November 23,1372.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS 
41 
It remains only to be stated that the finer the texture of 
sponge, the fighter it will weigh, and that sponge that has 
once been sanded, requires greater time and labour to render 
it entirely free of sand, but the honest sponge which has not 
undergone the process of sanding, but has arrived in this 
country in its virgin state, requires but little washing, and 
not one grain of sand will be found in it. There is therefore 
now no difficulty whatever in avoiding the speculation which 
always attends the purchase of sanded sponge. 
G. B. Kent and Co. 
II, Great Marlborough Street, Regent Street, 
November 18 th, 1872. 
Sir,—I wish to add my experience to that of Messrs. New¬ 
ham and Co., in the purchase of sponge in sand. I have just 
cleaned a case and find the result to be far less favourable 
than theirs. 
Invoice Weights. Real weights. 
Gross 138 lb.136 lb 8 oz. 
Tare 17 lb.17 lb. 
Allowed for sand 30 lb.82 lb. 14 oz. 
Net weight of Sponge 91 lb. . . 8 lb. 2 oz. 
I would recommend chemists to avoid all such purchases 
however plausibly the case may be put before them. It would 
be well for all who have paid for experience in the same way 
to make the fact known, that the system may be at once put a 
stop to. 
Spongia Usta. 
Worcester, November, 12th, 1872. 
Sir,—A grocer lately had some sugar returned to him with 
the following polite message:—“ Too much sand for domestic 
but not sufficient for building purposes,” and with some such 
message should your correspondents B. Newham and Co. 
have returned those wonderful cases of sponge which they 
describe in your Journal. B. Newham and Co. labour under 
a popular delusion when they say that they “ are aware that 
sponge naturally contains a considerable allowance of sand.” 
1 respectfully beg to differ from them. It naturally contains 
nothing of the sort. I bought a short time since some 
pounds of compressed sponge, from a firm in London, which 
was absolutely free from sand, and more, it never had any 
sand in it; every pound of it was equal in quantity and sale¬ 
ability to 4 lb. as usually bought and weighted with sand. I 
no longer go to “ the Children of Israel ” for sponge. I buy 
it free from sand, and thus know exactly what I am buying. 
Newham and Co. should take the bull by the horns, and not 
be deterred from doing a legitimate trade because they have 
been once bitten. 
November 13 th, 1872. Nil Desperandum. 
Early Closing. 
Sir,—IVhen is a chemist’s shop closed ? The question sug' 
gests itself after perusing the correspondence in fate numbers 
of the Journal. As to Sunday closing, I have always con¬ 
sidered Mr. Slugg’s practice the correct ©ne; and ever since 
my first situation, where from inexperience I made no special 
inquiries on the subject, and where in consequence I remained 
three weeks, I, for several years, invariably refused every 
offer of a situation (and I had several very desirable offers) 
where anything beyond work of genuine necessity was re¬ 
quired on a Sunday. Since I have been in business I have 
had customers on Sunday who have looked at articles of per¬ 
fumery, etc. while a prescription has been preparing, but 
when they have desired to take them, they have been cour¬ 
teously informed that such orders would be gladly executed 
on the following day. I have never had occasion to regret 
this fine of conduct, and cannot trace to it any case of pecu¬ 
niary loss. 
But what i3 early closing ? I know some chemists who 
“dose at eight o’clock,” but their door shutters are down 
until ten. Now my customers come in at the door, and hence 
it makes no difference to them whether the window shutters 
nve up or down, so long as there is free ingress and egress 
through the doorway. Some of these early closing chemists 
are not averse from signing an agreement to close on holidays, 
and while their neighbours act upon the agreement bond fide, 
their door is open all day long, and they take all the gleanings. 
In tkis new movement, is early ciosing genuine? Would 
that the secret of combination for this and many higher pur¬ 
poses would reveal itself to us who five in country places. 
Nov. 1 Qth, 1872. Henricus. 
