THE CHARTER. 
535 
that our incorporated body stands fast, not to be shaken. Still, 
while the petition for a second veterinary charter is lying dormant 
upon the shelf in the Home Office, and pending any answer being 
returned to it, we may be permitted to make a few cursory remarks 
on the assumed grounds on which the “ application” in question is 
being made. W e say assumed or presumed, because we do not 
profess to know the precise burthen of the said petition. All we 
know is, that the present petitioning parties on a former occasion 
held conference with the Veterinary Council, and that such confer- 
ence resulted in the suggestion of certain “ alterations” being made 
in the existing Charter, to which corresponding “ objections” were 
opposed, and that both the “ alterations” and “ objections” were 
duly forwarded to the Home Office. 
Now, allowing the petitioning parties credit for having duly 
weighed and considered the provisions of the present Charter be- 
fore they ventured to suggest “ alterations” in it, it would be un* 
uncharitable — nay, unreasonable — to suppose, whatever amend- 
ments in consequence of the objections of Council they may or may 
not have made in their aforesaid “ alterations,” that they had de- 
parted from the spirit or substance of them; and this we find to 
be — though the alterations themselves are eleven or more in num- 
ber — compressible into two propositions : — one being, that the lec- 
turers or teachers at the veterinary schools should, as formerly, 
enjoy the privilege of examining and passing their own pupils; the 
other, that the right of self-government conferred on the members 
of the profession by the existing Charter should be by them sur- 
rendered into the hands of a supervising and controlling “ Board,” 
composed almost exclusively of unprofessional persons. 
Some . fifty years ago, while yet veterinary science was but 
dawning in our country, and when it had but few followers, and 
among them hardly any that were competent to undertake such an 
office as that of veterinary examiner, the lecturers on the science 
had no other resource but to call in the aid of lecturers on human 
medicine, and, conjointly with them, to examine their own pupils. 
And though, under such college regime the science underwent 
improvement, and many a “ duly qualified” student was sent 
forth who in after years reflected credit upon his teachers ; yet, 
at the same tiqie, were hosts of other students emancipated as 
