TESTIMONIAL TO DR. EDWARDS AT LIVERPOOL. 
185 
I could find a better and a larger market for those commodities, I follow the commercial 
principle so well recognised in Liverpool, in taking my goods to the best market. I 
have never despised the apron of the shop or the calling of the pharmaceutical chemist. 
I have endeavoured, in the first place, to improve my own knowledge of the subject in 
which I was engaged as an apprentice, and finally as a master myself; and it has only 
been collaterally that I have ventured here and there into science; and if I have been at 
all successful in learning, I have always been willing to teach. At the same time, this 
pursuit of commercial matters is greater than I have had before, and I am proceeding to 
Canada. I do hope, with respect to that future which I have before me, that I shall be 
able to associate the education of youth with the production of commodities which are 
required in that country. I delight in teaching v\ hat I know, and I would rather point 
to my own instance as an encouragement to the pharmaceutical apprentice, or a young 
man without friends or without any very great amount of money, to push his way in 
life. I would rather say, “That man is an example in which a man might raise him¬ 
self a little bit above his apron and yet still stick to a shop.” In acknowledging the 
very handsome timepiece, I have to acknowledge still further a very handsome and ac¬ 
ceptable present in the current coin of the realm. I am very much obliged to you for 
this, and with your permission I will enclose it in a casket and hand it to a lady whom 
some of you know, and I love her better to-day than the day I married her. She is the 
companion of my future and past, and I hope her health will be better hereafter than it 
has been at Liverpool. It is difficult to say all that one would like to say on an oc¬ 
casion like this, but if you are not tired I should like to tell you what sort of a place I 
find Canada. In the first place, the climate appeared to me to be exceedingly beau¬ 
tiful. Politically, Canada is undergoing very considerable changes, by the alterations 
of tariff. They are gradually approximating to a tariff which more nearly resembles, 
in its customs features, our own. At the same time, they impose heavy duties upon 
imports, for the purpose of encouraging manufactures there; and I must say that I was 
surprised, considering the advance to which pharmacy has been carried in the United 
States, to find that there were no manufactories of chemical products there. The re¬ 
sources of the country have been developed by the Government, by sending scientific 
men out to pioneer and examine very thoroughly the geological features of the 
country. The geological museum in Montreal is a perfect marvel of rich treasure. 
It is true that there is a lack of coal in Canada propel', but in the abundance of oil- 
springs and timber there is no lack of fire and fuel. They have iron and copper in 
abundance, and yet, with all their materials, they have no manufactory of soda or salt 
or sulphuric acid. Every drop of oil of vitriol has to be imported from Glasgow or St. 
Helen’s, and has to undergo the perils of a passage across the Atlantic. Then with 
regard to pharmaceutical articles—ether, chloroform, or ammonia, which are consumed 
in large quantities,—they have to pay a very heavy rate as import duty; so that there 
is a very great encouragement for any one to take out apparatus and manufacture 
there. Until recently, the Canadians supplied themselves with these articles very 
much from the States, but now they have levied duties upon everything, and their 
resources are very much crippled. The Americans put very heavy export duties on 
these articles, so that they are as heavily taxed as the import duties from England would 
be. There is therefore great inducement to manufacture these things in Canada. The 
union of Upper and Lower Canada has conduced very much to the consolidation of 
the law and to the consolidation of those questions which were vexatious because local j 
and the federation of the whole provinces into one government will give a very great 
impulse indeed to trade, and there is no doubt that the resources of the country will 
become of very much greater value to us, and there will be greater merchandise than 
ever there w^s before. Dr. Edwards resumed his seat after again thanking the meeting. 
Mr. Town-Councillor Picton, chairman of the Literary and Philosophical Society, 
said it gave him very great pleasure to be present that evening, when the respect which 
was due to their excellent friend. Dr. Edwards, had been expressed so warmly and so 
practically as it had been by the presentation that night. He (Dr, Edwards) deserved 
all the respect and esteem which they could bear towards him, and he (Mr, Picton) was 
very much pleased to find that in his expatriation, if such it could be called, he"^ was 
going to another world, in one sense, and they hoped it would be a better world ; but 
they were sorry to part with him. He had distinguished himself amongst them ^ot 
only by his scientific attainments, the reputation of which had extended far beyond the 
