542 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
tlieir -wislicSj altliougli tlie more direct professional matter 
of the Journal may be thereby somewhat intrenched upon. 
Much has been said against^ and a good deal of opposition 
made, to the system ^Yhich has of late years prevailed, of 
liaving the horses submitted to a preliminary examination 
by the members of the profession. We have always ad¬ 
vocated this procedure, and for several reasons, but 
chiefly because it lies at the root of the means which 
are employed to supply the country with sounder horses 
than we daily meet with. If proof were wanting that this 
desideratum is being gradually attained, we have it in the 
fact that at the Worcester meeting not more than five per 
cent, of the horses were found bv Professor Varnell to be 
practically unsound, whereas in times of yore twenty-five to’ 
thirty per cent, were not unfrequently met with. 
Por the present we are content to let this fact stand as a 
reply to the arguments which have been brought against the 
system, and especially as we shall be prepared, at a more 
fitting time, with an equally good answer to every objection 
adduced by its opponents. 
Of the freedoni from hereditary diseases of the cattle, sheep, 
and pigs, we have never had more satisfactory evidence at any 
former meeting of the society. A few years since scrofula 
was making sad inroads among some of our choicest herds; 
but a rejection of all such animals from competition soon 
gave a check to its progress, b}^ causing the owners to look 
carefully to the state of those they were rearing for exhibi¬ 
tion and stock-producing purposes. In one thing alone are 
Ave prevented from speaking in laudatory terms of the meet¬ 
ing, viz., in the attempts which are still made by some of the 
exhibitors of pigs to impose upon the public, through the in¬ 
fluence of the society—by shoAving animals Avhich exceed the 
proper age. We fear the continuance of this evil depends 
upon the too lenient vicAvs Avhich have been taken of the con¬ 
duct of former offenders; the exercise, in fact, of an overAveen- 
ing charity. We rejoice to see, therefore, that this matter 
is to come before the Council, and Ave doubt not that, either 
by expulsion of the offenders from the society, or by some 
other equally stringent but just measure—just, because the 
lionest exhibitor will be rightly done by—an eflectual check 
Avill be given to all such practices, Our space requires that no 
