CORRESPONDENCE. 
515 
There are three (3) bills at present before the profession, 
viz., The New Jersey Veterinary Medical Association’s, Dr. 
Lemay’s (Seventh Cavalry,) and Prof. Huidokoper’s. The 
two former secure the present incumbents, the lowest pro¬ 
posed grade without examination, and higher grades by ex¬ 
amination, but Dr. Huidokoper’s (if I am correctly informed), 
completely ignores them. 
Now there are veterinarians in the army of long service 
so long in some cases, that were they combatants, they would 
be entitled to retire, with three-fourths their pay an.d allow¬ 
ances, and in fact some of them would be retired at once, 
under those conditions, by reason of ill-health, the results of 
hardships incidental to frontier service. These men have 
from five to twenty-five years faithful service, performing 
their duty to the Government to the best of their ability ; 
one of them to my personal knowledge, by his writings on 
army veterinary subjects in various military journals, for the 
past six years has done incalculable service for the profes¬ 
sion, has raised it, bad as it is, more or less from the deep 
slough it was in for years. These writings have caused 
many useful modifications to have been made in the feeding, 
shoeing and purchasing of public animals. He was the first 
army veterinarian recognized as a professional expert before 
a board of officers, and the introducer of the first veterinary 
bill, from which all the present ones have been copied , with some 
slight modifications , and he is at this moment a pecuniary 
loser to the extent of nearly five hundred dollars, by his per¬ 
sonal efforts for its introduction into Congress. It certainly 
seems a hard and cruel case to kick those men into the 
world to starve or die, after their faithful and long services, 
several of them suffering from debility, and always the re¬ 
sults of accidents and hardships incidental to the service on 
the frontier. Now, I think it will be very difficult to find a 
precedent for this proposed selfish action, in all the recent 
efforts at army reforms (and they are many). 
When the new Hospital Corps was established last year, 
there were a great many old and useless stewards in the 
service. Were these men kicked out to starve? No; they 
