xviii PREFACE. 



convened on the 3rd July. 1812, to consider the high price of 

 glass, in consequence of the duty levied upon it. The trade 

 being thus called together for the redress of one grievance, 

 others were thought on ; and after several meetings, they 

 addressed, on the oth December, in that year, a letter to the 

 Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and to the Society of 

 Apothecaries, that they conceived it necessary that a fourth 

 privileged body should be established to hcense practising apo- 

 thecaries and surgeon-apothecaries, and that the apothecary 

 ' should possess a legal claim to moderate remuneration for his 

 attendance and professional skill, under such modification as 

 may hereafter be judged necessary.' As the three medical 

 corporations declined joining in the proposed application to 

 Parliament, the associated apothecaries themselves presented a 

 petition to Parliament, 12th January, 1813, stating that several 

 persons practised without any regular medical education, and 

 that in consequence they could obtain few apprentices ; whence 

 they begged leave to introduce a bill, for regulating the practice 

 of apothecaries, surgeon-apothecaries, midwives, and dispensing 

 chemists. This was, in all probability, the first time in which the 

 complaint of being able to obtain few apprentices was ever made 

 to Parliament, although it was common for it to have petitions 

 against masters taking too many apprentices. An unprejudiced 

 observer could not be mistaken in the meaning of this petition to 

 be the enhancing the price of apprentice fees; or in a just esti- 

 mate of the double dealing, in professing one main object in their 

 letter to the old corporations, and another to the Parliament. 



That the apprentice fees should form so prominent a feature in 

 the grievances of the apothecaries, arises from their being, in most 

 instances, the means of a young apothecary discharging the debt 

 incurred for his stock, &c., on setting up in business ; and also 

 forming a considerable part of his profits even when established. 

 In consequence of these high fees, there are not wanting some 

 notorious instances, even in London, of masters, whose principal 

 trade is in apprentices ; and as soon as they have received the fee, 

 they use the apprentices so ill, that they are taken away by their 

 friends ; or, if this resource is denied them, the unhappy victims 

 of this nefarious practice are at length driven to run away. 



Accordingly a bill was prepared (as it should seem by Dr., 



