about the size of an ordinary candle-box, though shallower; it
was unpainted, and decidedly unornamental as an article of
furniture. In one end of it was an aperture about the size of the
eye-hole of a telescope; this was carefully covered with a small
black curtain. This mystic contrivance was placed upon a table so
low that the husband-seeker was compelled to go on his knees to
get his eye down low enough to see through. He accomplished this
feat without grumbling, although his knees were scarified by the
whalebones which surrounded him. The Astonisher then drew aside
the little curtain with a grand flourish, and her customer beheld
an indistinct figure of a bloated face with a mustache, with
black eyes and black hair; it was a hang-dog, thief-like face,
and one that he would not have passed in the street without
involuntarily putting his hands on his pockets to assure himself
that all was right. But he felt that he had no hope of a future
husband if he did not accept this one, and he made up his mind to
be reconciled to the match.
This contrivance for showing the "future husband" is sometimes
called the Magic Mirror, and may be procured at any optician's
for a dollar and a quarter. The "future husband" may of course be
varied to suit circumstances, by merely shifting the pictures at
one end of the instrument; or a horse or a dog might be
substituted with equal propriety and probability.
Disappointed, and sick at heart and stomach, the Cash Customer
bore away for home, and accomplished the return voyage without
disaster. He didn't so much mind the unexpected difference in the
personal attractions of Madame Morrow from what he had hoped, for
he had been rather accustomed to disappointments of that sort of
late, but he couldn't see that his admission to the camp of the
enemy had enabled him to spy out anything of particular
advantage to him in future operations. So he cogitated and
mournfully whistled slow tunes, as he cut himself out of his
unaccustomed harness by the help of a pen-knife with a file-blade.
CHAPTER VII.
Contains a full account of the interview of the Cash Customer
with Doctor Wilson, the Astrologer, of No. 172 Delancey Street.
The Fates decree that he shall "pizon his first Wife." HOORAY!!
CHAPTER VII.
DR. WILSON, No. 172 DELANCEY STREET.
This ignorant, half-imbecile old man is the only _wizard_ in New
York whose fame has become public. There are several other men
who sometimes, as a matter of favor to a curious friend, exercise
their astrological skill, but they do not profess witchcraft as a
means of living; they do not advertise their gifts, but only
dabble in necromancy in an amateur way, more as a means of
amusement than for any other purpose. On the other hand Dr.
Wilson freely uses the newspapers to announce to the public his
star-reading ability, and his willingness, for a consideration,
to tell all events, past and future, of a paying customer's life.
He professes to do all his fortune-telling in a "strictly
scientific" manner, and it is but justice to him to say, that he
alone, of all the witches of New York, drew a horoscope,
consulted books of magic, made intricate mathematical calculations,
and made a show of being scientific. In his case only was any
attempt made to convince the seeker after hidden wisdom, that
modern fortune-telling is aught else than very lame and shabby
guesswork. The old Doctor has by no means so many customers as
many of his female rivals; he is old and unprepossessing--were he
young and handsome the case might be otherwise.
He has been a pretended "botanic physician," or what country
people term a "root doctor;" but failing to earn a living by the
practice of medicine, he took up "Demonology and Witchcraft" to
aid him to eke out a scanty subsistence. He does but little in
either branch of his business, the public appearing to have
slight faith in his ability either to cure their maladies or
foretell their future.
The character of his surroundings is noted in the following
description, and his oracular communication is given, word for
word.
An Hour with a Wizard.--The Cash Customer is to "Pizon"
his First Wife, and then get Another. Hooray!
"I am like a vagabond pig with no family ties, who has no lady
pig to welcome him home o'nights, and with no tender sucklings to
call him 'papa,' in that prattling porcine language that must
fall so sweetly on the ears of all parents of innocent porklings.
Like Othello, I have no wife, and really I can see little hope in
the future."
Thus moralized the "Individual," the morning after his experiment
with the women's gear, and his failure to learn, at a single
lesson, the whole art of catching a wife. Then he bethought him
that perhaps the art could not be learned without a master; and
then came the other thought that no one could tell so well how to
win a witch-wife as one who had himself been successful in that
risky experiment.
