598 
TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY 
of the Council, Sir Fitzroy did infinite service to the cause of Pharmacy, and 
although immediate success did not attend his exertions it may safely be 
predicted that success will not long be delayed. 
The thanks of the Society are also due to the Local Secretaries, who with 
energy and goodwill ably seconded the efforts of the Council. Such co-opera¬ 
tion in the affairs of the Society is of the utmost importance. 
Having brought the Parliamentary proceedings to the end of the session of 
1865, when they were closed with a recommendation from the Committee 
that the Government should take up the question “ early in the Hew Parlia¬ 
ment,” it may naturally be expected that some report should be given of 
subsequent events ; but there is a time to be active and a time to be passive, 
and circumstances occurred during the recess which gave a different direction 
to the labours of the House of Commons for its first session. 
A Reform Bill had to be introduced, of itself almost sufficient to occupy 
all the attention of Parliament, and in addition urgent business arose, con¬ 
nected with the cattle plague and other matters, enough to fill up the spare 
time so completely, that Government could not be fairly expected at once to 
act on the recommendation of the Committee of the House of Commons as 
to Pharmaceutical Legislation. 
The Council, too, feel to a certain extent bound to await the action of 
Government, and have the more confidence in doing so from the knowledge 
that Ministers are in full possession of the history of the Pharmaceutical 
Society,—its rise, its objects, progress, and present position. 
When the time for action arrives, this Society should be ready to submit 
to Government, or to Parliament, a measure calculated to settle the vexed 
question of Pharmaceutical legislation in a manner satisfactory to all parties ; 
satisfactory to the public, as giving a greater assurance of safety in a matter 
which must at all times be one of consequence and anxiety, sometimes even of 
danger; to the trade, inasmuch as it should give every future dispenser a legal 
and recognized position, preventing mere hucksters from trenching on his 
business ; to chemists already in business, because, although no compulsory 
regulations should be allowed to affect them, they would share the benefits 
arising from abetter classification of the trade, and might by voluntary regis¬ 
tration obtain means of access to the bocty corporate, and consequently a 
voice in its government; and to the Pharmaceutical Society itself, as pro¬ 
moting the one great object for which that Society was established, “ the ad¬ 
vancement of chemistry and ■pharmacy, hy the uniform education of those who 
should practise the same .” 
Mr. Edward Burden then rose to propose the adoption of the Report just read, and in 
doing so he said it was very refreshing at this time of panic and confusion in money 
matters to find themselves connected with a Society which was consolidated on a firm 
basis, with no less a sum than £14,000 invested in the funds (that sum being an increase 
of £1500 on the amount of last year), without the probability of a run being made upon 
it, or any other pressing claim by which it might be materially reduced. He hoped it 
would go on increasing as it had hitherto done. A retrospective view over the period 
which had elapsed since the formation of the Society would enable them the better to 
judge of the benefit it had been to chemists and druggists, especially to Pharmaceutical 
Chemists. At the time when a few energetic men held their first meeting at the Crown 
and Anchor, in the Strand, in order to repel an agression which, supported in some de¬ 
gree by the medical profession, it then appeared the Government wished to make through 
Mr. Hawes’s Bill on the rights of the chemists ; they, as a body, were in a peculiar’con¬ 
dition, through want of systematic education, of being scarcely able to lay claim to that 
consideration which they required at the hands of Parliament. The public then de¬ 
manded increased security at the hands of dispensers of medicine, and the chemists and 
