The Ashburton Guardian. Manga et Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1889. CROWDING THE PROFESSIONS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2311, 21 December 1889, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Manga et Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1889. CROWDING THE PROFESSIONS

The other day it was cabled out that an English journal had lamented the falling off m the incomes of professional men, stating that it was now hard for them to make £500 where their fathers had easily made £1000 a year. That state of things, no doabt, does exist at Home, and there is every probability that it will continue to exist there— nay, more, the same declension of professional emolument is also plainly noticeable m the colonies, for the simple reason that the same cause is at work at both ends of the world. That cause is the overcrowding of the professions, the rapidly increasing supply of sucking lawyers and embryo Galena being altogether m excess of the increase m the demand either for law or physic. Writing on this subject our Christchurcb evening contemporary has the following remarks : — " Medical < advice is likely to become a cheap commodity before long, This will be owing to the existence of the Medical School m i Dunedin. We have previously referred to the number of students working up for M.B.s m that institution. How many there are now . we cannot say. The number, however, must be legion if an advertisement which appears m a Dnneiin paper is to be taken as a guideIt emanates from the Secretary of the Dunedin Hospital Board. That body have £200 to spend annually on medical and surgical advice for the patients under their control. It is too large a sum to give to one practitioner, so they have decided to divide their patronage. They want two graduates m medicine, one at £125 ft year and the other at £75. What a rush of medical gentlemen there should be m order to gain such well paid positions. Schoolmasters think themselves poorly paid, but still m their profession things are hardly as the *\Dunedin Hospital Board suppose them to be m the medical profession. Fancy £75 a year for a doctor ! If the Board succeed m obtaining one at that figure, we have little doubt that the money will be worth his 1 services. The next thing this economical Board will do will be to call for tenders for setting broken bones, performing specified operations, and so on. But m the meantime what have the poor patients done that they should be used this way ? Why should they be experimented upon m order that some fledgling of the Dunedin medical school may learn the elements of his profession? We know not. Medicine should, however, at this rate speedily lose its attractions for our young men, Those who have strong phsique3 would do better to graduate as bushfallers m the North Bland than as M.B.s of the New Zealand University." It may be added to the foregoing that parents will do well to take the signs of the times into account m deciding the old problem " What shall we do with our boys ?" and to remember that handicrafts though less genteel than professions a« likely to prove a much more certain means of earning a comfortable livelihood.