PRESENT STATE OF THE VETERINARY PROFESSION. 635 
that there are few veterinarians, of some years standing in prac- 
tice, who would have considered the essays and speeches of the 
veterinary students worth the yearly outlay, had it not been for 
the arduous efforts of yourself and Messrs. Spooner and Morton, 
and a few others ; and had it not also been for the transactions 
having been published in junction with The Veterinarian. 
Without these fortunate circumstances they would, probably, 
never have reached the public eye ; or, instead of being in the 
enviable position of going down to posterity, they might have 
shared the same fate as those of the old Society — namely, that 
of being smothered within the walls of the Royal Veterinary 
College. 
Yet, Sir, I have sometimes regretted that your zeal in our 
common cause should have so much influenced your better judg- 
ment, as to have induced you to entail that upon your Journal 
which both raised the price and reduced the circulation. Fortu- 
nately, the resolutions of the Council have removed the incum- 
brance ; and this, I hope, will excite our dormant energies, and 
enable us once more to raise our old and favourite periodical to 
that state of public estimation and sale of number which it so 
well merits. 
Remarks on the present state of Veterinary 
Politics. 
By Mr. C. Dickens, V.S., Kimbolton. 
My dear Sir, — When I inform you that I was placed upon 
the doctor’s list at the time that your letter came to hand, 1 feel 
that you will deem it a sufficient excuse for my seeming neglect 
in not sooner replying to you : fearing, however, that my silence 
may be construed into a carelessness respecting the welfare cf 
the veterinary profession, I venture a few lines. 
I infer from your’s, that there is a division in the camp, as to 
whether The Veterinarian should be supported or not? 
I answer decidedly. Yes ! What practitioner would not (if he 
knows his calling) sooner attend the stud or stock of an employer 
who has paid some attention to the veterinary literature of the 
present day, than one who is either totally ignorant, or pos- 
sessed only of the jargon of olden times? — for, like a hard- 
riding nobleman, now deceased, who declared that he never saw 
a horse shod but with fear, or charged a fence with equal nerve 
after having witnessed the minute dissection of the foot, so will 
