also to be given annually at Addiscombe (the
Company's military seminary) to commemorate the
name and services of the gallant general. This
sort of testimonial will, I hope, be considered ex-
tremely appropriate, as it not only conveys the highest
compliment which could be paid to Sir George Pollock,
but likewise evinces an earnest desire on the part of the
givers to perpetuate in our own country a constantly re-
curring recollection of tke many brilliant and important
victories which, in consequence of, aad in succession to,
the memorable forcing of the Kyber Pass, were suc
cessfully and uninterruptedly obtained by the Bengal
army under Sir George, until he again planted the
British flag on the Ballah 'lesser, and re-occupied
Cabul, thus restoring the long-established impression
and prestige of the invincibility of our military power
and strength, and visiting with singular retributive
punishment the flagrant acts and conduct of the Affghans.
I hope also you will consider the testimonial appro-
priate, especially as it holds out an inducement to young
soldiers in the same service as Sir George Pollock to
gain this reward, and by their future career to emulate
tne great deeds of their predecessors. I hare taken
upon myself to mention your name to the Committee,
and assured them that I believed you would
take a deep interest in promoting the object of
the public of this city ; and I am requested respectfully
and earnestly to solicit your powerful aid in giving the
papers general circulation, in the fullest conviction that
the feeling they will excite will obtain for the object we
have in view the most satisfactory suffrage and support.
Under your support, it would afford the inhabitants of
India a just cause of pride and satisfaction if the Corpo-
ration were to take this appropriate mode of testifying
their approbation of the high deserts of their fellow-
citizen. Sir George Pollock, by numbering themselves
with those who have come forward to support this inte-
resting and novel testimonial in honour of a brave soldier
and meritorious man.

" I have been obliged to write this, as you see evidence
of, in great haste, and must trust to your tried kindness
to excuse it."

COURT OF ALDERMEN.

Yesterday a Court of Aldermtm was held at the Man-
sion-house, for the purpose of receiving a communication
frora the Lord Mayor relative to the steps his Lordship
had taken in respect to the Spital sermon, and other
matters connected therewith.

At the desire of the Lord Mayor Mr. Forth, of the
Town Clerk's office, read a correspondence which took
place between the Town Clerk upon the part of the Lord
Mayor and Mr. Trollope upon the part of the President
of Christ's Hospital, from which it appeared that his
Lordship had determined, in consequence of the non-
recognition of his authority, as head of the hospital, not
to attend on Monday and Tuesday next to hear the
Spital sermon at thaat institution, nor to receive the
children of the establishment at the Mansion-house ac-
cording to the usual custom. A record was produced from
which it appeared that from the year 1721 to the year
1795, it had been the custom of the Court of Aldermen
to appoint that the Spital sermons should be preached on
Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday, at St. Bride's
Church, and there was no record to prove that until sub-
sequently to the year 1795, the Spital sermon had been
preached at Christ Church. Under these circumstances
his Lordship, considering that an indignity had been
cast upon his high office by the terms, and substance of
the correspondence, addressed a letter to the Rev. Mr.
Dale, canon of St. Paul's, and vicar of St. Bride's Church,
to grant permission for the use of St. Bride's Church, for
the preaching of the Spital sermons before the Court, and
the governors of the several hospitals. To that letter
the vicar returned an immediate answer of acquiescence,
requesting at the same time that it should be distinct')
understood that he did not at all meddle with the ques-
tion between the Lord Mayor and the president of the
hospital.
A long discussion, or rather conversation, took place,
whieh ended in the unanimous adoption of two resolu-
tions, the first requesting the Right Rev. Connop, Lord
Bishop of St. David's, and the Rev. Charles Farebrother,
chaplain to the Lord Mayor, to preach before the Court
and the governors of the several hospitals at the parish
church of St. Bride's, on Monday and Tuesday in Easter
week, and the second requesting the use of that church
of the vicar.
The LORD MAYOR intimated that his brethren having
settled the essential point by adopting his suggestion, he
should waive his objection, which sprung out of the in-
dignity offered to him as to the reception of the scholars,
and invite them on the usual day to the Mansion House.
The Court then adjourned.

SIR F. TRENCH and LORD LINCOLN
THE ADMINISTRATION OF PUBLIC WORKS.

The following letters have been lately printed. No
one will dissent from the opinions set forth, although it
is not a little strange that the letters should have been
published.— Times.
85, Pall-mall, Feb. 9.

