The Corporation was to have perpetual succession, and a Common seal, to hold lands of a certain value, to be able to plead and to be impleaded, to make by-laws, to have the scrutiny and correction of (apparently _all_) Surgeons in the City and suburbs, as also the oversight of all their instruments and medicines, etc., and to have the power of inflicting punishment, by fine or imprisonment, on offenders. None were to practise Surgery until examined and approved by the Masters and presented to the Mayor, and authority was given for the freemen of the Company to be admitted into the freedom of the City. Another clause in the Charter was one which, whilst it conferred a valuable privilege upon the Company, was a source of continual strife and conflict with the Civic authorities, for by it _all_ our freemen claimed to be exempted from serving on Juries and inquisitions, and this immunity, though constantly disputed, was as often asserted and maintained, with various qualifications. In _The Times_, November 26, 1839, is an account of the exemption of certain freemen of the Company from serving on Juries at the Central Criminal Court. In this instance neither the claimants nor the Recorder knew much about the matter--for one of the applicants said, in reply to the Recorder, “I rest my claim on the Charter of _Henry VIII_”_!!_ And, further on in the discussion, the same bold Barber had the effrontery to declare that “the privilege was confirmed by an Act passed in the reign of George II.” This was the Act which separated the Surgeons from the Barbers, and which did _not_ confirm to the latter the exemption claimed, but our freeman gained his point, and the Recorder only grumbled. As recently as 1868, a case was submitted to Sir J. D. Coleridge (now Lord Chief Justice) as to the legality of the exemption, and he gave his opinion in favour of it. However, since then the Jury Act has, alas! swept away this cherished immunity, and thus let the Barbers down to the level of their fellow citizens. With the possession of their Charter the Company were now in an unassailable position, and we hear no more of their molestation by the Guild of Surgeons.