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accomplish it. On this account it is we have been advocates 
for the members of our profession associating together for 
the consideration of those subjects which affect their common 
interests, and until such a spirit of co-operation becomes 
general we have but faint hopes of the profession being 
what it ought to be. “ Divide et impera,” is a Machiavelian 
policy. The want of union in a community becomes a 
source of weakness, while its presence indicates strength, 
and enables it to govern and direct its affairs for the general 
weal. “ Two are better than one,’ 5 says the Wise Man, 
“ because they have a good reward for their labour.” 
We have before commended our transatlantic cousins for 
forming themselves into societies for the consideration of 
veterinary matters, and had hoped ere this to have reported 
their progress, having received promises to that effect; but 
for a short time there is a suspension in the action of the 
Atlantic cable, the sympathetic cord that unites the two 
hemispheres. 
Now we have to congratulate our professional brethren in 
the north for having taken the lead in uniting themselves 
into a society for the same object. We anticipated that in 
the metropolis of the empire an association of the kind would 
have taken place ere this, and have urged it again and again. 
In like manner, however, similar propositions made by others 
have fallen unheeded. All this is to be regretted. Yet we 
feel no jealousy whatever in Glasgow having the honour of 
precedency, since it is clear that the members of the West of 
Scotland Veterinary Medical Association do not intend to hide 
their light under a bushel, but by giving publicity to their 
debates—and the pages of our Journal shall ever be open 
for their insertion—to benefit the profession as a whole; 
which should be the uniform object of all. The day is gone 
by for exclusiveness ; and those misread the times who now 
attempt its introduction. It is a thing long since buried in 
the abyss of the past, and only to be referred to with wonder 
and pity as a relic of by-gone days, when knowledge being 
restricted to the cowl and the cloister, the intellectual powers 
were “ cribb’d, cabined, and confin’d” by custom and fear 
lest others should know as much as they did. “ Light,” we 
