ENMITY OF GROOMS TO VETERINARY SURGEONS. 663 
is his decided aim. I here could relate an instance of such con¬ 
duct, which took place only a very short time ago, in corroboration 
of this, where a veterinary surgeon of eminence in this part of 
Yorkshire, a gentleman who has the pleasure of sitting occasionally 
at the Council’s meetings, a practitioner of long standing, and second 
to none for his abilities, and who, from my personal acquaintance 
with him, would not do the least wrong to any man, was attacked 
and backbitten by one of these scurrilous knaves; and it would 
have been a matter of surprise had he escaped unimpeached from 
the breath of this vampire; yet I am glad to state that the poison¬ 
ous pest, although vomited from the mouth of a cesspool of ini¬ 
quity, has not produced any apparent ill effects; neither do I think 
it rendered the party in question much, if at all, choleric, he being 
of a mild temper, which is the best in a storm. This very same art¬ 
ful dodger, not more than a month ago, called upon me, informing 
me that he had recommended my assistance to a mare belonging to 
a neighbouring farmer. I naturally inquired what was the matter, 
suspecting some fetch or design. Squeezing his hands together, 
and rubbing them up, shewing no little pretended affability, he 
replied, he did not know, but had named me out of friendship. 
On going over I found that this fellow, whom I think is no less 
than brother to his Satanic majesty, had told me a bundle of the 
most infamous lies. He himself had been in attendance upon the 
case from two to three months, and had been treating the mare for 
inflammation of the lungs. On examining the poor emaciated and 
long suffering creature, I found extensive thickening upon the left 
inferior maxillary bone (the cheek part) spreading underneath and 
extending to the throat. This swelling was said by the cunning 
fellow to be the sequel of inflammation of the lungs, and that it 
was to “ break,” as he had expressed it, when all would be right. 
This “ breaking” I found to be a broken, or rather splintered jaw, 
with four of the molar teeth driven pretty nigh out of their sockets; 
two of them, indeed, so much so that they lay partly upon the 
tongue, and I readily removed them with my fingers. The extent 
of such gross ignorance may be conceived readily, but the torture 
and sufferings of this poor animal can only be very distantly ima¬ 
gined. This is but one instance, amongst hundreds of others, of 
cruelty, torture, and maltreatment, which call loudly for legislative 
means to stop such intolerable abuses. 
To the intrusions of these knowing grooms upon the rights of 
veterinary surgeons there is no end, nor is there likely to be. It 
is a matter of daily occurrence to find them insinuating themselves 
into every hole and corner where they can lay hold of either sick 
or lame, and not unfrequently asking the owners to take them out 
of our hands. I could name several instances of this kind, and 
