OBITUARY. 
653 
of exclusion raise but one feeling, and that will tell sorely against 
the pusillanimous Professor. Nay ! throughout the circle of the 
periodical press will it tell against him. The gentlemen reporting 
for these publications will not have their privileges broken down 
with impunity ; — they will avenge this insult offered to one of 
their own body. 
Professor Coleman refused to receive a fee for admission to his 
lectures from any person whose ostensible object it was to take 
notes of them for publication ; and the law gave him permission 
so to act, providing he issued public notice thereof at the commence- 
ment of his course ; but never did he close the college gate in 
the face of any body on the occasion of his Introductory Lecture. 
Such a coup de grace was reserved for his successor, Mr. Sewell. 
OBITUARY. 
Helas ! another master-spirit of the veterinary profession has 
departed from amongst us — how few and far between do they 
arise, how rapidly do they disappear ! Another human being who, 
both in the honourable discharge of private, and his enlarged 
views of professional, duties, dignified the name of man, has 
finished his earthly career. Thomas Mayer is no more! 
Let not this expression, however, be misunderstood. It is of the 
material being, pursuing the even tenor of his way, gliding quietly 
and unostentatiously among us, alone we speak. His memory — 
the intellectual being — still remains with and is endeared to us by 
ties that never will be broken. 
Thomas Mayer was born in Newcastle in 1791, and was edu- 
cated principally at the Grammar School of that town. He may 
truly be said to have been born and bred a veterinary surgeon ; for 
his ancestors, both on the maternal and paternal side, had long 
been practitioners of the art, and his grandfather had the veteri- 
nary medical charge of a regiment of German Hussars in the time 
of George the First. The rudiments of his profession were acquired 
under the care of his father, a practitioner of considerable skill, and 
who numbered among his friends the late Joseph Goodwin and 
Bracy Clark. But even at that early period his thirst for know- 
ledge could not be quenched by the scanty streams of equestrian 
lore, and he was in consequence placed as an articled pupil with 
Mr. Mellard, an eminent surgeon at Lichfield, with whom he re- 
mained three years. During his attendance at the Royal Veterinary 
VOL. XXI. 4 T 
