ON PRELIMINARY AND PRACTICAL EXAMINATIONS. 303 
few men indeed who, entering upon the anxieties involved in 
general practice, whether it be in a purely agricultural 
district or in a provincial town, do not retain within them- 
selves to a greater or less extent the longings or yearnings 
planted in them by “ love of profession,” to see the advance- 
ment of that profession in which the character, living, and 
even life itself of themselves and families are so closely 
bound up. If it was not for the information contained in 
that monthly journal, the Veterinarian, and the annual 
meeting of the profession held in Red Lion Square, which 
some of the provincial practitioners attend, the charter 
would be a dead letter to us all. The labours of the 
Council and all those in authority who assume the general 
supervision of our profession would be a dead letter to us 
entirely. Every month for over thirty years I have watched 
for my Veterinarian coming, and read, its contents with 
more or less profit and interest. I watched with intense 
interest the progress of that indomitable band of men as they 
struggled for and obtained our charter of incorporation ; I 
witnessed with intense pain and sorrow the disunion and 
disruption of that gallant band, the humiliation and evil 
consequences our profession has suffered from it. I felt, 
and still feel, that the Council, were then in the wrong, and, 
as Professor Spooner and Mr. Walter Mayer have since over 
and over again enunciated, that Professor Lick was at the 
time a very ill-used man. 
I have witnessed many isolated attempts by worthy men 
to make some advance in our profession, but after some 
ineffectual efforts they have become disheartened and given 
it up. I witnessed with great anxiety the application to 
Parliament for an Act ; I read every word written for and 
against it, especially about the fourth clause, and deplored its 
withdrawal after it had passed its second reading. Also I 
noticed the attempt made by the Highland and Agricultural 
Society of Scotland for a charter for Scotland, and its failure. 
I have witnessed all these things and many more. My 
mind has followed the deputation as they stood before the 
Governors of the Royal Veterinary College, and before the 
Trustees of the Edinburgh Veterinary College ; my heart 
has bounded with joy and gladness at the courteous reception 
they met with from those two bodies of gentlemen, how 
heartily they espoused the cause. To my mind there has 
not been a single measure brought forward of equal import- 
ance to either of those two great and invaluable measures 
which are at this moment, and have been for some time past, 
occupying the attention of the Council of the Royal College 