Remuneration of Assistants. 
Sir» The view brought forward by your correspondent 
‘ An Underpaid Assistant’ as to the cause of the scarcity of 
assistants of the right sort is very different from those which 
we usually see advocated. 
There has been a great cry through the trade, especially 
from the employers, for pharmaceutical education, and a great 
number of schemes and plans have been brought forward, in 
some of which it is sought to persuade, and in others to 
force the rising generation to study and qualify; but if it be 
true that there is no demand and proportionate remuneration 
for the trained and educated assistant, it is evident that we have 
begun at the wrong end of the matter. In order to see whether 
such be the case we have only to look through the adver¬ 
tisements for assistants in the Pharmaceutical Journal, 
and there the requirements we find as a rule to be “ state 
height and salary required.” Let the former be rather high 
and the latter very low, and a certificate of competence is of 
little more use than waste paper, unless one is prepared to 
take a salary which a carpenter or stone mason would look 
down upon with contempt. 
Create first the demand, and then the supply will follow 
without any difficulty, as any man of ordinary ability can 
prepare by self-help for the examinations without any ex¬ 
traneous assistance; only show him that he will have a proba¬ 
bility of being repaid for his time, trouble and expense. Be¬ 
fore asking for more assistants of the right sort, it would 
be well to provide suitable employment for those we 
have, instead of compelling them to seek for it in foreign 
situations, hospitals and the like, where they are to a great 
extent lost to British pharmacy. 
O. A. Reade. 
Sir,—The difficulty of the assistants’ co-operative question, 
which has never been underrated in these columns, does 
not diminish by examination. The more the matter is dis¬ 
cussed, the more wide does the gulf appear to yawn between 
the just and the expedient. Months ago was sounded the 
note of warning against the pernicious counsels of pro¬ 
fessional agitators, and the warning is not less requisite at 
this date, though the circumstances of the case are changed. 
Chemists generally have met reasonable demands by rea¬ 
sonable advances. It is an accomplished and, indisputable 
fact that the assistant is distinctly better off than he was 
twelve months ago, and the denunciation of professional 
agitators is met with the reply, that the assistant has obtained 
an amelioration of his condition by the thorough ventilation 
which his grievances have obtained from time to time through 
' e medium of your valuable Journal. 
To say that justice would not have been done but for ex¬ 
traneous pressure, is to advance an assertion incapable of 
proof, and to malign a body of men who are certainly not 
more selfish than their neighbours in the transactions of 
business. The people who content their limited understand¬ 
ings with jargon about supply and demand, and labour being 
worth what it will fetch in the market, have yet to learn, and 
will be difficult to convince, that the chemist has raised the 
assistant pecuniarily, without knowing where he will recover 
the increased outlay, and with the prospect of having to pay 
it out of profits, which at the best are insignificant compared 
with the average profits of commerce. Yet this is strictly 
true, and where the master has spontaneously given a rise to 
competent men, we are hopeful that the work will be done 
with so much more care and diligence, that the bargain will 
prove profitable to both parties. 
There is no better solution of the difficulty to offer than 
this, mutual forbearance and consideration, sympathy and 
toleration, instead of distrustful antagonism. 
104, The Strand. A. Courtenay. 
Sir,—In reply to “ Underpaid Assistant,” allow me to say 
that the fault is our own; I have often wondered why it 
should be tolerated when the remedy seems so simple. Why 
not have a society of our own, by which we could claim our 
rights ? “ Unity is strength let us be united. This society 
might be termed the “ United Chemists’ Assistants’ Society.” 
Through its influence many benefits might be derived, viz., 
providing for old age and illness, etc. 
Wm. W . Lindley. 
[*#* Such a society as that suggested by our corre¬ 
spondent, provided its efforts were devoted to proper objects, 
might undoubtedly render great services to its members and 
to the trade generally.—E d. Bhaem. Jouen.] 