To find a man with a fortune-telling wife is no easy matter, for
most of the marriages contracted by these ladies are by no means
of a permanent character, and the male parties to the temporary
partnerships are always kept in the background. But if he could
discover up a wizard, a masculine master of the Black Art, there
were strong probabilities that such an individual could put him
in the way of winning a miracle-working spouse, at the very least
possible trouble and expense. He would seek that man as a
preliminary to winning that woman. The daily newspapers showed
him that in the person of a learned doctor, surnamed Wilson, he
would probably find the man he wanted. He searched out that
wonderful man, and the results of his visit are given in this
identical chapter.
Old dreamy Sol Gills, of coffee-colored memory, has been
admiringly recommended to the good opinion of the world by his
friend, Capt. Ed'ard Cuttle, mariner of England, as a man "chock
full of science." From the same eminent authority we also learn
that Jack Bunsby was an individual of learning so vast, and
experience so varied and comprehensive, that he never opened his
oracular mouth but out fell "solid chunks of wisdom." That the
person now dwells in our city who combines the scientific
attainments of Gills with the intuitive wisdom of Bunsby, we have
the solemn word of Johannes. The science is a trifle more dreamy
and misty even than of old, and the wisdom is solider and
chunkier, but both are as undeniable, as convincing, as
"stunning," as in the best days of the Little Wooden Midshipman.
The fortunate possessor of this inestimable wealth of knowledge
secludes himself from the curious public in the basement of the
house No. 172 Delancey street, like an underground hermit.
However, this unselfish and generous sage, not wishing to hide
entirely the light of his great learning from a benighted world,
kindly condescends, in the advertisement herewith given, to
retail his wisdom to anxious inquirers at a dollar a chunk:
"ASTROLOGY.--Dr. Wilson, 172 Delancey street, gives the
most scientific and reliable information to be found on
all concerns of life, past, present, and future.
Terms--ladies, 50 cents; gentlemen, $1. Birth required."
The last sentence is slightly obscure, and it was not quite clear
to Johannes that he would not have to be "born again" on the
premises. But at all events there was something refreshing in the
novelty of consulting a "learned pundit" in pantaloons, after all
the tough conjurers of the other sex that he had undergone of
late.
So he repaired to Delancey street in a joyous mood, nothing
daunted by the requirements of the advertisement.
Delancey street is not Paradise, quite the contrary. In fact it
may be set down as unsavory, not to say dirty in the extreme. The
man that can walk through the east end of this delicious
thoroughfare without a constant sensation of sea-sickness, has a
stomach that would be true to him in a dissecting-room. The
individual that can explore with his unwilling boots its slimy
depths without a feeling of the most intense disgust for
everything in the city and of the city, ought to live in Delancey
street and buy his provisions at the corner grocery. He never
ought to see the country, or even to smell the breath of a
country cow. He should be exiled to the city; be banished to
perpetual bricks and mortar; be condemned to a never-ending
series of omnibus rides, and to innumerable varieties of short
change.
The delegate picked his way gingerly enough, thinking all the
while that if Leander had been compelled to wade through Delancey
street, instead of taking a clean swim across the sea, Hero might
have died a respectable old maid for all Leander. And yet
Johannes says he doesn't believe that History will give _him_ any
credit for his valorous navigation of the said street.
He at last reached the designated spot, sound as to body, though
wofully soiled as to garments, and approached the semi-subterranean
abode of the great prophet, and immediately after his modest rap
at the basement door, was met by the venerable sage in person.
He walked in, and then proceeded to take an observation of the
cabalistic instruments and mysterious surroundings of the great
philosopher.
The room was a small, low apartment, about ten feet by twelve,
the floor uncarpeted and uneven; the walls were damp, and the
whole place was like a vault. The furniture was very scanty, and
all had an unwholesome moisture about it, and a curious odor, as
if it gathered unhealthy dews by being kept underground. Three
feeble chairs were all the seats, and a table which leaned
against the wall was too ill and rickety to do its intended duty;
many of the books which had once probably covered it, were now
thrown in a promiscuous heap on the floor, where they slowly
mildewed and gave out a graveyard smell. A miniature stove in the
middle of the room, sweated and sweltered, and in its struggles
to warm the unhealthy atmosphere had succeeded in suffusing
itself with a clammy perspiration; it was in the last stages of
debility; old age and abuse had used it sadly, and it now stood
helplessly upon its crippled legs, and supported its nerveless
elbow upon a sturdy whitewash brush. There were a few symptoms of
medical pretensions in the shape of some vials, and bottles of
drugs, and colored liquids on the mantelpiece; a great attempt at
a display of scientific apparatus began and ended with an
insulating stool, and an old-fashioned "cylinder and cushion"
electrical machine; a number of highly-colored prints of animals
pasted on the wall, having evidently been scissored from the
show-bill of a menagerie, had a look towards natural history, and
a jar or two of acids suggested chemical researches. The books
that still remained on the enervated table were an odd volume of
Braithwaite's Retrospect, a treatise on Human Physiology, and
another on Materia Medica; a number of bound volumes of Zadkiel's
Astronomical Ephemeris, Raphael's Prophetic Almanac, Raphael's
Prophetic Messenger, and a file of Robert White's Celestial
Atlas, running back to 1808.
