compiled in an ostentatious, cumbrous way
by the official medical council, and one of her
Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. The
register, we may be sure, will not be the
more popular for being a blue book instead
of a red book. But, we do not dwell upon
that point. A trustworthy medical directory
is a good thing, and such a work may need an
Act of Parliament for its production—or it
may not.

The next is the troublesome point—
uniformity of test. That notion is, we are
convinced, moonshine. To have uniformity
of test in examinations, one must have
uniformity of brains in all examiners, and
uniformity of ready wit in all the candidates.
On the whole, up to a certain point, the tougher
the examination has been the more it is
worth; but the best parts of a man's skill are
those that cannot be brought out—except by
one examiner out of a thousand—in the way of
catechism. Comparative ignorance with tact,
may find its use among the sick more surely
than dull knowledge that does not give heed
to the mere instincts of quick wit. There
are not two practitioners in Britain uniformly
qualified; and we believe that the differences
between mind and mind, after examination has
been passed, are so great, as to reduce to
insignificance the value of a few questions, more or
less, in the preliminary test. A physician
who has obtained his degrees with honours
recognised as honours by his own fraternity,
may be content with the seal thus set on his
preliminary studies, and thenceforward practise
as if all the ends of study were achieved.
His friend, who narrowly escaped rejection at
the easiest examining board to which he could
apply for a diploma, may have been
admonished of his slender competence in
knowledge, and impelled to study as he works on
in the world. In five years the position of
the two men is reversed. By the preliminary
test in medicine, as in all other walks of life,
the subsequent career can seldom be determined.

We do not believe, then, that it matters
a jot to the profession or the public whether
there be ten or a hundred licensing bodies
in Great Britain to whom students may
apply for leave to practise medicine, so
long as it is made certain by the course
of past experience, and by the increasing
height of the ground taken by its
practitioners on behalf of physic and surgery, that
nobody will get a legal qualification who
has not spent several years in a fixed course
of training for his work, and who has not satisfied
certain examiners. Of these examiners,
the easiest we know, measure their candidates
by as high a standard as a Secretary of State
would find it prudent or just to assign as a
minimum.

Thus far we have expressed our opinion of
the bills usually framed relative to doctors.
Of the two doctors' bills introduced during
the present session we have sundry things to
say, and if they, or either of them, be
proceeded with in Parliament, we shall proceed
to the discussion of them in this journal also.
But if they be dropped, we shall save our ink
and paper.

GASTON, THE LITTLE WOLF.

IN eighteen hundred and twenty-four an
old lady named Madame de Sariac, living in
Gascony, had one of those nursery fights
with her grandson aged seven, which at the
time are treated as eternal sins, and afterwards
regarded as prospective virtues. Young
master had been required to kneel and
demand pardon for some misdeed: young
master refused. Backing into a corner, he
doubled his little fists, and in a voice of
infantine thunder exclaimed, "Touch me if
you dare!" Old grandmamma Sariac was
fain to leave her rebellious descendant to his
own devices: which rebellious descendant
was Gaston de Raousset-Boulbon, the Little
Wolf of that Gascon household. On another
occasion the Little Wolf, offended by Baptiste,
ordered Baptiste out of the house. The old
servant, not taking the dismissal of a baby
much to heart, remained; and the next
morning performs his services as usual.
Little Wolf, furious, appeals to grandmamma.
Grandmamma, indignant at this baby invasion
of her authority, upholds Baptiste.

"Very well!" lisps Little Wolf in an
agony of passion, "then you must choose
between him and me! If he stays I go."

True to his word the young autocrat
disappeared that very night, and was only
recovered when he had wandered three good
leagues away on the Toulouse road. Another
time also he started off. This was when M. le
Comte de Raousset-Boulbon, senior, came to
take him to the Jesuits' College at Fribourg;
and papa Boulbon was a man so cold, so
stern, so severe, that even the Little Wolf
was daunted, and preferred the woods and
hunger to that iron face and icy heart.
This time he was two nights in the forest;
but the old count caught him at last, and
hauled him off to Fribourg.

The Jesuits received him kindly, and
educated him judiciously. He had been
eight years at the college, and had never
received a punishment in any shape, when, one
day—he was seventeen now— the reverend
father ordered him to kneel during the evening
lesson, as expiation of some collegiate
offence of which he had been guilty.

"I will only kneel before GOD," be said to
the father Gralicé.

"You must obey, or leave the college."
answered the father.

"My choice is made;" replied Gaston, and
he left the college that very evening.

A short time after this he came of age.
His father called him into his study, and
in the presence of a notary, gave him up
all the accounts of his minority, putting