"Seven years, and I'll tell you how I got it. I sold a mixture composed of four different herbs, which is the most effectual medicine for certain diseases peculiar to females; in fact, it is invaluable to young unmarried women subject to the complaint I refer to, but, unfortunately for me, it has also the effect of procuring abortion. Well, one day a young woman came to me and wished to purchase some of this medicine. I had cured an unmarried female of her acquaintance, but before giving her the medicine I cautioned her not to take it if she was _enciente_, as it would procure abortion. The female who now applied to me wished it for that very purpose; her husband was a sailor, she had been faithless in his absence, and she now wished to keep him in ignorance of her sin. All this, however, I learned only when too late. I refused to sell the woman the medicine, as I could see she was married. On being refused, she went to an old woman whose daughter had taken the medicine, and offered her 3_l._ if she would get her some of it. Of course, I was not aware of this when the old woman came to me and asked me for some more of the medicine for her daughter, as she said. I sold her the medicine, which she gave to the sailor's wife. It had the desired effect, and she was well and going about in a couple of days. Her husband now returned, and the old woman demanded the 3_l._, which the sailor's wife refused to pay. Determined not to be beaten, she went to the husband and told him all about it. He called in doctors to report on the case, which they did, adding that instruments had been used, which was altogether false. The medicine was easily traced to me. Where I was wrong was, in not having a written statement from everyone to whom I sold the herbs, in order to have protected myself against any such charge as was now brought against me. The doctors, no doubt, believed that instruments had been used, because they do not know the particular herbs at all, and no one in England knows them but myself and I do not intend to let many know either--it's dangerous knowledge; but, as God is my judge, I never used it wilfully except for the relief of a disease that carries thousands of our countrywomen to the grave in the very prime of youth. I have been called to cases over and over again, after all the doctors had given them up, and I have often restored the pale hectic young woman, in an advanced stage of consumption, to health and vigour, by the simple use of herbs--the best of God's gifts to man!" "What diseases were you most successful with?" "There is one disease I could never cure, and that's ossification of the heart, but in the great majority of other diseases I succeeded wonderfully. Sometimes, of course, I would be called to a consumptive patient within a few days or hours of his death, when life was so low as to render it impossible for the medicine to be taken." "What do you think of the cold-water system and homoeopathy?"