On settling in London as a physician, I resided for some time with my valued friend Barbara Leigh Smith, then Madame Bodichon, at whose house in Blandford Square I met her wide and varied circle of literary and artistic friends and many leaders of social reform. Herbert Spencer, Dante Rossetti, Mrs. Lewes, the Peter Taylors, Mrs. Crawshay, Miss Goldsmid, Miss Cobbe, and Keshub Chunder Sen represent a few of the persons I was privileged to meet. At this time I had engaged medical consultation-rooms in an apparently respectable house in York Place, on the front door of which the house agent allowed me to place my name. I soon found, however, that my doctor’s sign was intended to conceal the dubious character of the occupier of the house, and I had unconsciously walked into a trap! But friends came to the rescue and compelled the cancelling of the lease with which I was entangled. I then established myself at No. 6 Burwood Place, where the commencement of a promising medical practice was soon formed. I eagerly entered upon the varied and intensely interesting social life now opened to me. My long-cherished conviction of the supreme importance of the medical profession as the great conservator of health constantly deepened. In 1870, being invited to address the Working Women’s College, I took as the subject of my discourse ‘How to Keep a Household in Health.’ This lecture laid down rules of health for the guidance of poor women in the management of their households, and was welcomed by the audience. One person present, however, sent a slanderous account of this lecture to the ‘Pall Mall Gazette,’ and I was overwhelmed by the receipt of anonymous letters, and letters from persons in all classes of society, requesting medical advice on the most important and delicate subjects—subjects which are only suitable for the confidential counsel of the physician’s consulting-room, where alone advice adapted to each individual case can be judiciously given. I mentioned this experience of the newspaper attack and the subsequent correspondence to my friend Mr. Kingsley. He exclaimed: ‘Oh, you did not answer those letters, I trust?’ I assured him that I had always refused to give the advice asked for by letter, and had invariably returned fees when enclosed. ‘Thank God for that!’ he exclaimed with an energy that amazed me; and he then related to me a very painful experience of his own, saying: ‘Let me warn you, never answer a newspaper attack. There are some newspapers that delight in getting hold of a scandal or whatever may make their paper sell, and are utterly unscrupulous as to the means by which such a purpose is accomplished. You have no chance against such corrupt speculation; your only weapon is silence and your own established character.’