EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
599 
experience can “ three months” afford ? In our own service, 
from their being constantly two probationary veterinary officers, 
it rarely happens that less than one year is so passed ; oftener, 
probably, it is two, before a vacancy occurs; thus giving the 
probationer six or eight times as much interval for learning 
what, unlike Indian practice, he is supposed to be already , in 
a great measure, acquainted with. To show the folly and 
inadequacy of such a system, it was but a short time ago that 
a young gentleman oifive years 5 standing in the Indian vete- 
rinary service, was reported “inefficient 55 by his commanding 
officer, and in consequence was placed under the surveillance 
of a senior, who was ordered to make his report on him, and 
in three months too ! A distressing position, truly, to be placed 
in at any time ; but the more so on this occasion, from the 
circumstance of the vacant corps being placed under the 
veterinary charge of the very same senior, and being (as it 
would be to any one) to him pecuniarily beneficial. 
Such a state of affairs ought not to exist ; neither, in our 
opinion, would it much longer exist were the facts known 
in the proper quarters, either abroad or at home. It has 
ever been the policy of the Hon. Company to have every 
department, and of their army in particular, fully and com- 
pletely efficient ; and when we come to reflect upon the large 
sums of money annually paid by the “ Company 55 for horses, 
and for breeding establishments to keep up their stock of 
horses, it cannot but turn out a narrow and bad policy, 
either to curtail the numbers or cripple the resources of such 
an important and scientific auxiliary as the veterinary depart- 
ment, properly constituted and managed, is calculated to be. 
We repeat, we think a grievance such as this — the want of a 
superintending Veterinarian— requires but to be known and 
considered, to be supplied. From such an appointment, 
filled by a person old in his experience and matured in his 
judgment, a great deal might be learned by the Indian Govern- 
ment in their purchasing and breeding of horses ; in their 
regulation, and management, and distribution of veterinary 
officers; in the senior being the mouth-piece as well as control- 
ling authority of such department ; and, finally, in his being 
always at the seat of government, supplying there the place 
of a local veterinary surgeon, in immediate attendance on the 
Governor-General’s body-guard and private horse establish- 
ment, as well as on the studs of such constituted authorities 
and departments as are usually located at the capital: thereby, 
in reality, hardly or not at all adding to the current outlay of 
the present veterinary expenditure. 
