ON THE PRESENT STATE OF VETERINARY AFFAIRS. 397 
sought for by those Memorialists being a public benefit , who 
but a dolt would dream of such a result? We all know, or 
ought to know, that monopoly is a curse to any community ; and 
no patriotic spirited person would, for one moment, suppose that 
the public can or will be benefitted by a select few being able 
(by virtue of a prohibitory act of parliament) to seize, with ava- 
ricious grasp, the just desert of others, and making their em- 
ployers pay by high charges (a natural consequence of such 
monopoly) for their gentility, professional capability, and other 
prodigious imaginary qualifications. Not only so, but many a 
superior genius in the lower grades of society would be forced 
to blush unseen, and waste his fragrance on the desert air: 
and why? because, forsooth, the profession (by law established) 
is confined to a pitiful junto of medical or semi-medical logger- 
heads. You perceive then, Sirs, I presume, that it is nothing 
less than insufferable vanity, in the partisans of this ludicrous 
scheme of veterinary monopoly, to flatter themselves into the 
notion that they are the only orbs of light from which all the re- 
spectability, talent, and education of the profession, must neces- 
sarily flow. Only look about you. Sirs — extensively inquire, 
yea, make statistic returns, if you please, of all the practice, num- 
bers of employers, &c. &c., of veterinary surgeons unconnected 
with the College, and compare them with the same in those who 
have been taught in that seminary, and you will find to your 
astonishment that the latter (speaking generally of course) only 
resemble the Lilliputian pigmy strutting on the side of the 
Patagonian giant of eight feet six or nine. But to be grave. 
Sirs : you are aware that you say in your excellent motto, “ ne 
quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat;” so that, to 
act up to this motto, we may speak the truth if we may not tell 
a lie; and what I am stating is the truth, and nothing but the 
truth. It is, therefore, false and slanderous to assert, that vete- 
rinary surgeons of the old school are the subjects of empirical 
ignorance and obstinacy. So far from this, they are men who can 
address a court of justice if subpoenaed, and give as correct and 
judicious an evidence on any case in their profession as the 
Messrs. Mayer and other disciples of the St. Pancras school can ; 
in short, they can conduct their business as scientifically and 
successfully as any of them can, although not introduced to the 
notice of their employers with the fascinating but people-gul- 
ling diploma of the College vet. You may be disposed to 
say, perhaps, while reading over these caustic strictures, See 
how the gall’d jade winces; but no, Sirs; 1 am not the gall’d 
jade, for I happen to sit uninjured from any rival influence ex- 
erted from that quarter. Nor would I be understood to have any 
personal bad feeling against mere individuals — far from it : it is 
