ANNUAL MEETING. 
793 
thrown out to state what would be done if they did not comply with the recommenda¬ 
tions of the Council, and no answer had been returned. He did not believe the Council 
really wished to act out of harmony with its constituents, but as it was evident a want 
of harmony existed at present, the question was, whose will was to operate ? Inas¬ 
much as the Council only derived its authority from its constituents, lie hoped it would 
see the wisdom of accepting the decision given by the members at large. They had 
recognized this principle by bringing the matter before the meeting, and he thought 
they had now had a sufficient statement of opinion, not only from those present, but 
those who were unable to attend. At any rate, he trusted the conclusion which the 
meeting came to would be so decisive that the Council would have but few regrets in 
falling in with the general feeling. 
Mr. Bland rose to call attention to one or two points which seemed to have escaped 
attention. In the first place, he begged to express his conviction that very few gentle¬ 
men present, certainly none who had spoken, had called attention to the fact, that the 
proposed restrictions woidd be far more expensive and vexatious than most persons 
had any idea of. They were not confined to those things which were called poisons 
in the Act of Parliament; and one difficulty which had always been felt was, how was 
the word to be defined? These regulations were far more stringent than the Act; 
for they extended not only to poisons, but to dangerous articles. He wanted a defini¬ 
tion. But if these regulations were to be legally enforced, the only way in which he 
could act with safety would be to put his water-bottle on a separate and distinct shrine 
in his shop, and call the rest of his premises dangerous. Did any gentleman on the 
Council, or off it, mean to say that if a certain number of articles, defined as poisons 
in the Act of Parliament, were placed in a closet by themselves, that an ignorant or 
unskilful person might be turned loose in the shop to do anything he pleased with the 
bottles left behind ? The only real security to the public against accidental poisoning 
arising out of storage or dispensing of dangerous articles lay in the educated profes¬ 
sional care of the Pharmaceutical Chemist, and the exercise, on his part, of constant, 
intelligent watchfulness. All mere mechanical regulations like these might then be 
dispensed with. With regard to sending out liniments, embrocations, and so on, in 
distinctive bottles, in nine cases out of ten, and certainly in the very great majority of 
cases, the customer’s brought their own bottles; and they would not go to the expense 
of changing them when they saw no necessity for it. Again, if they sent out two- 
pennyworth, as one gentleman had said, of soap-liniment and laudanum in an angular 
iDottle, what woidd become of that bottle ? The liniment would be used, and the bottle 
would be put into a cupboard with a number of others, and perhaps on the next occa¬ 
sion, when the customer visited the same establishment, he would bring the same 
bottle for a penn’orth of hair oil. Were they r to say, We will not serve you with hair 
oil in that bottle, because it is a poison-bottle ? This part of the regulation, there¬ 
fore, would be perfectly impracticable, like the 17th clause of the Pharmacy Act, which 
was violated every day. 
Mr. Carteighe said there had been a great many questions raised about the con¬ 
stituency, and one gentleman, whose opinion was generally well worthy of considera¬ 
tion, had spoken of six petitions which had been sent up against these regulations. 
But what had other towns done ? If there had been six petitions against it, he cer¬ 
tainly would not say that all the others were in favour of it, and did not pretend to 
say ; in fact, many had not considered the matter, very likely. But how were these 
petitions got up ? The fact was, that the most active men in certain towns happened 
to be opposed to these things ; and they got the Society together, and put their views 
before them, bringing forward a number of objections in detail, which really, if con¬ 
sidered, would not hold water. He was not going to discuss the question in detail at 
that late hour ; and they all agreed that in detail most of these things were good, and 
were practically carried out. The grand objection was, and he certainly could not 
but sympathize with it to a certain extent, that they did not like to be fettered or 
trammelled as they said. They did not object to them because they were bad, for 
they admitted them to be good, and, therefore, he asked them not to raise a false 
issue, but to state plainly what was the real objection,—that they did not like to be 
trammelled by any Act of Parliament, if they could help it; still less by any regu¬ 
lations coming from a body selected by themselves to conduct their own affairs. Still 
YOL. XI. . 3 F 
