567 
ARMY VETERINARY DEPARTMENT. 
My last letter I directed to the subjects of the respectability of 
the veterinary profession in the army, and the rank which was 
allotted to veterinary officers. 
I said that a veterinary army-appointment was not only such 
as any well-educated and well-bred man might, without the 
slightest reflection on himself, accept of; but, moreover, had the 
pow er of converting the holder of it, who in himself was not 
respectable, into a being possessed, at least, of the outw ard aspect 
of a gentleman; from the circumstances of such a malotru 
having opportunities given him of associating with gentlemen, 
and of his finding himself pent within military law , which is so 
regulated as to keep him out of the pot-house, and deter him 
from pursuing (should he feel ever so much inclined) his old 
habits, or even herding with his quondam companions. 
I afterw ards inquired into the rank conferred upon the veteri¬ 
nary regimental officer; and I found that it was based upon the 
same principle that the surgeon’s and commissary’s was—viz. 
that it only invested him with the privilege of making choice of 
Q uarters; but that it was inferior to what w as given to those me- 
ical and civil officers, inasmuch as the intervals of time betw een 
the gradations of cornet, lieutenant, and captain, were much 
longer, particularly the first interval, which w as really grievously 
protracted. 
I observed that his late Majesty, of blessed memory, bestowed 
commissions upon veterinary surgeons in order to render such 
offices respectable, and to induce men of education and gentle¬ 
manly habits to accept of them; and I feel myself sorry to 
be compelled to add, that his Majesty’s good and gracious 
intentions have been shamefully frustrated by the recommenda¬ 
tion of men whose illiterateness rendered them utterly incom¬ 
petent to the duties of their stations, and whose low' breeding 
and worse habits not only got them, but their profession along 
with them, into such disrepute, that in some regiments of cavalry 
the veterinary surgeon was not a whit better than a common 
farrier. 
Gentle reader, if you would inquire how it has happened that 
such corruption has crept into the veterinary department of the 
army, I must, in order to let you fully into the secret, first give 
you to understand through what channels, and by what means, 
veterinary surgeons are appointed to regiments. 
The original appointment—that from which all the others have 
sprung—was conferred upon the Professor at the Veterinary 
College, he being the ostensible head or source from which all 
