ROYAL COLLEGE OF VETERINARY SURGEONS. 589 
brightly shone upon it, has caused it to bring forth in due season 
its blossoms and its fruits, and, spread about in sundry situations, 
these products are now benefitting and delighting all such as 
choose to take advantage of them. Meanwhile, the followers of 
the art, increasing year after year, in society have attained that 
magnitude and importance which has fairly entitled them to 
recognition as a corporate body or COLLEGE ; a recognition which 
they have at length obtained, and which, being obtained, is fairly 
regarded by them as the first step to self-government and pro- 
fessional independence. 
No sooner, however, have the members of the veterinary pro- 
fession become possessed of their Charter of Incorporation, gifting 
them with self-government and independence, than the schools, 
who have all along enjoyed, or fancied they have enjoyed, a sort 
of dominion over the profession to which they have given birth, 
finding themselves deprived of this real or supposed dominion, 
take umbrage thereat ; and the umbrage they take, increased by 
their Professors being deprived of the assumed “ right” of ex- 
amining their own pupils, grows by degrees into a spirit of op- 
position to the chartered body, and a determination, on their part, 
since their opposition cannot avail them in any other way, to 
seek for a charter for themselves. 
This is precisely the present condition of veterinary affairs; 
a state we cannot contemplate without feeling arise in our breasts 
the question, What must or is likely to be the result of the work- 
ing of such separate charters, supposing one or two, in addition to 
the present one, were to be obtained 1 In this inquiry we are not 
about to speculate on what may be the nature of the supplementary 
charter or charters, but to confine our observations to the single 
circumstance of two or more veterinary charters being in co- 
existence ; for, that the present Charter cannot be repealed but 
by the hand which conferred it, and that such repeal would never 
take place unless full and sufficient reasons could be alleged for so 
unconstitutional an act, we opine, the opponents to our Charter are 
fully aware. The original Charter, therefore, existing in all its 
integrity, would still hold the body of the veterinary profession, 
those alone becoming seceders who hold interest in or connexion 
with the present veterinary schools. With the general body of 
VOL. XIX. 4 L 
