ANNUAL MEETING. 
789 
saying, “ Education is tlie one great and only safeguard. Every man knows best 
how to conduct his own business, and there are many conditions in these Bills which 
are impracticable.” One Bill after another was altered, but they were not satisfac¬ 
tory ; and at last the Government got impatient, and said, £ ‘ These men will never 
be satisfied; we will pass such a Poison Bill as we think fit.” Some of the 
schedules of poisons would have thrown into shadow what was now objected to, and 
it was only because of the overthrow of Lord Derby’s Government that the last Poison 
Bill was not carried. When it was reintroduced, the Society offered to frame a Bill 
which would be more satisfactory both to themselves and the public, and the Govern¬ 
ment at last did them the honour to allow them to do so ; and in this step, he believed, 
the Government did a thing which was altogether unparalleled. There was no in¬ 
stance of the kind, of a voluntary Society, without aid from any extraneous source, 
being made the hand to execute a great Government measure. They had made them, 
to a certain extent, Government officers, and given them the control over the whole of 
the trade; but all this had been done on the faith that the Society would fulfil their 
wishes in regard to the sale of poisons. The great question was, not what did they 
like, or what did they feel to be a hardship, but what did the public require; and 
were they ready to carry out faithfully and honourably what they had promised to do 
when these great powers were committed to them. While they exercised these powers 
for their own advantage and comfort, were they not also willing to take a larger view 
of the matter, and exercise them for the good of the public ? lie would beg leave to 
ask any gentleman to try and put himself.' outside the limits of the trade, and 
imagine he was not a chemist, and ask himself what would be his feelings if a neigh¬ 
bour or friend, a relative or a child of his own, were poisoned with some oxalic acid 
sold for salts, or something of that kind ? What would he say as he stood and looked 
at the cold remains of his child ? “ Has everything been done that would have pre¬ 
vented this accident ? Was every precaution taken to stay the hand of death, and 
keep the silent seal of the destroyer from those cold lips ? Am I satisfied that these 
dangerous things, on which the life of my child has been hanging, have been guarded 
and sealed, and kept with every possible precaution against accident ? Are there no 
regulations that can affect these things, and make these accidents less likely to happen? 
Ho, there is no regulation. They say they know their own business best, and they 
■would not have any regulations. But they did not know their own business best; 
they have not known their own business best; and for the last ten years the feeling 
has been rising that they do not, or these accidents would not happen. It is quite 
true that some honourable and careful men may, but I want a regulation that will 
apply, not only to the careful and painstaking man, but to every one; not liberty for 
some men to do so-and-so, but a law which shall bind every man. I want it to apply, 
not only to the chemist at the West End, but to the careless druggist who keeps the 
chandler’s shop at the corner of a poor street,—to every man who sells poisons, com¬ 
pelling him to take all those precautions that can justly be required before a human 
life is sacrificed. But regulations were proposed ; a string of them were drawn up, 
but they were objected to, and refused. One man said that ho did not like putting 
his poisons in a cupboard; and another said that it was a little trouble to put them in a 
corner; and another that he did not approve of coloured labels ; and there were some 
other objections of that sort, but it all resolved itself into this, that it was rather more 
trouble than they chose to take. I can only say this, when these effects come before 
me, if that is the principle on which these men make laws ; it they mind a little 
trouble ; if they think a great deal of an unnecessary precaution ; if they are so care¬ 
less that a little fidgetiness even is sufficient ground for rejection, it is high time that 
other people made laws for them.” He would not detain the meeting any longer, but 
would strongly advise that these regulations be adopted for twelve months on the re¬ 
commendation of the Council, and then, after they had been fairly tested, let them be 
accepted or rejected. He would only add one word more, viz. to express his convic¬ 
tion that if a law were passed, that every one who adopted these rules should be 
exempted from income tax, there would not be many dissentients. 
Mr. Pedler desired to support every word which had been so well said by Mr. 
Edwards, and he did so not as a member of the Council, but as an independent mem¬ 
ber of the Society. He believed every one in the trade already adopted them more or 
