THE EDITOR. 
567 
common reader can, on perusing the account of some isolated 
cases, be enabled to become a veterinary practitioner ; otherwise 
it has been to little purpose, and it has been great folly to have 
said so much about it : but if, after twenty or thirty years’ prac- 
tice, some daily find new matter for investigation, we need not 
fear to be outdone by publishing some of those cases as they 
occur. 
Your correspondents, however, are by no means solitary in 
their views, however narrow they may be. I have among my 
pupils some who have urged me to increase my fees. They have 
said that the sum is too low, and that it leads to opposition. No 
doubt it must have such a tendency ; but a little opposition is the 
soul of business — it increases the energies of those engaged, and 
produces general good. Man is not made for himself alone. He is 
intended to be one of a great family, of which every member ought 
to do his duty ; and that is, to contribute to the good and com- 
fort of every one as well as himself. 
I am afraid that the proposal of raising the fees at the London 
College and the agitation regarding the charter have stirred up 
some of this feeling, as the same principle is involved in both 
propositions. In order to shew that the effect is not what is an- 
ticipated, and that the diffusion of a knowledge of our art does 
not always injure it, I will relate what occurred some years ago, 
when I was in the habit of giving a course of popular lectures 
every spring. Among those who honoured me with their attend- 
ance, was a baronet, who after having completed two courses, 
sent for me one evening in haste, to see one of his carriage horses. 
On my arrival I found that there was only a little fever, which 
had been preceded by a slight shivering fit, and that there was 
no occasion for alarm. On my telling him so, he said, “ Before I 
attended your lectures, I thought my horses should never be 
wrong ; now I am only surprised they are ever right — and it is 
always best to apply in time.” 
As a contrast of this, I remember an old farrier, who was so 
much the quack, that when he was about to give a clyster, after 
having got the gruel or hot water placed in a basin (previous to 
putting it into the old pipe and bladder), was in the habit of 
wrapping his coat round the basin (to prevent any one seeing), 
and stirring in some colouring matter, in which he wished it to be 
supposed resided the whole virtue. Although in those days he 
had considerable practice, he was laughed at by his best friends 
for his secresy, and only tolerated in the absence of more liberal- 
minded practitioners. 
This country has not, however, arrived at that high state of 
civilization and morality, that every individual does unto others 
as he would be done to ; and among those with whom the veteri- 
nary practitioner comes in contact, there are too many who do 
