Now, however, came the question: How are we to live! for my husband had no settled profession, and his parents, though wealthy, could not deprive their more obedient children of their rights to benefit the perverse Gustav. They gave him sufficient to start him in business, with the understanding that he would emigrate to America, their idea being that a German gentleman with a little capital could not fail to make a fortune among the comparatively illiterate Columbians. To New York accordingly we came, and Gustav labored assiduously to establish a business as importer of German manufactures; he soon found, however, that men who did not know Horace from Euripides could drive closer bargains, and make quicker sales than he could, and, as he was too proud to compound with his correspondents in the old country, and insisted on conscientiously paying a hundred cents for a dollar, we found ourselves in less than three years, with diminished capital in specie, and an increased one as regards future candidates for the Presidency, on our way back to our common Fatherland. Through the influence of his friends, Gustav procured a good situation in a merchant’s office, but he was altogether unsuited both by temperament and education for such a position, and I soon made up my mind that I must either prepare to enter the world’s great battlefield in person, or live in helpless dependence on my husband’s relations. I had often while in America wondered why the ladies of that Republic (so advanced and enlightened in everything else) should submit to a practice so revolting, so contrary to all ideas of morality and refinement as is the system of man-midwifery so widely practiced in the United States. No German lady would think of permitting the attendance of a man at her bedside on such an occasion, and though custom in England seems generally to sanction the absurd practice, yet Her Majesty Queen Victoria never allows her medical advisers to be in attendance in any other capacity than that of _consulting_ physicians. I had discussed the matter frequently with married ladies in New York, and they were generally agreed, that, could only competent ladies be found in the United States, man-midwifery would soon cease to be practiced in that Republic. I accordingly resolved to devote all my energies to the study of that particular branch of the medical profession, and my efforts were crowned with success. In two years I obtained a diploma from the Hamburg University, and soon after prepared to return to America.