THE CHARTER. 
521 
to this Board was to be sent by the Council of the Royal College 
of Veterinary Surgeons all bye-laws for approval or rejection. 
Thus, are the members of the veterinary profession — now num- 
bering nearly a thousand strong — told in plain unmistakeable lan- 
guage, that they are a set of boobies and blockheads, incapable of 
understanding or managing their own affairs, and that, therefore, 
they ought to surrender all the power their recent Charter has 
given them into the hands of men who really do understand their 
concerns, and to these persons of superior veterinary intelligence to 
themselves bow down their necks in professional bondage. We 
could write volumes more on this preposterous “ proposed altera- 
tion;” but after having read the sentence in our “Report,” (p. 15) 
stating that — “ The opening clause (in the Report drawn up by the 
Deputation, now become a Committee) proposing the admission of 
the members of the Agricultural Societies, and the Governors of the 
Royal Veterinary College, into the body corporate, having been 
objected to by Professor Spooner, on the ground that such admis- 
sion was not (now) sought for, it was given up, after a long de- 
bate ;” we repeat, after reading this, we stay our pen on the sub- 
ject of the “Veterinary Board,” a board we never wish to hear 
mentioned again. 
The second alteration, in point of importance, proposed to be 
made in our Charter is, that the Professors — teachers — at the 
respective veterinary schools should be reinstated into the offices 
of examiners of their own pupils. Now, to this return to an obso- 
lete, unexampled, unpalatable usage, the “objection” urged bv 
the Council (p. 517) is twofold — “because it was a Government 
introduction into the Charter, and because it has been received 
with very general satisfaction by the profession.” We must 
confess, in our own minds, we had all along given the concoctors 
of the Charter the credit of this “ introduction we are sorry — 
and so, we dare say, now are they — to find it is not theirs. Since, 
however, it was “ the Government’s,” we trust that the Go- 
vernment which foresaw the wisdom of introducing such a clause 
will, in the same sagacious spirit, see the necessity of maintaining 
undiluted so wholesome and integral a constituent of a veterinary 
charter. 
The other proposed alterations, of minor import, have — as, 
VOL. XIX. 4 B 
