90 
PHARMACEUTICAL LEGISLATION. 
ceutical Society. It was patent to many, that I gave the number of future 
members to answer the practical objection made by Mr. Mills and others, by 
affording proof how unfounded was the apprehension of outsiders entering the 
Pharmaceutical Society in very large numbers, and thus swamping the present 
members. I am sorry Mr. Mills could not discern this gist of my collateral 
argument, and yet I am not unthankful to him for singling out this objection, 
which renders so conspicuous the pith and fallacies of his strictures. The retort 
is obvious : true to his antecedents, Mr. Mills sees nothing beyond his own shop 
fascia; and on that strip of wood or glass, What shall I call myself F What shall 
my neighbour call himself? seems about as much as he can grasp of the Bill. 
Does any one’s shop fascia conduct his busiuess, and is ours a Bill to regulate 
shop fascias and labels? We, the outsiders, look upon this clause of membership 
as a small portion of a grand scheme; as is proved by the small numbers who will 
avail themselves of it; and though 500 at the utmost would join the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society, every outsider is interested in our project to elevate the trade. 
It is in this present endeavour there exists such a friendly understanding ; with 
the proceedings of 1865 I had no business; whether the Act of 1864 was, as 
Mr. Mills declares, open to objection, or whether the opposition to it was too 
determined, is not in 1867 the question. Prudent men act on the exigencies 
of the present, and brood not over the past. 
I would ask Mr. Mills, not in pleasantry, but in a friendly spirit, that he 
regard us outsiders with less aversion. I opine that similarity of pursuits should 
link us somewhat as a clan of fellow-tradesmen, in which the strong and the 
■weak shall be equally protected. I will take upon myself to guarantee to him 
(and I do know something of the outsiders) that we are not so black or so re¬ 
pulsive as his imagination has pictured us. If Mr. Mills will extend the range 
of his vision, he will see as Phaeton saw when he looked round on the occupants 
of his father’s palace,—and Ovid’s words will, I know, come to his lips— 
“ Facies non omnibus una, 
Nec diversa tamen, qualis decet esse sororum.” 
He would change his opinion as to the political necessity of registering, 
even “ without cost,” two-thirds of our trade, merely as licensed or allowed on 
sufferance to carry on businesses, some of them the longest established, and the 
property of the most eminent firms in the country, and simply because they 
have exercised their right of being chemists and druggists, or enrolling them¬ 
selves in a friendly and educational society, tolerated by a permissive Act of 
Parliament. 
Mr. Mills wishes to know something of our resources. It would require a 
small effort from the United Society of 2000 members, and, by its organization, 
capable of bringing into action every non-incorporated chemist in the kingdom, 
and not a small number even of the Pharmaceutical Society, to scout such a 
proposition out of the House of Commons, and render Mr. Mills’s Society the 
laughing-stock of every practical member of the Legislature. 
We are now at the Omega of my reply, that to the “argumentum ad homi- 
nem” of Mr. Mills. In all candour I can assure Mr. Mills that entrance to the 
Pharmaceutical Society will not benefit me, commercially or socially, to the 
extent of the cost price of a pil.-cochia pill; still, I at one time was not indis¬ 
posed to join the Pharmaceutical Society, when my very humble efforts, as an 
outsider, thrown in the stream to help the progress of the Pharmacy Act were 
no longer required. But I must confess to having experienced something like a 
revulsion of feeling during the last month or two, for we lately have been so 
over-saturated with the mention of that word “ honour,”— i. e. the honourable 
way of entering the Society, the high honour we shall so unworthily enjoy if 
we are allowed to join, the honour of those who have joined,—that this perpe- 
