EDITORIAL REMARKS. 
591 
Now, as the Secretary of State is said to hold similar rule over 
the Royal College of Surgeons, it is possible we might be taunted 
with being “ unreasonable,” or even “ perverse,” to refuse to make 
such concession. The College of Surgeons, however, we opine, did 
not seek or concede such State power, but found it already em- 
bodied in their charter. We, on the contrary, hold a Charter un- 
fettered by such mancipatory clause, but are now called on to 
have the same introduced ; with a sort of minatory whisper into 
our ears, that, in the event of our dissent, “ other charters” may be 
obtained ; and that our own Charter would never have been granted 
without it, but through some “ mistake ” or “ oversight ” com- 
mitted at the Home Office. Then, again, the College of Surgeons 
may be said to have a representative in parliament, and certainly 
can, at all times, exercise influence there ; veterinary surgeons, 
however — the general body of them we mean — neither have nor 
are likely to have representatives or influence. And, besides, not 
only are we without either parliamentary or state influence, but there 
is a section of our professional body opposed to us — the Royal 
Veterinary College — which through their President and Govern- 
ors possess both, and which therefore might reasonably be ex- 
pected to have such weight with the Secretary of State as would 
probably tend to our disadvantage. On these several accounts 
the College of Veterinary Surgeons is widely differently positioned 
from the College of Surgeons. 
We cannot conclude without offering our warm and hearty 
congratulations to the Council for the firm stand they made against 
cession of representative power and right on the occasion on which 
the grave question, gilded as it was presented to them with the 
emblems of privilege and peace, came for positive decision before 
them. To have yielded a point of such magnitude would have 
been to have let go 
“ The prop that doth sustain our house 
to have taken the key-stone out of the arch of our Charter ; to 
have let in upon us “ a power,” the limits whereof would have 
proved to us uncontrollable, and the consequences whereof the 
longest and keenest foresight among us would have been unable to 
reduce to calculation. 
