EDITORIAL. 
18T 
pills, powders, mixtures, or in any form whatsoever, shall also take out 
from the proper city or county treasurer a license for manufacturing, vend- 
ing, hawking, peddling, or in any way selling such nostrums, medical com- 
pounds, or patent medicines. 
Sec. xxvi. — All such venders or sellers shall be classed and required to 
pay annually to the use of the commonwealth for their respective licenses, 
as follows : 
Those who are esteemed and taken to make and affect annual sales to the 
amount of one hundred dollars, and not exceeding two hundred dollars, 
shall constitute the fourth class, and pay five dollars. 
Those to the amount of two hundred dollars, and not exceeding five hun- 
dred dollars, the third class, and pay ten dollars. 
Those to the amount of five hundred dollars, and not exceeding one thou- 
sand dollars, the second class, and pay thirty dollars. 
Those to an amount exceeding a thousand dollars and not exceeding two 
thousand dollars, shall form the first class and pay fifty dollars : Provided, 
That those who are esteemed to sell an amount exceeding two thousand dol- 
lars, shall pay a tax of fifty dollars and three per cent, upon all sales above 
two thousand dollars. 
Sec. xxvii. — " Any person convicted of violating the provisions of the pre- 
ceding sections, shall oe fined in a sum not less than fifty, nor more than 
five hundred dollars, for each offence ; one half to he paid to the county 
treasurer for the use of the commonwealth, and the other half to the person 
or persons who shall prosecute such offender." 
This law was framed by a committee of physicians with the avowed ob- 
ject of imposing a restraint on empiricism: it is therefore obvious to the 
commonest apprehension, that that construction cannot be a legitimate one, 
which tends directly to thwart this primary interest of the law. Our saga- 
cious and disinterested tax-gatherers, have insisted that all articles prepared 
by a secret process, are liable to taxation. And as a variety of such articles 
are necessary to the stock of every respectable druggist, the most determin- 
ed opponent of quack mixtures, is required to pay the same tax, as he whose 
sole business is the vending of patent medicines, — unless, indeed, the latter 
is unfortunate enough to fall within a higher class than himself ! The ten- 
dency of all this, it is needless to add, is to make those who are taxed for 
what they do not keep, seek indemnification for their loss, by the profits 
from nostrums heretofore so sedulously avoided ; in other words the law is 
made to encourage the sale of quack medicines ! 
Nothing can be clearer, on a careful examination of the language of the 
law, than that only those engaged in the sale of " nostrums, medical com- 
pounds, or patent medicines" are subject to this license tax. An article 
like "Henry's Magnesia" is certainly not a "medical compound/ 7 or a 
"patent medicine;" and is not a "nostrum." A "nostrum" is defined by 
"Webster, to be " A medicine the ingredients of which are kept secret, for 
the purpose of restricting the profits of sale to the inventor or proprietor." 
