358 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
have said in regard to the amalgamation of the schools and 
members of the profession. Nothing, we can assure him, 
will afford us greater pleasure than to have, at the close of 
his presidential career, to congratulate him on his success. 
We do not find fault with the summing-up of Judge 
Crowder — in the case of Smart v. Maunder , (given in continu- 
ation from the trial, reported in our May No.) — because we 
can neither feel nor express any sympathy for those who are 
foolish or mad enough to place their sick and lame horses in 
the hands of farriers: a denomination at once denoting, with 
some very few exceptions, a man, to all intents and purposes, 
ignorant of what he professes, and therefore liable to commit 
the most egregious blunders. If the public could be, by 
legislative interference, protected in this way — guarded against 
employing a man who was but a farrier , to the exclusion of 
one who is a graduated Member of the Royal College of Ve- 
terinary Surgeons, it would be a safe-guard for them, and a 
piece of justice towards us. But, so long as there are men 
in all towns calling themselves Veterinary Surgeons , when in 
fact they are but farriers or blacksmiths, how are the public 
to make the distinction between the genuine practitioner and 
the impostor ? 
We are quite aware that there are Veterinary Surgeons 
even, properly so-called from the diplomas they possess, who 
reflect little credit upon their name and the body whence 
they emanated ; we are also aware that there are to be still 
found, in some parts of the country, men true farriers by trade, 
into whose hands we would much prefer putting our sick or 
lame horse to placing him under that of certain Veterinarians. 
These, however, are, both ways, but exceptions, and nowise 
invalidate the principle on which we set out. Nothing can 
more clearly demonstrate the necessity there is for science 
and skill in medically treating horses, as well as men, than 
the case to which we have referred. 
