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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
ignorant, and how great the powers are which the Act confers 
upon the Society, was not great discretion in the exercise of 
those powers required, so as to direct them solely against 
those utterly incompetent persons, from whom danger to the 
public was to be apprehended? I do not mean to dispute 
what this gentleman has stated with regard to his education. 
But a man, no matter what his education may have been, for 
the sake of getting a livelihood will often descend to such 
base means, as to render him obnoxious to his professional 
brethren in the neighbourhood, and in that view men are very 
frequently pointed out to us. For example, in a recent in- 
stance, an individual takes a parish, for that is a great ground 
of competition; the parishes are put up to the lowest bidder; 
and I have been told, since I came into this room, that an in- 
dividual, so circumstanced, has taken a parish for six pounds 
a year, including all the operations of surgery and medical 
attendance that may be required, and it is wholly impossible 
that such attendance can be what it ought to be, at a price so 
absurdly low as that mentioned. By taking a parish, you 
mean giving medical attendance, advice and assistance and 
medicine to the poor of that parish? Yes, and performing all the 
surgical operations. A man who will degrade himself so far 
as to undertake duties of that kind, at so insignificant a price, 
and not being a qualified man, is surely a fair object for the 
companies' notice. The preamble to the statute does not ap- 
pear to consider the takers of low parish contracts, but the 
wholly ignorant, as the persons who ought to be guarded 
against. Do you not consider, therefore, that it is the latter 
rather than the first, who are the fit objects for prosecution? 
I do certainly, and I venture to say that every discretion has 
been exercised with regard to that. Do you mean to say, that 
in every case of information against an unqualified person for 
practising as an apothecary, before a prosecution is decided 
on, inquiry is made by your Society, what has been his medi- 
cal education; and that if he appears to be a man of respect- 
able medical attainments, your society in that case forbears to 
prosecute? That has been our rule to a certain extent. In- 
formations in the country, you say, are principally given by 