My dear Lord Lincoln,—Early this morning, in
crossing Leicester-square, I saw a magnificent boll of
an elm-tree so skilfully suspended by chain slings as to
attract my admiration. I followed it towards Long-
acre, and was struck with the beautiful graining of its
butt, which I should guess to be twelve feet in circum-
ference ; it was about nine feet in circumference at the
top, and the length might be twenty-five to thirty feet,
and it was as straight as an arrow. I asked one of the
waggoners where it came from, and you may judge my
dismay when he said " from Hyde Park."
You may recollect that at Sir Robert Peel's dinner I
told you that I was on the point of writing to you, to
beg that you would not allow any old trees to be cut
down without your special permission, and very much
do I regret that the fear of being deemed intrusive pre-
vented my so doing, as it might have been the means of
saving those superb old trees which have been cut down
since, and which all the wealth of the world cannot now
replace.
When I lamented the destruction of the fine old avenue
of horse chesnuts between the King's-road and Chelsea
Hospital (which are to be replaced by fine young trees),
you told me you did not know who had ordered them to
be cut down. I went to the spot to inquire, but could not
obtain any information ; but I saw prostrate on the
ground no less than fifty, independent of a magnificent
and venerable tree (not in the avenue), under whose
shade I have often seen a hundred or two hundred people
listening to a ranting Methodist preacher. I asked a
carpenter working at one end of the new houses what
he thought one of the avenues of trees might be worth?
and he said "between 21. and 3/.;" 1501. to the Ex-
chequer, yet millions would not replace them.
I think it was on the morning of the 6th of this
month I went to look over Coventry House, and was
struck by the magnificence of an old elm tree (the only
one, as my informant told me, left of a group of ten or
twelve) ; its top was shattered by storm or lightning,
but it might have been cut so as to produce good
shoots, and to form a head like one of the two that are
I,ft opposite Grafton House, and near the reservoir.
But, alas! next morning, as I passed along Picea filly,
before nine o'clock, I found a gang of carpenters felling
it, and so rapid were their operations, that as I retursn.d
through Hyde Park, by the S-rpentine, I met a waggon
conveying toppings and loppings to what the waggoner
celled " the wood depot;" and the place where it
had stood was already filled up. Next morning I
took a rule and measured it, and several of the great
stems that lay near the sawpit. Some of the butt,
when squared and sawn into planks, measured 8 feet in
diameter, and others between 2i and 3 feet. I consider
-the destruction of these trees a sacrilege—if an embank-
'mPrit was necessary they might have been surround,?
-with acguard of bricks, as is done with the three small
plane trees (probably in consequence of your orders) ;
but if the walk had been continued on the level of Lord
Coventry's garden till it came nearly opposite to Cam
bridge House, according to a plan I submitted to you,
every one of these fine old trees might have been spared,
and two flights of steps (60, 70, or 80 feet wide), with a
broad landing between them (as at the bottom of Water-
loo-place), and with a handsome balustrade leading up
to the level of the reservoir, would have been a beautiful
feature, and probably would not have cost so much as
the removal of the -earth to form the embankment
which has caused the destruction of these venerable old
trees.

I have been at a loss what to do with this letter ; but
I believe you are still at the head of the Wood.; and
Forests, and, therefore, I address it you, and do entreat
that yon, or your successor, will give orders " that, for
the future, no tree shall be cut down without your
special permission?'

- -
The same motive which led me to send a copy of my
note to you about fountains to Sir R. Peel, added to the
fear that this letter may fall to the ground (ineffectual)
between you and your successor, induce me to adopt the
same course now. The emergeocy appears to me to
justify this intrusion, even in this moment of unexam-
pled pressure ; for if the evil spirit which has been
guilty of the massacre of these fine old trees is not
checked in its sudden rapid course, who knows what
havoc may be made ?
Yours sincerely F. W. TRENCH.

To the Earl of Lincoln.
A LETTER TO LORD LINCOLN ON THE SUBJECT OF
THE FOUNTAINS IN TRAFALGAR-SQUARE.
Scarborough, Nov.. 17, '1845.

My dear Lord Lincoln,—l have been making a short
tour in Spain (the land of fountains), and have visited
Corunna, Vigo, Lisbon, Cadiz, Seville, .Algesiras,
Malaga, Grenada (not forgetting Sotto di Roma, though
no fountains are to be seen there), Almeria, Carthagena,
Alicante, Valencia, B ircelona, Gitona, Fif-uairas, Per-
pignan, Montpelier, Clermont, Orleans, Blois, Paris, and
Rouen.

Everywhere I looked for fountains, acid have seen
them of every shape and size, from a simple dolphin to
the elaborate groups on some of the Spanish alamedas,
or the gaudy and less modest exhibition of the lusty
buxom nymphs in the Place de Concorde, at Paris. But
no where have I seen anything so mesquin and so
ungraceful as your fountains in Trafalgar-square.
As I passed through London I perceived that prepara-
tions were making for some alterations, and 1 therefore
obtrude myself to call your attention to a fountain which
I saw (and for the first time) in this Champs Elyies, and
which, to my taste, surpasses in beauty anything of the
kind anywhere. It has neither a.rcbitecture embellish-
ment nor sculptural decoration. It must be the cheapest
of all possible fountains, for it requires nothing but a
proper distribution of the pipes, of which you can easily
obtain a plan, and a sufficiency of water, which the
Thames or your London water-works can give more
liberally than the river Seine, or the French sources.
If you have not seen it, I earnestly recommend it to
your especial notices or, if you cannot look at it your-