fore I decided on using them,
and I daresay I may have done too much in this way in order to be able
to assure my patients that I had first taken a dose myself. I have read
all the books on the subject, in addition to my own practical
experience; and I will not yield the palm to anyone for having a
knowledge of herbs--I mean as to their medical properties. Well, I
continued in my first shop for about nine years, got married, and had a
comfortable home. About this time a clergyman of my acquaintance
happened to be removing to another county, a considerable distance from
the town where I lived, and as I had cured his wife after all the
regular doctors had given the case up as hopeless, he offered me
52_l._ per annum if I would go to the same place as he was removing to
and open a shop there, and I agreed. I was unfortunate the first year
in not getting many patients, and began to regret that I had left my
old abode. But by-and-bye the news of my cures spread abroad in the
neighbourhood, and I soon had as many patients as I could attend to. I
never advertised a line, and yet I had patients as far away as
Scotland. Ultimately my patients extended to the middle classes, and
that was what brought me here. So long as I confined my labours to the
poor, the regular doctors did not interfere with me, but when I began
to take away their paying patients by the half-dozen, they tried all
they could to damage my character, and get me out of the district."

"What is your sentence?"

"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 ta