98 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[July 29, 1S7L 
them ? Certainly not. The feeling of the country had been 
expressed in every possible way, through votes of annual 
meetings, of the Council, through a deputation to the Vice- 
President of the Privy Council, through three Defence Asso¬ 
ciations, through trade meetings in a dozen of the chief 
towns, and through petitions signed with unprecedented 
unanimity. Since one alone of the Defence Associations 
numbers more than 500 members, it does not seem very 
likely that Mr. Sandford’s new party can successfully compete 
in the representation of popular feeling. 
The late circular will not fail to have one result,—in con¬ 
solidating and making permanent the various Defence Asso¬ 
ciations. It is a direct challenge from Mr. Sandford on behalf 
of personal government to that system of representative go¬ 
vernment by which the Pharmaceutical Society is regulated. 
Such a contest will draw sharp lines, and those who have 
wished to trim their sails to every wind will fall out of the 
race. Submission to what has practically been personal go¬ 
vernment has already cost our body dearly in the late expen¬ 
diture of time, energy, and money, which has been a conse¬ 
quence of Mr. Sandford’s want of knowledge of his brethren 
in 1868. The alliance between Mr. Sandford and his con¬ 
stituency stands on a strange footing, when he puts aside its 
most plainly expressed will, as soon as it differs from his own, 
and seeks by most questionable means, and equally question¬ 
able allies, to enforce his wishes. 
It is to be noted that the consideration already given to the 
subject by many members of the House of Commons has had 
most satisfactory results. So acute a reasoner as Mr. W. M. 
Torrens, M.P., accepts the question as involving most im¬ 
portant constitutional rights, and is determined in this 
favourable position to withstand the dangerous enci*oach- 
ments of bureaucracy. The Bill is spoken of as being “ the 
most unpopular of any since the present Parliament was 
called.” 
Legal M.P.’s rapidly perceive the fallacies which have been 
woven to cover the natural repulsiveness of the measure. 
“ Very sharp practice ” was the verdict of one as to the pre¬ 
tended contract made in 1868; whilst another sententiously 
disposed of the whole question by the remark, “ Another 
piece of over-legislation.” 
Those who appealed to members of the House of Commons 
are not likely to stultify themselves by letting future judg¬ 
ment of the question go by default. They have received from 
the llight Hon. W. E. Forster and the Government conces¬ 
sions which the Medical Officer of the Privy Council and 
Mr. Sandford had refused them; and in the giving up of the 
absurd “poison bottle” they have a reward that repays many 
labours. 
But, if another attempt should be made to pass a similar 
Bill (it ought to be intituled “A Bill to save the feelings of 
two men at the expense of ten thousand ”), those who opposed 
the Bill of 1871 will once more—not (> with light hearts,” 
but with undaunted ones—appeal, and not in vain, to that 
greatest of representative bodies, the British House of Com¬ 
mons. 
Leeds, July 2oth, 1871. Eichaed Reynolds. 
Sir,—In “ a letter addressed to members of Parliament ” 
we have, a forcible illustration of how consistency, at one 
time a virtue, may degenerate into vice. In 1868, when the 
Society delighted to honour an individual member of the 
Council, it was in. consequence of his strong resistance to 
restrictions being introduced into the Pharmacy Act, which 
would have seriously lettered chemists in their daily avoca¬ 
tions. It was also trorn implicit confidence in his represen¬ 
tative capacity that he was permitted to act almost abso¬ 
lutely.with the Government and the officials of the Privy 
Council, and to arrange that tacit understanding which was 
the means of passing the Bill, but of which the Society knew 
nothing. 
Consistency has since compelled him to enforce the part 
he had guaranteed the Society should perform. Consistency 
caused him to resign his exalted position, rather than sur¬ 
render the views he entertained as imperative on the part of 
the Society to carry out, and for this personal sacrifice he was 
extolled, and general approbation given for his conscientious 
observance of that which to him was a point ot honour and a 
duty. 
