•570 
Editorial. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Peakim. 
t    Dec.  1, 1873. 
Treasury  Department,  1 
Office  of  Commissioner  of  Int.  Revenue,  > 
Washington,  Nov.  10,  1873.  ) 
Sir. — I  have  received  your  note  of  the  6th  inst.,  calling  my  attention  to  the 
fact  that  no  reply  has  been  received  to  your  letter  of  the  27th  ult.,  and  stating 
further  that  since  you  wrote  to  me  on  the  subject  of  stamping  medicines,  the 
papers  speak  of  a  modification  of  your  (my)  order,  so  far  as  relates  to  medi- 
cines sold  in  quantities  called  for  by  consumers,  and  asking  for  a  reply  to  your 
letter  as  above,  and  also  asking  me  to  state  the  substance  of  this  decision, 
meaning,  I  suppose,  the  alleged  modification  of  my  order. 
In  reply,  I  have  to  state  that,  as  you  made  no  specific  inquiry  or  asked  for 
any  further  information  relative  to  the  views  of  this  office  on  the  subject  in 
addition  to  those  communicated  to  yoji  in  my  letter  to  you  of  the  15th  ult., 
and  in  the  published  circular  issued  from  this  office — copy  of  which  was  sent 
you — I  saw  nothing  in  your  letter  calling  for  a  reply,  unless  it  might  be  the 
declaration  contained  therein  in  the  following  words  :  "  You  say  your  duty  is 
to  execute  the  law  according  to  its  clear  intent,  and  I  suppose  no  cne  will 
controvert  that  proposition  ;  but  when  the  preparations  you  now  think  liable 
have  been  publicly  sold  for  seven  years  since  the  passage  of  the  law,  without 
the  slightest  attempt  by  your  Department  to  tax  them,  it  is,  to  say  the  least, 
very  natural  that  the  correctness  of  your  present  decision  should  be  ques- 
tioned.'' It  is  to  the  last  part  of  this  declaration  made  by  you,  which  applies 
no  less  to  my  predecessors  in  office  as  Commissioner,  from  and  including  Mr. 
Rollins  to  the  present  time,  than  to  myself,  to  which  I,  for  myself  and  on  be- 
half of  them,  would  reply;  and  I  now  assert,  in  the  most  positive  terms,  and 
with  the  amplest  evidence  before  me  of  the  correctness  o*f  what  I  say,  that 
from  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  Act  of  July  13th,  1866,  to  the  present  time, 
this  office  has  held  the  same  views  regarding  the  liabilities  of  medicines  and 
medicinal  articles,  not  known  or  claimed  to  be  patent,  proprietary,  or  made  by 
any  secret  or  unpublished  formulas,  when  such  medicines  weie  put  up  in  style 
similar  to  that  of  patent  or  proprietary  medicines  in  general,  etc.  This  doc- 
trine, decision,  ruling  or  requirement  of  law,  however  one  may  please  to  term 
it,  was  published  May  10  1867,  in  instructions  to  revenue  officers,  Series  3,  No. 
10,  repeated  May  1,  1869,  in  Series  5,  No.  10,  reiterated  again  July  31,  1871, 
and  given  forth  in  letter*  without  number  sent  from  this  office  north,  south, 
east  and  west,  in  answer  to  letters  of  correspondents,  either  officers  of  the 
revenue,  manufacturers,  compounders  or  venders  of  medicinal  articles. 
My  letter  to  Supervisor  Tutton,  of  September  9th,  and  the  printed  circular 
latterly  issued  from  this  office,  communicate  no  new  doctrine,  ruling  or  deci- 
sion of  this  office  on  the  subject  of  stamp  tax  under  Schedule  C.  They  do 
define,  as  we  understand  it,  the  style  or  manner  in  which  patent  or  proprietary 
medicines  in  general  are  put  up,  and  they  do  declare  that  any  and  all  medi- 
cines, no  matter  how  simple  or  how  compounded,  whether  the  rich  man's  medi- 
cine or  the  •'  poor  man's,"  which  are  put  up  in  such  style  as  there  defined,  are 
not  within  the  provisions  of  exemption  from  stamp  tax. 
Whether  the  views  and  instructions  of  the  circular  on  this  point  of  "  style  " 
are  correct  or  not,  will  be  a  matter  for  the  Courts  to  decide.  I  believe  they 
are,  and  I  have  neither  seen  nor  heard,  thus  far,  since  their  publication,  any 
reasons  which  lead  me  to  doubt  their  correctness.  I  am  aware  that  persons 
have  misrepresented,  perhaps  misapprehended  the  views  of  this  office,  and  the 
statements  made,  or  alleged  to  have  been  made  by  me  in  a  familiar  conversa- 
tion with  gentlemen  claiming  to  represent  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Phar- 
macy and  the  Drug  Exchange  of  that  city,  are  written  out  from  memory  and 
published  in  pamphlet  form,  with  other  matter,  for  distribution  to  the  trade, 
as  my  views  or  the  views  of  the  office  upon  matters  thus  set  forth;  but  upon 
this  matter  I  have  only  to  say  that  I  hold  myself  and  the  Office  of  Internal 
Revenue  responsible,  only  for  its  own  authoritatively  published  rulings  and 
■decisions. 
I  return  to  you  the  labels  of  James  Kenworthy,  enclosed  in  your  previous 
