367 
VETERINARY REFORM. 
stigma, by their ungentlemanly character, to the veterinarian, 
which will not so easily be effaced. It is too little to say, that 
every person possessing common feeling must have been utterly 
disgusted with the late and last meeting. Can the profession ex¬ 
pect any thing to be done for their interest or benefit when all 
order and decency are knocked down by drunkenness, clamour, 
and abuse? Such a party will ultimately find they must have a 
surer basis to carry on proceedings, contrary to justice or common 
sense; truth and rectitude must and will ultimately prevail. 
The first consideration that naturally arises out of these transac¬ 
tions under such peculiar circumstances, is, what are we to do now? 
We are treated with contempt by the governors of the College, 
and not considered worthy a place at the medical examining 
committee. It requires no great foresight, I think, to see who 
is at the bottom of all this. When we, however, see a few gen¬ 
tlemen, from party feeling, without consideration, act in diame¬ 
trical opposition to all that is just and right, it behoves us to 
adopt those measures with vigour, which justice and necessity 
demand, calculated to intimidate on the one hand, and stimu¬ 
late perfidious or pusillanimous neutrals to a maintenance of their 
lights and independence. It is not by insulting and seditious 
meetings that just ends are to be obtained; but by stating fully, 
fearlessly, and truly, our grievances on paper. There must be 
many, certainly, reading gentlemen among the subscribers, who 
though they have never yet thought it worth their while to look 
into the college affairs, will now, upon a fair statement of the 
circumstances, see there must be something “ rotten in the state 
of Denmark;” and a sense of their own reputation, and the 
cause of humanity, will, without doubt, lead them to attend 
the general meetings, and avoid a focus of intrigue with which 
they ought to have no connexion. They will find a form of pro¬ 
ceeding has been adopted and established, founded in erroneous 
theory, and supported by unwarrantable acts, new in their nature, 
pernicious to the profession and themselves in their progress; 
which must, if persisted in, be destructive in its effects. Every 
man who has his own respectability and the interest of his pro¬ 
fession at heart, must plainly see, that by the system which has 
been persevered in for so many years, we are only placed upon 
the footing of common farriers; and it can only be by the most 
vigorous and strenuous exertions that the respectable part of the 
profession can be relieved from this state of thraldom. IIow are 
veterinarians looked upon generally, and with few exceptions ! 
The army as one, perhaps ; but even here I could name where the 
veterinary surgeon is not received at the mess; and whose fault is 
this, but theirs who have given appointments to those who have 
