340 ROYAL COLLEGE OF VETERINARY SURGEONS. 
and in one week after he was selected by Professor Coleman 
to fill an army appointment. He felt inclined, if they would 
allow him the opportunity, to give them a few words of 
advice. It was their own fault, he believed, that they had 
not gained so great advantages from the Charter as they 
might have done. The great obstacle to the success of 
veterinary surgeons, and more especially those in the pro- 
vinces, was the quackery which existed, by which the re- 
muneration of the members of the profession was much inter- 
fered with. For years veterinary surgeons had gone to the 
Legislature to protect them, but he advised them not to copy 
those who had so done, for they had gained nothing by that 
course of conduct. He thought that the inroads that had 
been committed on them was owing to the want of the 
public knowing who are the real veterinary surgeons, and 
who are not so. He had stated his project at previous 
meetings, and he had no doubt they had all seen in the 
Times and in the Morning Post three or four hundred names of 
subscribers to an affair of which they had all lately heard. 
Now he had taken the trouble to ascertain the cost of pub- 
lishing those names, and he had found that in the columns 
of the Morning Post they could insert one thousand names and 
addresses of the really qualified veterinary surgeons for about 
£6. 6s. , or they might get a page of the Times at the small 
expense of an annual amount of about Qs. 6d. each member 
By adopting this plan he believed they would effect more 
good than any of them had ever thought of; for they might 
depend upon it the list of names would be well circulated, 
and there were many who would buy a copy of the paper 
and have it framed and glazed. (Laughter.) They might feel 
assured that by adopting this suggestion they would form 
one of the greatest checks that ever could be given to 
quackery, and he had shown that it could be obtained at a 
most moderate cost. 
He would now presume to give them some advice on 
another point. There had been a good deal said of late 
years about the necessity of a student spending three years 
with a veterinary surgeon previous to his examination for a 
diploma. He would not make that compulsory, but would 
advise the father, or guardian, of the youth that he should 
go for two years with a practitioner, which was quite suffi- 
cient for him to gain the required horse knowledge. Thus 
he would become better fitted to acquire information so as 
to obtain a diploma; nor would go so green into life. 
There were a great many young men who went from this 
institution — and no doubt they were very good young men — 