The appearance of the venerable sage of Delancey street was not
so imposing as to strike a stranger with awe--quite the contrary.
He partook of the character of the room, and was a fitting
occupant of such a place; he seemed some kind of unwholesome
vegetable that had found that noisome atmosphere congenial, and
had sprung indigenously from the slimy soil. One looked
instinctively at his feet to see what kind of roots he had, and
then glanced back at his head as if it were a huge bud, and about
to blossom into some unhealthy flower. The traces of its earthy
origin were plainly visible about this mouldy old plant;
quantities of the rank soil still adhered to the face, filled up
the wrinkles of the cheeks, found ample lodging in the ears and
on the neck, and crowding under the horny and distorted nails,
made them still more ugly; and streaks and ridges of dirt clung
to every portion of the garments, which answered to the bark or
rind of this perspiring herb.
To drop this botanic figure of speech, Dr. Wilson is a man of
about fifty-eight years of age, rather stout and thick-set, with
grey eyes, and hair which was once brown, but is now grey, and
with thin brown whiskers; the top of his head is nearly bald,
except a few thin, furzy, short hairs, which made his skull look
as if it had been kept in that damp room until mould had gathered
on it. He was in his shirt sleeves, and was attired, for the most
part, in a pair of sheep's grey pantaloons, which were made to
cover that fraction of his body between his ankles and his
armpits; the little patch of shirt that was visible above the
waistband of that garment, was streaked with irregular lines of
dirty black, as if it had gone into half mourning for the
scarcity of water.
The man of science made a musty remark or two about the weather
and the walking, and then, after carefully seating himself at the
decrepit table, he said: "I suppose your business is of a
fortun'-tellin' natur; if so, my terms is one dollar." The
affirmative answer to the question and the payment of the dollar
put new energy into the mouldy old man, and he prepared to
astonish the beholder.
He demanded the age of his visitor, and then desired to be
informed of the date of his birth, with particular reference to
the exact time of day; Johannes drummed up his youthful
recollections of that interesting event, and gave the day, the
hour, and the minute, with his accustomed accuracy. The sage made
an exact minute of these wet-nurse items on a cheap slate with a
stub of a pencil; then taking another cheap slate, he proceeded
to draw a horoscope thereon, pausing a little over the signs of
the zodiac, as if he was a little out in his astronomy, and
wasn't exactly certain whether there should be twelve or twenty.
He settled this little matter by filling one half the slate as
full as it would hold, and then carrying some to the other side,
so as to have a few on hand in case of any emergency.
When the figure was drawn, and all the mysterious signs
completed, the shirt-sleeve prophet became absorbed in an
intricate calculation of such mysterious import that all his
customer's mathematical proficiency was unable to make out what
it was all about. First he set down a long row of figures, which
he added together with much difficulty, and then seemed to
instantly conceive the most unrelenting hostility to the sum
total. The mathematical tortures to which he put that unhappy
amount; the arithmetical abuse which he heaped upon it, and the
algebraic contumely with which he overwhelmed it, almost defy
description. He first belabored it with the four simple rules; he
stretched it with Addition; he cut it in two with Subtraction; he
made it top-heavy with Multiplication, and tore it to pieces with
Division--then he extracted its square root; then extracted the
cube root of that, which left nothing of the unfortunate sum
total but a small fraction, which he then divided by _ab_, and
made "equal to" an infinitesimal part of some unknown _x_. Having
thus wreaked his vengeance on the unhappy number, he laid away
the surviving fraction in a cold corner of the slate, where he
left it, first, however, giving a parting token of his bitter
malignity by writing the minus sign before it, which made it
perpetually worse than nothing, and reduced it to a state of
irredeemable algebraic bankruptcy. This praiseworthy object being
finally achieved, he proceeded to translate into intelligible
English the result of his calculations, which he announced in the
terms following:
"The testimonial is not the most sanguine. If the time of birth
is given correct there is reason to apprehend that something of
an affective nature occurred at about eight years and ten
months--at 16 × 10 I think I may say, if the time of birth is
given correct, there is from the figures reason to expect that
there is a probability of a similar sitiwation of events. At 24
there was a favorable sitiwation of events, if there was not
somebody or somethin' afflictive on the contrary, the which I am
disposed to think might be possible. At 25, if the time of birth
is given correct, there is reason to expect great likelihoods of
some success in life; I may, it is true, be mistaken in my
calculations, but as the significators are angular, I think there
is indications that such will be the sitiwation of events. At 30,
