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THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
We labour under excise restrictions which in the mother country have been felt, 
admitted, and removed. Many chemicals which are unsuitable for sea carriage, either 
dangerous or liable to deterioration during the voyage, might be made in the colony 
with advantage, if they did not require for their preparation that forbidden utensil — 
a still. The possession of stills and the performance of distillation are alike 
forbidden to the chemist, for the law, as at present existing, is practically a prohibi- 
tion ; and excise supervision has been hitherto carried out with a spirit which, we 
believe, may be characterised as meanly foolish and dishonestly tyrannical 
Comparing our present position with that of chemists and manufacturers of England, 
we find that in the old country there is no real hindrance to the use of stills for either 
experiment or manufacture, and that methylated spirit (that is to say, spirit of wine to 
which a small proportion of wood spirit has been added) may be sold and used, duty 
free — an enlightened and just provision by which the manufactures of the home country 
are fostered without materially affecting the revenue. 
In the month of August a deputation from the council waited upon the then 
Collector of Customs and the Attorney-General, from both of whom a promise 
was obtained that the grievances complained of should receive their best 
attention. 
In October Messrs. Bosisto and Thomas were appointed to consult with 
the members on the subject of the proposed Pharmacy Bill, and at a general 
meeting held on 16th November it was unanimously resolved — “That this 
meeting, being of opinion that the time has now arrived for taking active 
measures to obtain an Act of Parliament for regulating the qualification of phar- 
maceutical chemists, begs to urge upon the council the necessity for their 
immediate action thereon, such Act to be as near as practicable a copy of the Act 
in force in Great Britain.” As a matter of fact, the bill which had been already 
drafted by the council exactly fulfilled the specified conditions, differing from 
its British prototype only in some minor details, so as to render it applicable for 
colonial adoption. In pursuance of the resolution above quoted, the council 
took steps to obtain advice of counsel respecting its introduction as a public or 
private bill, the following being the “ opinion ” given by Mr. Carter through 
Messrs. Muttlebury and Malleson : — “ I am of opinion that a society must be 
formed under a Deed of Association before Parliament will grant powers corres- 
ponding with those contained in the Act of Imperial Parliament, and that the 
Bill will even then come within the meaning of the Bills of the first class under 
the second standing order of our Legislature. If, therefore, it is essential that 
the Bill should be taken out of the influence of the standing orders, the promoters 
must first consider if they have the power to get the necessary resolutions passed. 
The promoters have not given adequate consideration to the fact that in the 
mother country a charter of incorporation existed.” As this opinion was not 
received until after the annual meeting, it remained for the following year to 
deal with the unforeseen difficulties thus brought to light. 
While a handful of enthusiasts were thus zealously labouring in the cause 
of pharmacy, the interest originally taken in the society by the general 
members seemed to be gradually but surely dying out. First the monthly 
meetings, at which excellent lectures and papers were read, had to be discon- 
tinued, the paucity of attendance, to quote from the report presented at the 
third annual meeting on 22nd March, 1860, “ giving but little encouragement 
for voluntary services.” Next, the increasing difficulty of collecting the sub- 
scriptions rendered it impossible to continue the quarterly publication of the 
Journal , which had been so ably edited by Mr. W. Johnson ; and so discouraged 
did one member of council become that he actually gave notice of motion — 
which was not, however, followed up— “ to reduce the object of the society at 
present to a mere trade society for mutual protection, so as to accumulate 
a little funds and have a nucleus for future action.” Under these circum- 
stances it was scarcely to be expected that the report presented on this 
