692 AN OMISSION IN THE APPRENTICESHIP BY-LAW. 
great a liberty in presuming to suggest an improvement in the 
by-law, but that I am one of those persons whom the by-law 
affects. Let it not be thought, however, that I am one of those 
who would abolish it ; on the contrary, I consider that it will be 
the means of placing the profession in that position in society 
which it deserves : nevertheless, I think that the Council com- 
mitted a great oversight when it framed that law, and this is, that 
they made no provision for persons who might have been bound 
apprentices before the law was framed to persons not belonging to 
the “ body corporate.” The better to illustrate my meaning, 
I will lay before you my case, and I doubt not that many more 
could be found who could “ tell the same tale of sorrow.” 
I was bound in the year 1842, for five years, to a person not a 
graduate of the College I was at the time fifteen years of age. 
You will at once perceive the situation in which I am placed. 
I cannot go before the Board of Examiners before the year 1848, 
for the reason that I shall not be twenty-one ; and I cannot go 
afterwards, because I have not served an apprenticeship of three 
years with some member of the College. Now, had they formed 
the law so that it would only affect those who bound themselves 
to persons not graduates of the College after the year 1845 — -which 
year it was, I believe, the law was passed — it could only operate 
on those who were foolish enough to run in the teeth of it. I know 
there never was a benefit conferred upon the public at large but 
what it injured a few, in proof of which I might mention rail- 
ways, & c. 
Some have recommended that the Council should substitute for 
the law now in use, one that would admit those bound to non- 
graduates to study three years at college, instead of two. Now, 
I need only point out the object which, I believe, the Council 
had in view in framing this law, to shew the error of such 
an opinion. This was to erase from the profession that stigma 
of ignorance with which it has been branded ; and, surely, 
the acknowledging of the empiric and quack as being fit persons 
to inculcate the principles of medicine into the youth destined 
to practise the veterinary art, is not the way to place it upon 
that footing of respectability which it deserves. I do not mean 
to say that a man following the veterinary art, and not being a 
graduate of the College, cannot be respectable ; on the contrary, 
I know some very respectable and well-educated men who are not 
graduates. Taking them as a body, however, they are wanting 
both in respectability and education. 
I will conclude by saying, that, if the Council would alter the 
by-law in the manner I have suggested, it would meet with the 
approbation of all. 
I remain, respectfully, &c. 
9, Moss- street, Liverpool. 
