540 STRAY PAPERS ON VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
order, and with that regularity, which the importance of the 
subject demands and the necessities of the case require. 
During the period that has elapsed, many from among you 
have been called upon to discharge those duties, for the perform- 
ance of which it is to be hoped they were well prepared. Those 
individuals will ere this have learned that it is no easy thing 
either to steer clear of the difficulties which beset their career, or 
to reconcile those differences of opinion which unhappily prevail 
among us. To you who remain, your ranks increased by fresh 
arrivals, it is necessary, for the sake of connexion, that I should 
direct your attention for a few moments to the points I have 
already ventured to bring before your notice. I have referred 
to the present state of veterinary jurisprudence, in order to shew 
how needful it was that you should endeavour to wipe away the 
blot that exists upon it. By cultivating a more extended ac- 
quaintance with the first principles of your profession on the one 
hand, and the duties that relate to yourselves, your brethren, and 
your employers, on the other, 1 stated that the honour and dig- 
nity of the profession would be maintained. That, as you were 
by profession gentlemen, you would be expected to exhibit that 
character in your walk through life ; and I finally pointed out 
the benefit you would derive from the adoption of such a course, 
and the mischief that would inevitably befal a contrary proceeding. 
Eighteen months have now elapsed since those suggestions were 
laid before you. Has any thing transpired in our courts of 
justice or among ourselves, to render those observations necessary, 
or to weaken their force ? When counsellors gravely assert that 
“ they can find any number of veterinary surgeons who will 
swear any thing ” — when the elite of our body are found in our 
courts of justice asserting some facts which are directly contra- 
dicted by others, is this the time for inaction, or for diminished 
exertion ? When the profession are endeavouring by fair and 
honourable means, divesting themselves of all party intrigue and 
selfish purposes, to obtain for themselves and you an honourable 
station in society — when the profession demands from yourselves 
a more than ordinary degree of attention to your studies, and the 
public require a greater acquaintance with the animals to whose 
necessities you administer — is it in times like these that you 
foster animosities, listen to public-house debates, or pass that 
time which should be devoted to nobler objects in inattention to 
the lectures of your professors, or in unprofitable and unmean- 
ing disputations ? Is it a time to act with uncourtesy to your 
teachers, and to exhibit to the world your unfitness for the 
station in society you ought to fill ? Better things, it is to be 
hoped, may be expected from you. Desiring to fulfil every 
