560 
BERRY V. HENDERSON. 
complied with the requirements of the proviso at the end of the 17th section of the Phar¬ 
macy Act, 186S ; whether, according to the facts, the defendant had committed the offence 
with which he was charged. Your lordships see that is a conviction upon this case : “ An 
information was preferred under section 17 of the Pharmacy Act, 1868, against Henry 
Berry, a Pharmaceutical Chemist, duly registered under the Pharmacy Act, 1868, charging 
that Henry Berry did unlawfully sell a certain poison of those which are in the first part of 
the Schedule (A) to the Pharmacy Act, 1S68, to wit prussic acid, to a certain person un¬ 
known to the seller, and not introduced by some person known to the seller.” The second 
conviction is for the very same act of sending out this identical same thing not labelled 
“ Poison,” whereas the Act says it must be labelled “Poison.” 
Mr. Justice Lush. —The same act P 
Mr. Quain. —For the identical same act. 
Mr. Justice Lush. —Por not putting a label on the bottle ? 
Mr. Quain. —Por not putting the word “ poison ” on the bottle. It is a conviction 
under the Pharmacy Act, 1868, 15 & 16 Viet. c. 121, s. 17. It will he for your lordships 
presently to decide whether this having taken place the very day when the new Act 
received the royal assent, they have not convicted him entirely under the wrong Act of 
Parliament; and whether, the new Act having come into operation on the 11th of August, 
—the very day this offence was committed,—they ought not to have proceeded under this 
Act. 
Mr. Justice Lush. —It had both received the royal assent and come into operation on 
that day ? 
Mr. Quain. —On that very day; and it will be for your lordships to decide the question. 
I say that that Act of Parliament was in operation the whole of that day. I do not know, 
I am sure, when it received the royal assent, nor is there any evidence of that. 
Mr. Justice Lush. —What is the other Act, Mr. Quain ? 
Mr. Quain. —I think, my lord, it would be quite possible to decide this case without 
going into this very thorny point, as to when the Act of Parliament came into operation ; 
but the Act is the 32 & 33 Viet. c. 117, s. 3, which received the royal assent, and, there¬ 
fore, came into operation on the 11th of August. There is nothing in that Act which 
makes it come into operation at any other time, and, therefore, it came into operation on 
the 11th August, 1869, the very day when this transaction took place. First, my lord, 
without troubling your lordship on that point, I venture to think it is sufficiently clear on 
the 17th section of the Act of 1868. The Act provides in these words, “It shall he un- 
awful to sell any poison, either by wholesale or by retail, unless the box, bottle, vessel, 
wrapper, or cover in which such poison is contained, be distinctly labelled with the name 
of the article and the word c poison,’ and with the name and address of the seller of the 
poison ; and it shall be unlawful to sell any poison of those which are in the first part of 
Schedule (A) to this Act, or may hereafter be added thereto under section 2 of this Act, to 
any person unknown to the seller, unless introduced by some ^person known to the seller ; 
and on every sale of any such article, the seller shall, before delivery, make or cause to be 
made an entry in a book to be kept for that purpose, stating, in the form set forth in Schedule 
(F) to this Act, the date of the sale, the name and address of the purchaser, the name and 
quantity of the article sold, and the purpose for which it is stated by the purchaser to be 
required, to which entry the signature of the purchaser, and of the person, if any, who in¬ 
troduced him, shall be affixed; and any persou selling poison otherwise than is herein pro¬ 
vided, shall, upon a summary conviction before two justices of the peace in Eugland or the 
sheriff in Scotland, be liable to a penalty not exceeding five pounds for the first offence, and 
to a penalty not exceeding ten pounds for the second or any subsequent offence ; and for the 
purposes of this section, the person on whose behalf any sale is made by any apprentice or 
servant, shall be deemed to be the seller;”—now comes the exception, “but the provisions 
of this section, which are solely applicable to poisons in the first part of the Schedule (A) 
to this Act, or which require that the label shall contain the name and address of the seller, 
shall not apply to articles to be exported from Great Britain by wholesale dealers, nor 
to sales by wholesale to retail dealers in the ordinary course of wholesale dealing.” Then 
there is another interposition. Now comes the provision that applies to this case, “ nor 
shall any of the provisions of this sectiou apply to any medicine supplied by a legally 
qualified apothecary to his patient, nor apply to any article when forming part of the in¬ 
gredients of any medicine dispensed by a person registered under this Act, provided such 
