January 27,1872.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL' JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
GOI 
HOURS OF CLOSING. 
BY R. W. GILES. 
The following propositions are of the nature of 
axioms:— 
1. “ Hours of business ” will be influenced by the 
habits of the public, and cannot be regulated solely 
by the choice of the trader. 
2. The habits of the public vary according to 
their circumstances in life, and will not be similar in 
all localities. A difficulty is introduced by this 
cause, which precludes the possibility of uniformity 
under all circumstances without involving public 
inconvenience. 
3. Different service may be required from dif¬ 
ferent trades,—another cause of variation in hours 
of business. Thus, the newspaper compositor’s 
hours of labour are the journeyman hatter’s hours 
of repose, and “ the head of the bed for Mr. Box be¬ 
comes the foot of the bed for Mr. Cox.” 
4. Pharmacies are properly expected to be avail¬ 
able for urgent requirements at all hours. (Mem.— 
No other trade is subject to this obligation.) 
5. Pharmacies, as a matter of fact, are commonly 
kept open for business during longer hours than 
other trades in the same localities. 
Question for consideration: Whether this last 
condition is a necessary (or even an expedient) 
arrangement for the fulfilment of the duties incum¬ 
bent upon the pharmaceutist ? 
It is necessary to make careful separation be¬ 
tween ordinary business and exceptional or emer¬ 
gency business. For the latter no limits can be 
fixed, and it can only be provided for by the con¬ 
stant attendance of a competent person to answer 
such calls whenever they occur. This, therefore, 
has no connection with the determination of the 
“ hours of business.” 
The hours of business are (speaking generally) 
fixed by the tradesman upon due consideration of 
the habits of the people to whom he looks for cus¬ 
tom, and the amount of rest which is needed by 
those engaged in the business of the shop. There 
are certain hours in which the street traffic is suffi¬ 
ciently active to find occupation for the shop, and 
beyond those hours it is neither profitable to the 
tradesman nor necessary for the public accommoda¬ 
tion that his shop should be open. 
Is there any insuperable reason why these hours 
should differ in a linendraper’s—a stationer’s—a 
grocer’s—or a jeweller’s shop—and in a chemist’s ? 
It must be acknowledged that there are points of 
difference. Thus the draper and the jeweller usually 
submit their stock to the examination of the pur¬ 
chaser in person, and their customers usually select 
daylight-hours for their calls. Chemists’ orders are 
more frequently sent by messenger, and the dispatch 
of the messenger (usually a domestic servant) is 
often deferred until the house duties are finished. 
This is one reason for the lateness of chemists’ busi¬ 
ness. It remains to be seen whether this is an in¬ 
surmountable difficulty, or if it is one which the 
chemist’s duty to the sick requires him to accept at 
the cost of the discomfort which it imposes upon 
himself and his establishment. 
It is worthy of passing remark that different cus¬ 
tomers use different hours, and we could probably 
all of us attribute three-fourths of our late trade to a 
small percentage of customers who habitually send 
their orders after the housemaid has washed up the 
Third Series, No. 83. 
tea-things. The other fourth is probably legitimate 
casualty, and may be privileged as more or less 
emergency business. Now there seems no more rea¬ 
son tor our hours of business being controlled by 
this fictitious late trade than there is for these trou¬ 
blesome customers accommodating their habits to 
our hours of business. We have to balance our own 
comfort against the urgency of the public want; and 
this involves a consideration of many circumstances. 
Few chemists make any sign of closing before 8 
o’clock in the evening, whereas it is a common prac¬ 
tice for other shops to close completely (without 
liability to further summons) at 7 o’clock, and it 
does not appear that the assistants in these last- 
mentioned shops have more leisure than is reason¬ 
able. Masters of pharmaceutical businesses which 
close at 8 o’clock appear to consider that this hour 
affords their assistants less leisure than is reason¬ 
able, and accordingly, where it is practicable, it is 
customary to extend the indulgence by allowing each 
assistant one evening a week from an earlier hour. 
The advantage of the longer hours of business (if 
it be an advantage) is therefore not entirely secured 
to the master, and an inconvenient system of excep¬ 
tional privileges is introduced, which every one must 
know is objectionable. In fact, we profess regula¬ 
tion hours which we find it impossible to adhere to. 
More is expected from chemists’ assistants than a 
rule of thumb acquaintance with the stock of the 
shop. Their duties require more intelligence, more 
study, and more thought than is necessary for weigh¬ 
ing sugar or measuring calico. The risks which 
attend a possible mistake render those duties more 
exhausting to the brain, and the strain should not 
be at the same time greater and of longer duration. 
It may be said, and not without truth, that the study 
referred to should have been accomplished in the 
pupil days of the young chemist, and not taken out 
of time for which a price has been paid. Granting 
this to be so, we have still to deal with the fact that 
we have not yet attained to that epoch, and we know 
practically that our next succession of pharma¬ 
ceutists must be evolved out of the assistants of to¬ 
day. How is this to be done? Doubtless a per¬ 
centage of indomitable spirits will accomplish greater 
things • than this under the most adverse circum¬ 
stances ; but if it was in the interest of the public 
(as Parliament said that it was) for pharmaceutists 
to give proof of a scientific knowledge of their busi¬ 
ness, it must also be in the public interest that such 
opportunities shall be given as will enable a suffi¬ 
cient number to attain that qualification, and so be¬ 
come fitted to take the places which, in the common 
order of things, the present masters must some day 
vacate. And I hereby record my deliberate belief 
that there is, under present circumstances, reason to 
fear that this may not happen. 
We have all had occasion of late years to expe¬ 
rience the difficulty of securing the services of as¬ 
sistants up to the modern standard; and we know 
why this has been the case. We know that many 
useful young men have actually quitted the trade 
from apprehension of examinations which they did 
not contemplate when they joined it. We see that 
numbers fail t to pass the examinations when they 
venture to face them ; and we know that many have 
been deterred from entering upon a vocation pre¬ 
senting the following peculiar inducements:— 
1. A preliminary ordeal in the branches of an 
English and classical education. 