. Up to that period few there were who denied that his con¬ 
sistency was a virtue, but since then the scene has entirely 
changed. Still bearing the esteem of his fellows as a gentle¬ 
man and a man of courage and honourable convictions, he 
was no longer deputed to act as the exponent of the trade’s 
desires, but became voluntarily its antagonist. By the result 
of the elections he was no longer compelled to enforce the 
principles as a private individual that he had undertaken as 
the representative head of an approving Council. By the 
elections it was proved that he did not represent the true 
feeling of the trade; and although his letter addressed to 
members of Parliament bears the signatures of many es¬ 
teemed names and firms of good pharmaceutical standing, 
they simply show a sympathy for the writer of the letter, 
rather than of the sentiments it contains, inasmuch as the- 
majority had already pledged themselves to the opposite side,, 
and signed petitions against any interference whatever. The- 
inference intended to be impressed upon members of Parlia¬ 
ment was scarcely as fair as could be desired, inasmuch as 
there are represented 65 towns, containing 783 members, and 
out of that number 715 had protested against the Bill, and 
signed petitions in opposition to it. And yet, by obtaining- 
the signatures of 56 local secretaries of the Society, the feel¬ 
ing of the majority is ignored, and a false impression con¬ 
veyed. It is quite clear that these local secretaries have beeit 
caught napping, or else they acknowledge themselves the 
officials of Mr. Sandford, and not of the members of their 
locality or the Society they are elected to represent. In- 
glancing over the London signatures, names of those may be* 
observed who formerly declared education to be the only 
safeguard, and who protested against any check that did nob 
emanate from the brain. Are the commanding premises in 
Bloomsbury to be put up to auction in consequence of our 
educational system having proved ineffective as regards the? 
training of pharmacists, or the consequent safety of the pub¬ 
lic? Or is it consideiel a sufficient compensation to these 
gentlemen that every surgeon and others keeping open shop 
should be maiked incapalle of arranging their own bottles? 
The question has lost its broad character and become a 
personal matter. In 1868 certain conditions were advanced 
to which the trade was not a consenting party, and which it 
has since unequivocally condemned; and yet notwithstanding; 
five-sixths of the trade had declared its distinct opposition*, 
for personal considerations we were called upon to fetter our¬ 
selves and assist in like manner to manacle the members of a* 
learned profession. 
It cannot be denied that those who are aiding the Privy- 
Council to subject us to its control, are but an insignificant 
minority, as far as numbers toll. They cannot deny that im 
exercising their own judgment, they are forcing upon, 
others restrictions repugnant to them and totally uncalled for„ 
and are exhibiting more the spirit of pique than a desire to* 
serve the trade. They are enabling those who made pro¬ 
mises to the Government to retaliate in consequence of the- 
disappointment that has fallen upon them by the rejection of' 
their leadership. Is it not sufficient for those who are en¬ 
amoured of the regulations to adopt them, without compelling; 
others who have arrangements of their own, which they con¬ 
sider better and more appropriate ? 
If the shelving of the Bill this year is but the prelude to its 
reproduction next Session, it is to be hoped that a better- 
spirit will prevail, and that those who have gone beyond the* 
bounds of consistency to fetter the trade, will respect the de¬ 
cision of the majoiity and put aside all personal feeling and. 
obligations other than those which belong to them as mem¬ 
bers of the chemist and druggist fraternity. 
July 2bth, 1871. John Wade. 
Sir,—The array of influential names appended to a circular* 
asking members of Parliament to support a Bill to authorize- 
the inspection of pharmacies, with the consequent power of 
summoning before magistrates and inflicting fines, suggests 
the question,—when will chemists realize their improved and 
improving position, and indulge in a little justifiable self- 
respect ? 
It is probable nine-tenths of the chemists on the register 
would willingly adopt the simple regulations recommended 
by the Council; and there can be no doubt that not one- 
tenth would willingly submit to the degradation of compul¬ 
sory inspection. I would suggest a counter-representation; 
to the members of the House of Commons, stating that the- 
subscribers thereto, although willing, and thereby pledging; 
themselves, to adopt the “ recommendations,” protest, in the 
strongest possible manner, against their voluntary and suc¬ 
cessful efforts to make themselves worthy of public confidence 
being dishonoured and suspected. 
