Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 1).djvu/71



NE hundred years ago! A century since the first two stones were joined together from which was to spring a veritable boon to the sick and suffering amongst all sorts and conditions of domesticated animals—an abiding-place where horse and dog, calf and sheep, even down to the maligned and sorely-tried drawer of the costermonger's cart might receive assistance and advice to meet the thousand and one ills to which their flesh and bones are heir. The Royal Veterinary College is within a month of claiming a hundred years' good labour to its credit.

Hence the reason of our mounting the "knife-board" of a yellow-bodied 'bus, conspicuously painted "Camden Town," with a view of obtaining a preliminary interview with the driver regarding the ills of most animals in general, and of horse-flesh in particular. He knew little, and kept that meagre knowledge to himself, regarding us with suspicion, probably as a spy in the employ of an opposition company, and screwed his mouth artfully when a question was volleyed, and met it with a knowing crack of the whip in irritating response.

"Orf side down, 'Arry. Just show the way where the donkeys is doctored, and the 'osses waccinated. Whoa! Whoa! 'Er', 'pon my word, 'Arry, if I didn't forget to give Betsy"—a frisky-looking mare on the near side—"her cough mixture. Wot time does the Wet'inary College shut?"

The way pointed out by the conductor was King-street, at the top of which runs Great College-street, where the great gates of the Hospital for Animals are facing you. Here, congregated together about the entrance, are a dozen or twenty students, the majority of them arrayed in garments of a decidedly "horsey" cut, their appearance suggesting that they are somewhere about one remove from the medical student proper, though in full possession of all their traditional love of fun and irrepressible spirits. For a charge of sixty guineas these young men may revel in the anatomy of a horse for a period of three years, walk the straw-carpeted floor of the sick stable, pay periodical visits, and learn how to prescribe the necessary remedies for the inmates of the dogs' ward. The secretary, Mr. R.