21 JULY 1883, Page 3

The Irish medical men are greatly offended that a mere

knighthood has been offered to—and accepted by—Dr. Porter, of Merrion Square, one of their most distinguished physicia as. This is, they say, derogatory to Irish medicine, as Irish, no less than English, physicians of equal merit bare till now been offered a baronetcy, and not a mere knighthood. Moreover, the Irish surgeons and physicians say that offers of honours of this kind have for some time back been conspicuous chiefly "by their absence" in Ireland, and that after so long an interval to offer only a knighthood is rather an indication of an intention to put Ireland on a lower level, than of a repentant mind. Nevertheless, Dr. Porter has accepted the kuighthood. Would it not have been better for the profession to memorialise Dr. Porter to refuse it, than to go to the Lord-Lieutenant and complain that he did not honour them as they deserved? Dignity should, we think, under the oircumstance3, have silenced the voice of their injured sensibilities.