384 
THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
The event of the month among pharmacists in the North has been the election 
of a delegate to the Intercolonial Pharmaceutical Conference. The election 
took place on the 29th September at the Homoeopathic Pharmacy. Messrs. 
Landon Fairthorne (Fairthorne and Son) and Frederick Holmes (Hatton and 
Laws) were the candidates. Thirty-two ballot-papers, evenly divided between 
Town and Country, were distributed by M. Johnston, the secretary of the Chemists’ 
Association. Out of this number all were returned except one in Launceston, 
thus showing the great interest manifested in the election. The result was — 16 
votes for Mr. L. Fairthorne and 15 for Mr. Holmes, the former being thus 
elected by a majority of one. The votes were recorded in sealed envelopes, 
thus maintaining the secrecy of the ballot. Both candidates were congratulated 
on the result, the honours being so evenly divided. Mr. Fairthorne is the senior 
druggist in the colony, having been registered in 1846. He is also a justice 
of the peace and ex-Mayor of Launceston, and is in an independent position. 
From this you will see that our representative is one whose opinion is calcu- 
lated to carry some weight at the Conference. 
Mr. W. G. Cox (of Messrs. Hatton and Laws) has purchased the old- 
established business of Messrs. Sping and Harvey, in Brisbane- street, and took 
possession on the 1st inst. I understand that Mr. Harvey intends leaving the 
drug trade, and that Mr. Sping is going to Hobart. 
At a meeting of the Launceston Chemists’ Association, on 13th September, 
when there were present Messrs. L. Fairthorne (in the chair), F. Fairthorne, 
F. S. Browne, F. Holmes, A. N. Spong, J. Lay, C. Eawson, and J. H. John- 
ston, the following amendments in the proposed Poisons Bill were adopted, and 
the secretary was instructed to submit them to the Attorney-General 
Clause 10 — “ Owners of poisons not to leave them about unlabelled in unlabelled 
packages, etc., under a penalty ; not to apply to chemists, as it would be impos- 
sible where large quantities were kept for wholesale.” Clause 14 — “ That instead 
of the words ‘ in the form of homoeopathic medicines, unless in the crude state, 
mother tincture or of greater strength than the third decimal potency,’ it be 
‘ in the form of homoeopathic medicine, unless in the crude state, mother tinc- 
ture or of greater strength than one per cent, of the crude drug allopathic and 
homoeopathic, except solutions of the poisonous alkaloids and their salts in 
schedule 1.” Several other minor amendments were also adopted. The bill is 
daily expected to come before Parliament. 
At Hobart, on 28th September, Messrs. G. W. Towl and Joseph Coombes 
passed successful examinations as chemists and druggists for Tasmania before 
the Medical Court; of Examiners, and were just in time to record their votes 
at the election of our delegate for the Conference. The new pharmacopoeia was 
used at the examination, which was considered “ a stiff one” by the candidates. 
Mr. Towl is at present assistant at Messrs. L. Fairthorne and Sons, St. John- 
street, while Mr. Coombes, who served his apprenticeship with Messrs. Fairthorne 
and Sons, is at present engaged at Messrs. Lithgow and Company’s. Mr. F. 
Cottman, holding a certificate of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, 
has also been duly registered by the Medical Court of Tasmania as a chemist 
and druggist. 
Information has been received that Mr. E. G. Scott, who went home in July, 
1883, to prosecute his medical studies, has just passed his second professional 
examination at the LIniversity of Edinburgh. He is the eldest son of the Eev. J. 
Scott, of St. Andrew’s Church, Hobart, and was a pupil at Horton College. Mr. 
