169 
THE VETERINARIAN, MARCH 1, 1848. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. — Cicero. 
A NUMBER of our journal more pregnant with matters of in- 
terest and importance to our professional brethren than is the 
present one, we hardly remember to have put to press; and the 
matters in it which will command their first, their chiefest atten- 
tion, are the “Abstract” of the Charter now being petitioned for 
by the President and Governors of the Royal Veterinary College 
of London, and the President and Directors of the Highland and 
Agricultural Society of Scotland, and the “ reply” to the same of 
our own Council. The perusal of the abstract will shew, that all 
the novelty and gist of the petitioned-for charter is comprised in 
the introduction of the “ Veterinary Board :” strip it of that es- 
sential feature, and it is, with all its parade of 55 clauses, but a 
modification of the charter we are already in the possession of. 
And the Veterinary Board — as we had occasion in our number of 
The Veterinarian for December last to explain — is a sort of 
House of Lords, kindly set over the profession to manage their 
affairs for them, or, at least, to take especial care that nothing shall 
be transacted by them having reference to the corporate body, save 
what has received the assent of their — the Veterinary Board’s — 
honourable house. We have a notion that this is not precisely 
the sort of charter the colleges desire; still, it wrests a power 
which they through “ usurpation ” have for years enjoyed out of 
the hands of its present holders, members of the profession ; and, 
moreover, it gives them, in part at least, the examination of their 
own pupils. In the new council, the same as in the old, as on a 
former occasion we think we pretty satisfactorily demonstrated, 
the professors are certain to get worsted ; though, to be sure, then 
they will have their appeal to the Veterinary Board, and that 
board will be constituted in part of themselves, and in the re- 
mainder, chiefly, of their patrons. 
