The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-05 00:00:00

MEDICAL REFORM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING ADVERTISER.
Sir,—l hope you will be able to find room in an early
number of your valuable paper for a copy of the en-
closed statement. It will help to convince your readers
of the justice of your observations for some time past
on the present anomalous state of the medical profes-
sion. Ninety-nine medical men out of one hundred in
the North of Ireland have served two or three years
as apprentices to general practitioners, attended classes
and hospitals in Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Lon-
don, during three or four years, and passed their exami-
nations at the Universities and Colleges of Surgeons of
the above places. Is it, then, just or proper that they
should be liable to annoyance from a trading Company
who obtained a monopoly from Parliament for selling
drugs and making up prescriptions ?
I am, Sir, your's most obediently,
WM. SIMPSON.
No. 110, Guildford-street, May 30..

:Doctors Hurst and Marshall, being a deputation
from upwards of five hundred medical practitioners,
physicians, and surgeons, in the province of Ulster, in
Ireland, beg to lay before the public the following
statement
We, and our brethren, having served a short ap-
prenticeship to the compounding of medicines, after-
wards complied with the extensive requirements of the
Universities and Colleges of Surgeons, in London*,
Dublin, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, and received our
degrees in' medicine and diplomas in surgery therefrom.
Wish these qualifications we 'have been practising, in
every branch of the profession (many of us for twenty
years and upwards), undisturbed, and enjoying the-pub-
lic approbation, as the petitions to be shortly presented
to Parliament will show. In 1791 a Company of mere
Apothecaries, in Dublin, obtained an Act of Parlia-
ment to restrain and punish ignorant and.unskilful
persons, who might practise as apothecaries, without a
license from the said Company.' This Act was not
generally enforced until the year 1827 ; consequently,
we were either not aware of its existence or believed it
to be a dead letter, which, in any event, could never
apply to regularly educated physicians and surgeons,
such as we are. However, from 1827 till 1829,
the Apothecaries Hall, as appears by a Parlia-
mentary return, realized 5,000/. by fines exacted
from the physicians and surgeons, who practised as
general medical practitioners in Ireland, and even
gave their license to great numbers of notoriously
ignorant persons on their paying the penalties.
In this course they were arrested by a remon-
strance from Lord Stanley, when Chief Secretary for
Ireland. They have now taken legal proceedings against
us and our brethren, with the view of recovering from
each the sum of 401. as penalties ; and, if they succeed,
will realise a sum of 20,000/. As the Hall refuses
us any examination, to prove our competency in phar-
macy, there is no remedy, except by Government in-
terference, or a short Act of Parliament, to stay pro-
ceedings, and to be protective of what we consider our
legal rights and privileges. A precedent for such in-
terference may he found in an Act passed in the pre-
sent Session of Parliament, protective of, and to stay
legal proceedings against persons entering in their own
names more than one horse on a race course, contrary
to a former Act of the Legislature on this subject.
Surely, then, such interference and protection will not
be denied to us."

CHANCERY REFonmq--IVIr. Commissioner
Fane, with whose valuable suggestions for the further reform
of his own Court, the trading community are familiar, in a
letter on Chancery Reform, states " that the first great object
should 'be to get rid of writing, when writing could by pos-
sibility be dispensed with ; and with this view the Legislature
should provide that in all cases where an account was required
of a trust fund, not exceeding 1,0001., the business should
begin and end in the Master's office, subject of course to ap-
peal ; for this purpose the Master should be a Judge, and
should be armed with all necessary powers. To some this
will no doubt appear a startling proposal, yet in proposing it I
propose nothing which is not of every' day occurrence in bank-
ruptcy. There, if the trust fund, in other words, the bank-
rupt's estate, amount, not to 10,0001., but even to 1,0001.- or
100.0001., and even if it consists of the most complicated in
terests in real estate, the whole administration is entrusted—if
in London, to certain salaried officers called Commissioners, if
in the country, to three or four attorneys of some neighboUring
town ; and the whole business is conducted from beginning to
en,' without the interference of any other jurisdiction. Why
should not the same course be pursued in Chancery ?"
TENNENT AND THE DEAD VOTERS.—One of
the pretexts for the Disfranchisement fill of Lord Stanley is,
that a vast number of " dead men" have been polled at the elec-
tions in Ireland ! That there might have been isolated cases
of this description, just as there are occasional frauds in every
transaction of human society, we are not prepared to dispute;
but the allegation of the Stanleyites, as to the wholesale resur-
rection of voters, is as false as it is evidently absurd. As, boss--
ever, " dead mess tell no tales," Lord Stanley adopted this
system of accusation, as the safest mode of murdering the
franchise in Ireland. Emerson Tennent, the cad of Lord
Stanley, is said to have been the concoctor of his Bill, and
it does, certainly, appear that that political cameleon
has had some practical acquaintance with the polling
of dead men. The Northern Whig gives the following as the
result of its inquiries upon the subject :—We have been able
to hear of only one well authenticated case of the kind, in
Belfast ; and, in that single case, the truly-independent and
not-to-be-bribed visitant from the shades recorded his vote in
favour of Mr. Emerson Tennent. This sufficiently explains
the attacks upon the dead voters. Master Emerson, the ci-
decant Repealer and Revolutionist, has made war against his
old friends as well as his old principles.—Dublin Evening Post.
STEAM ENGINES V. HORSES.—It would re-
quire twelve stage coaches, carrying fifteen passengers each,
and one thousand two hundred horses, to take one hundred and
eighty passengers two hundred and forty miles in twenty-four
hours, at the rate of ten miles an hour ! One locomotive steam-
engine will take that number, and go two trips in the
,same
h time, consequently will do the work of two thousand four us
dred horses! Again, it would require thirty
mail coaches (six
take one hun-
dred
passengers each) and three thousand horses, tota
passengers and mail two hundred and forty milesin
our. One
number,
twenty-four hours, at the rate of ten anmilesand go two
h
locomotive steam-engine will take thato
the work of six
trips in the same time, consequently will do
thousand horses: