Unlicensed persons cannot conduct as partners, a business that must be conducted by licensed persons. But if a qualified person carries on the business, his associates in the profits or his principals in the business need not be licensed. Thus, an unlicensed plumber could not recover for work done; but a firm, no member of which was licensed, could recover for work done by a licensed plumber working as an employe of the firm.13 Yet, on the other hand, it is not permissible to arrive at an end forbidden by public policy by creating a partnership to do for the benefit of a member what the member ought not to receive any benefit from, as where a sheriff being disqualified to buy county script forms a partnership for that purpose.14 But in a firm formed to conduct the druggist business, though every prescription must be put up by a licensed pharmacist, it is not necessary that every member of the firm should be a pharmacist, or even that any member should be. The law is satisfied if those who do the work are legally certified to be competent; for the purpose of the law requiring a license is to safeguard the public in trades of a peculiar character. Where the license is a mere means of raising revenue, a sale of goods after the license had expired would not open this defense; there must be some element of protection to the public in the license, or the question of license paid or not is immaterial.

12 Hetterman Bros. Co. vs. Young, 52 S.W. Rep.,532; Rumsey vs. Briggs,63Hun.(N.Y.), ll.Heff-ron vs. Hanaford, 40 Mich., 305.

13 Harland vs. Lelienthal, 53 N. Y. 438.

14 Read vs. Smith, 60 Tex. 379.