AS SUBSCRIBERS. 
245 
fall. The governors may do us justice. Does he not know us 
better than to imagine for a moment that gross oppression and 
folly would characterise our. proceedings ? 
“ But,” says a governor, “ if veterinary surgeons are permit¬ 
ted to become subscribers, they will learn some of the secrets oi 
the College, and become more skilful, and thus interfere with 
the profits of the College.” 
This gentleman is a very influential governor. With him our 
exclusion originated; and this was the only argument by which 
he supported our exclusion. 
Well, if we are excluded, we are glad that the truth is out, and 
that we now are fairly to understand what those gentlemen would 
have the College to be—not the pure source whence veterinary 
science should largely flow to the remotest part of the veterinary 
world; but a polluted, noxious pool, carefully enclosed and anxious¬ 
ly guarded, for the supposed and exclusive benefit of its officers 
and governors: the very personification, the very focus of em¬ 
piricism. That which would disgrace the meanest of us is to be 
the character of the institution whence we take our name, and 
with the character of which our own is identified. Veterinary 
surgeons shall not become subscribers, “ because they will learn 
some of the secrets of the College, and become better practition¬ 
ers.” The improvement and interests of the profession form no 
part of the calculation. It is a mere system of quackery and 
monopoly. It is not, it was not designed to be the fountain ot 
science: it is a mere pound-shilling-ana-pence business. Ve¬ 
terinary surgeons ! what think you of your College ? W hat must 
the public think of it, after such an unblushing and disgraceful 
confession? Well might Mr. Ooodwin say, that he was almost 
ashamed of the profession to which he belonged. From every 
grade of society, even the meanest, subscribers may come, 
but we are a proscribed caste—a half-instructed body (that, 
indeed, is too true): at present permitted to possess that poor 
portion of knowledge which could not be withheld from us 
during our state of pupilage, but doomed never to learn those im¬ 
portant secrets of the College which would enable us to rise in 
the public estimation, or successfully to rival our parent insti¬ 
tution. 
