33 
PHARMACEUTICAL LEGISLATION. 
I propose the following:— 
1st. That all chemists in business on their own account on or before January, 
1853, be elected Members. 
2nd. That all after the above date, and before January, 1868, be Associates, 
and Registered as such ; until they can prove to the Council that they have been 
in business fifteen years, dating from the termination of apprenticeship. 
3rd. That all Assistants of two years standing, prior to January, 1868, with 
indentures of apprenticeship, be Associates, and on their entering into business, 
providing fifteen years have elapsed since the termination of their apprenticeship, 
be elected Members. 
4th. That all Apprentices pass both examinations. I consider this provides 
for all. 
The men who are to adorn our Society so much, are made full-blown Mem¬ 
bers at once. 
The probably good man is taken in with some amount of care, for he may be 
a nondescript or one of the black sheep, this will practically whiten him. 
The assistants ought to show their indentures as a guarantee of proper ap¬ 
prenticeship ; after a given time they are provided for thoroughly. Now, I 
mean nothing personal to any man properly apprenticed to the business ; but we 
all know that there are numbers of “ fiddlers” and other “ fancy professors” con¬ 
tinually rolling into our business,—I say these men are practically inferior to 
us. By these alterations they are looked after. 
I feel grateful to the Founders for having formed so good a Society to enable 
a young man to thoroughly educate himself for his business or profession ; also 
to the outsiders for having spurred up our Council to action. 
If any Member can suggest better means of settling this vexed question, I 
shall be pleased to hear from him. We are far from being a “ happy family” at 
present. 
I remain, very truly yours, 
W. G. Davies, 
M.P.S. by examination , and subscriber for nineteen years. 
P.S. This coming from the dirty East-end of London, I trust will sufficiently 
excuse all imperfections. 
Commercial Road East. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
“ Farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear ; 
Farewell remorse—all good to us is lost.” 
Sir,—The Council of the Pharmaceutical Society, in a prolonged paroxysm 
of generous enthusiasm, have now, it appears, resolved to hold a great feast, 
and present a grand sacrifice to their gocl, legislative interference. I am one 
of the victims, Sir ; and though my sentence cannot, I know, now be reversed, 
yet I feel sure that you will extend to me that bare courtesy for which even 
Fenian convicts do not ask in vain. I come, like Mark Antony, “ to speak 
in Caesar’s funeral;” I come “ to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” With 
many other Pharmaceutical Chemists, I feel that our beautiful Society, of 
which we have been so proud, and which we have loved so well, is now 
doomed to perish. True, its death will be a noble one. No insolent foe, 
nor any treacherous friend, shall strike the fatal blow; nor do we, like 
Brutus, suffer a voluntary death rather than bear the degradation of defeat. 
But in the very zenith of our prosperity, in the sunshine of our success, we 
have resolved to stop our triumphant chariot, and ourselves to deal the 
bloody thrust, which, so far at least as we are concerned, will leave the 