if the time of birth is given correct, I think you are an
individdyal as may look for some species of misfortin--there will
be some rather singular circumstances occur, which might denote
loss of friends, or the fallin' to you of a fortin, or great
travellin' by water or land, or losin' money at cards, or
breakin' your leg, or makin' a great discovery, or inventin'
somethin', or gettin' put into prison on suspicion of sorcery and
witchcraft. You will see that there are indications to denote
that you will certainly be accused of sorcery and witchcraft by
some individdyals who are not your friends--the indications denote
great likelihoods that this will make you uneasy in your mind,
but I think there is nothin' of a very serious natur' to be
feared at that time of life, if the time of birth is given
correct. When any misfortin' is comin' upon you there is no doubt
(though I am not goin' to state positively that such will be the
case, still there is strong likelihoods that the indications give
such a probability) that it will give you warnin' of its
approach. At 36, if the time of birth is given correct, there is
indications of a likelihood that you will fall upon some other
misfortin'; I am not prepared to state positively that such will
be the case, but I think you will have a misfortin', though I
don't think it would be of a very afflictive natur'. There is at
that time a circumstance of an unfriendly natur', though it may
not happen to yourself; it might denote that your brother will
get sick. There is another evil condition about this time which I
will examine still furder. I see that there is indications of a
likelihood that there is a probability of your having somethin'
amiss by a partner, if somethin' of a favorable natur' does not
interpose, which is not unlikely, though I may be mistaken and
will not say positively. You will be lucky, however, after that,
and many of your evils will gradually begin to recline, as it
were. There is reason to believe that the significators denote
that in the course of your futur' life you will sometimes be
thrown in with men who you will think is your friends, but who
will prove to be your enemy. This I will not say positively, for
I may be mistaken, which I think I am not, but if the time of
birth is correct, you are an individdyal as gives likelihoods
that such might be the case."
For more than an hour had the Inquirer been edified and
instructed by these "solid chunks of wisdom," which, it will be
remembered, were not delivered off-hand, but were carefully
ciphered out by elaborate calculations on the slate aforesaid.
Lucid and elegant as was the language, and interesting as was the
matter of these oracular communications, he felt it to be his
duty to interrupt them for a time and change the subject to a
theme in which he felt a nearer interest; accordingly he asked
the musty Seer about his prospects of future wedded bliss. This
was a subject of so great importance that all the other
calculations had to be erased from the slate--this little
operation was accomplished in the manner of the schoolboys who
haint got any sponge, and the dirty hand plied briskly for a
minute between the juicy mouth and the dingy slate, and became a
shade grimier by this cleanly process. Then a new horoscope was
drawn with more signs of the zodiac than ever, and in due time
the result was thus announced:
"I shall now endeavor to give you a description of the sort of
person you might be most likeliest to marry. There is indications
that your wife might be respectable. The significators do not
denote that there is a likelihood that you might marry a very old
woman. She would be as likely to have fair hair and blue eyes as
anything else; nor would she be likely to be very much too tall,
and I don't imagine you are an individdyal that might be likely
to marry a woman who was very short. She may not be very old, but
I do not think that the indications point her out as being likely
to be a child; in fact, I think it possible that she may be of
the ordinary age, though I do not wish to be understood as being
positive on all these points, for I may be mistaken, though I
think you will find that there is a likelihood that these things
may be so. You will be married twice, and I think you are an
individdyal that would be likely to have children--six children I
think there is indications that you may be likely to have. The
significators point out one very evil condition, and I think I
may say that I'm quite sure. I'm positive that you will separate
from your first wife. No, I will not say that yours is a
quarrelsome natur', but the significators look bad. Things is
worse, in fact, than I told you of, and now I look again and am
sure you are prepared, I will say that there cannot be a doubt
that _you will pizon your first wife_. It cannot be any other
way; there is no mistake; it is so; it must be true; the fact is
this, and thus I tell you, _you will pizon your first wife_. And,
my young friend, I will advise you, in case your married futur'
is unhappy, and you do find it necessary to give pizon to your
consort, do not tell anybody of your intentions; do not let it be
known; and you must do it in such a way as not to be suspected,
or people will think hard of you, and there may be trouble."
