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A Court of Aldermen was assembled on Tuesday—the first since the election of the new Lord Mayor. Lord Mayor Kelly expressed a hope that he should be supported by his brother Magistrates as other persons in his office had been supported. Alderman Thomas Wood then objected to the publication of the numbers on divisions in the Common Council: the practice was a re- form, no doubt, but a reform productive of much inconvenience, irre- gular and illegal. Alderman Venables was of opinion that the Alder- men had nothing to do with the decisions of the Common Council. [This Alderman Thomas Wood must be an antediluvian. Who but himself would dream of objecting to publish the numbers on divi- sions ?] The Court of Common Council assembled on Thursday. Thanks and a piece of plate worth 50/. were unanimously voted to the late Lord Mayor, Mr. Copeland. A debate of some length arose on a motion to grant 500/. in aid of the Metropolitan Churches subscrip- tion. The motion was supported by Mr. Conley, Alderman Scholey, and Sir Peter Laurie ; though the latter strongly objected to increase the patronage of the Bishop of London, and said that the subscription would have been doubled, had not the power of appointing the minis- ters to the new churches been assumed by the Bishop. Mr. Bourne, though a Dissenter, would vote for the grant ; having no doubt that when other sects asked for aid from the Court, it would be granted. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Laurence, Mr. Richard Taylor, and others, strongly opposed the motion, on the ground that the Court had no right to vote away the public money for the aggrandizement of any sect. On a divi- sion, there appeared—ter the grant, Ill ; against it, 110.
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