PROVINCIAL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATIONS. 695 
agree to constitute, and the legislature to accept the two 
modes of examination referred to in some of these papers, 
which, if adopted, would be the means of preventing much of 
the unpleasantness to which many persons are now liable. 
One veterinary surgeon will pass a horse as a sound one with 
frushes in all his four feet, a second declares the horse un¬ 
sound. Again, a man exercising his calling as a member of 
the profession will state a horse to be sound with ossified 
lateral cartilages, and so on. These things should not be, it 
is high time a change was effected in some way; and, until 
some decided step is taken, we shall not—as a profession— 
be found to keep pace with the times. 
[To he continued .) 
PROVINCIAL VETERINARY MEDICAL 
ASSOCIATIONS. 
Letter from J. Mitchell, M.R.C.V.S., Leeds. 
Gentlemen, —I observe in your number for the present 
month (September) that Mr. Dray, in a post-prandial speech 
at Newcastle, made use of words to the following effect:— 
“ He knew a veterinary surgeon at the present time, in one 
of the largest towns in Yorkshire, who is not a member of a 
veterinary medical association.” As I do not belong to 
any existing veterinary medical association, a d as probably 
the remarks were intended to apply to me, may I beg of you 
space in your forthcoming number to explain how it is that 
I am in such a position. It is well known to the members 
of the Yorkshire Veterinary Medical Society, and to none 
better than to its president, that I objected ah initio , and do 
still object, to its being constituted as it is. I contended that 
gentlemen who had not conformed to the requirements of 
the Charter of Incorporation—which was obtained at con¬ 
siderable expenditure of time and money, and was looked 
upon as the first step towards obtaining for the qualified 
veterinary surgeon his proper status in society, but which I 
fear is not appreciated as it should be—were not, and ought 
not to be admitted into any veterinary medical society upon 
an equality with those who had so conformed. Therefore I 
ceased to take any part in the so-called preliminary meeting 
the moment the proposition t( admitting as members veteri¬ 
nary surgeons holding the diploma of any recognised 
