THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
165 
pharmacy in country and town. 
By “Pila.” 
“The other fellow up the street ” is quite as powerful for evil in Victoria as 
at home. That “ other fellow ” appears to he a most scheming and dangerous 
citizen until you have made his acquaintance, and then, presto ! you find that, 
greatly to your astonishment, he resembles in no small degree a host of good 
fellows you have known. 
Why are we, as a body, so afraid of a competitor P I can’t give an answer, 
but perhaps very often it is the inward consciousness of a weak point in our 
^armour. Don’t, oh ! don’t, brother chemists, allow “ the other fellow ” to 
disturb your peace of mind, don’t allow him to spoil your digestion, and don’t 
by any means allow him to keep you inside and behind your counter 15 hours 
out of the 24, in mortal dread lest he should get one of your customers by 
keeping open a little later. As Mr. Mantalini pathetically observed, it makes 
life “one demd horrid grind.” 
After this little outpouring, I will return to the subject, and to the first 
in the series of my accidental country acquaintances who was the daily 
victim of the man up the street. The town, which could well support two 
chemists, fortunately was supplied with that number only. Perhaps the popu- 
lation did not exceed 4000, but it was the true market centre of a rich grazing and 
agricultural district. The bigger man— not physically, but in the sense of having 
the more imposing establishment— not only sold drugs, but very wisely, as I 
thought, a great many etceteras. Following my usual custom, I, after making 
a few small purchases, ventured the feeler, “ I suppose you shut here at about 
six or seven, the town appears so quiet in the evening?” “Oh, no,” was the 
quick reply, “we shut at the usual time.” “And what hour is that?” I 
continued. “Half-past ten every night except Saturday, and on that night a 
little later. ’Tis true we don’t do much after seven,” he went on to say ; “ but 
that other fellow up the street keeps open even later.” Now, here was a man 
experienced in his business, well educated, and apparently in easy circumstances, 
a slave to the narrowest and most barbarous trade jealousy. 
Both these gentlemen were pleasant fellows, superior in most respects to 
their fellow-townsmen, and could have been as happy as “birds in a nest” 
if once the barrier of trade jealousy had been overcome. Prices and hours 
could have been regulated, in fact an easily-worked little trades’ union might 
have been established. It is well to remember that when, through long 
confinement, we become paralytic or idiotic, we shall get neither remedy nor 
sympathy. 
To an Englishman who for years has worked in big cities the wild freedom 
of the Australian bush is a revelation of a most delightful kind ; and amongst 
the hills and dales of Victoria are to be found scenes of beauty equal to any- 
thing in G-reat Britain, though the flora and fauna are so utterly dissimilar to 
ours that they hardly seem to belong to the same planet. But accidents will 
happen even in those lovely woods, and the chemist sometimes benefits. For 
a slight injury received whilst hunting one day I found it necessary to visit 
a small township a few miles away from my home in the mountains. Here 
one dispenser of drugs reigned supreme. From the arrangements of his establish- 
ment a cross between a doctor’s shop in a London back street and a village 
chemist in Cornwall — I at once jumped to the conclusion that the proprietor had 
for reasons best known to himself, abandoned the practice of medicine and 
surgery for the more humble occupation he then followed. Such a proceeding, I 
am given to understand, was a possibility in Victoria some years ago, but now. 
