154 ARMY VETERINARY DEPARTMENT. 
i ■ 'I • A 
been, if any tiling, the honourable, dignified, and straight¬ 
forward efforts of the profession to advance its welfare and 
credit, should, in some quarters, have been made the vehicle 
of personal declamation and invective. The great bulk of the pro¬ 
fession must know where, if in any general points, the career of 
its professor has been open to cavil; and with that I meddle not. 
But it must also know how unfounded have been the indecorous 
hints, inuendos, and rumours of private interests and feelings 
he had to serve and served, as industriously circulated in one or 
two quarters. The indulgence of this discreditable mode of 
mingling up the question of alteration or reform in the college, or 
otherwise, with personalities towards one so assimilated with our 
credit generally and individually, defeated its own purpose by 
its self-recoil; and I sincerely trust to see worthy grounds alone 
taken henceforward, and in all efforts to obtain vantage field 
for our profession. The patronage of the army, I see, is one 
thing has been clamoured about. It is more than superogatory 
to oppose or adduce facts in answer to what are, at best, but 
emanations from shallow suspicion; but I feel truly indignant at 
so unworthy aspersions; for I have had opportunity (not agree¬ 
ably) to know, that any fair basis of claim, not on Mr. Coleman, 
but on the service, or the profession, has always been attended 
to by him in preference to private feeling, as reference to not a 
few regiments of cavalry would verify. I advocate fair play on all 
hands. The profession does not require to elevate itself in any 
way at Mr. Coleman's expense, with whom it has been so long 
and so much identified. 
Regarding some recent communications to The Veterina¬ 
rian, I in no way incline to ascribe any degree of similar feeling 
v or inclination to “ An Army Veterinarian," who, in the last 
Number has commented on u the army departmentand 
yet, in some way, it gives me an impression that it means 
to imply, or rather it asserts, that “ there’s something rotten in 
the state of Denmark." Now, I cannot exactly see it. He tells 
us that the commander-in-chief’s list is u fed from another list 
kept by Mr. Coleman, but by no means regularly fed by the 
transmission of the names of those who, having obtained their 
certificates, were anxious to obtain an army appointment, &c." 
Undoubtedly this is quite true; and why not so ? If the selection 
of individuals to fill army appointments is vested in Mr. Cole¬ 
man, would he perform his duty by sending, indiscriminately, the 
names of all who, having obtained their diploma, choose to ap¬ 
ply? Is it so in^ regard to the appointment of surgeons to the 
army ? Does not the director-general in the medical department 
exercise a similar discretionary selection in recommending ? 
