president’s BANQUET IN BIRMINGHAM. 
801 
authorise in that behalf, and shall pass such examination as may be 
required by the orders, rules, and bye-laws, which shall be framed 
and confirmed pursuant to these presents, shall, by virtue of these 
presents, be ‘ members of, and form one body politic and corporate , 
by the name of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons' ” After 
granting privileges relating to succession, the common seal, the 
power of legal representation and purchase and sale of property, 
the charter proceeds to enact, that the veterinary art, as practised 
by the members of the said body politic and corporate, shall hence¬ 
forward be recognised as a profession ; and further, that the Uoyal 
College of Veterinary surgeons shall “ act and do in all things 
relating to the said body politic and corporate, as fully and effectually 
to all intents, effects, construction, and purposes whatsoever, as any 
other of our liege subjects, or any other body politic and corporate 
in our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” The Pre¬ 
sident contended, that by these and the other very wise and liberal 
stipulations of the lloyal Charter, the veterinary profession was 
put in possession of that which for many years had been, and still 
was, the undisguised want of the medical profession—a deed of 
incorporation with equal constitutional power and representative 
faculty to members. He trusted that he might be excused sug¬ 
gesting, that if every legally qualified veterinary surgeon would 
study the charter, and form an independent and sound opinion of 
the advantages it conferred upon him, their annual meeting in May 
would be more numerously attended than was generally the case, 
and that they would be strengthened whenever they had to seek 
extended privileges from the State, by the conviction that they had 
duly valued, and put to use, those they now enjoyed. It was per¬ 
fectly true, that the first thought of every member of a society 
should be the discharge of duty in the particular sphere in which 
he is placed ; but it is equally true, that no amount of industry and 
ability displayed by individual labourers in their own interest, 
exempted them from the obligation of doing something in their 
corporate capacity, for the general benefit of their brethren. In 
the position in which the members of their Council were pleased to 
place him, he felt very weightily the responsibilities attaching to 
the honorable office of President, which, he never for a moment 
forgot, was the highest open to any member of their body; in fact, it 
was the highest dignity to which any of them could aspire; for 
what honour could equal that conferred on a man by his most com¬ 
petent judges—his fellow-labourers in the same calling? At the 
same time he admitted, and he desired to do so most cordially 
and gratefully, that his task had been greatly facilitated by the 
example of preceding Presidents; one of the most distinguished 
of whom had been good enough to favour the meeting with his 
company that evening. Mr. Field’s family had been first in 
their ranks from the earliest days of the London Veterinary 
College ; and they all remembered how, in the many corporate 
offices he had filled—as member of Council and of the Board of 
Examiners, as Vice-President and President—Mr. William Field 