This was a touch of wisdom for which Johannes was not prepared;
so he snatched his hat and hastily left the sepulchral premises,
conscious of his inability to receive another such a "chunk"
without being completely floored.
He now expresses the opinion that Dr. Wilson wanted to get the
job of "pizoning" that first wife, and that he would have done it
with pleasure at less than the market price.
CHAPTER VIII.
Gives a history of how Mrs. Hayes, the Clairvoyant, of No. 176
Grand Street, does the Conjuring Trick.
CHAPTER VIII.
MRS. HAYES, A CLAIRVOYANT, No. 176 GRAND STREET.
There are a dozen or more of these "Clairvoyants" in the city who
profess to cure diseases, and to work other wonders by the aid of
their so-called wonderful power. As their mode of proceeding is
very much the same in all cases, a description of one or two will
give an idea of the whole. Their principal business is to
prescribe for bodily ills, and did they confine themselves to
this alone, they would not be legitimate subjects of mention in
this book. But in addition to their medical practice they also
tell about "absent friends;" tell whether projected business
undertakings will fall out well or ill; whether contemplated
marriages will be prosperous or otherwise: whether a person will
be "lucky" in life, whether his children will be happy, and, in
short, they do pretty much the regular fortune-telling routine,
whenever the questions of the customer lead that way.
The theory as given by them, of a Clairvoyant diagnosis of a
malady, is this: that the Clairvoyant, when thrown by mesmeric
influence into the "trance" state, is enabled to _see into the
body of the patient_ and discern what organs, if any, are
deranged, and in what manner; or to ascertain precisely the
nature of the morbific condition of the body, and having thus
discovered what part of the vital mechanism is out of order, they
are able, they argue, to prescribe the best means for restoring
the apparatus to a normal state.
There are many thousands of persons who believe this stuff, and
endanger their lives and health by trusting to these empirics.
Several of the most popular of them have as many patients as they
can attend to, and are rapidly amassing fortunes. Most of them
have a superficial knowledge of Medicine, and are thus enabled to
do, with a certain amount of impunity, many dark deeds. It is
reported of more than one of these women that she has done as
many deeds of child-murder as did even the notorious Madame
Restell.
In this regard, they are among the most dangerous and criminal of
all the Witches.
The "Individual" visited Mrs. Hayes, who is one of the most
ignorant of the whole lot, and Mrs. Seymour, who is one of the
most intelligent of all. He sets down the particulars of his
visit to the former, in the words following:
How the "Individual" sees a Clairvoyant--How he pays a
Dollar, and what he gets for his money.
Not all the sorcery of all the sorcerers; not all the necromancy
of all the necromancers; not all the conjurations of all
masculine conjurers; not all the magic of all male magicians; not
all the charming of all the charmers, charm they never so wisely,
could have induced Johannes to ever more place the slightest
trust in a wizard, or repose in any wonderworker of the bearded
sex the merest trifle of faith, even the most infinitesimal
trituration of the homoeopathicest grain. The single dose he had
received from the renowned Doctor Wilson was quite enough, and
had satisfied all his longings for wisdom of that sort.
Besides, his coming events cast such peculiar and very unpleasant
shadows before, that he preferred to keep out of the grim
presence of such shady men, and for all after time to bask him
only in the sunshine of smiling women.
"_Pizon his first wife_," would he? Well, he could have taken
that "pizon" with tolerable composure from the lips of lovely
woman, but to receive it from the mumbling mouth of a skinny old
man, was too much to accept without divers rebellious grins.
A peach-cheeked witch, a cherry-lipped conjuress; a Circe, with
only enough charms to make a respectable photograph, might with
impunity have called him a counterfeiter, or a horse-thief, or
even a thimble-rigger; or might have told him that he would, upon
opportunity, garotte his grandmother for the small price of
seventy cents and her snuff-box; or that he was in the habit of
attending funerals to pick the pockets of the mourners, and of
going to church that he might steal the pennies from the
poor-box, all this would he have borne uncomplainingly from a
woman; but these unpalatable statements from one of the masculine
gender would be "most tolerable and not to be endured."
He felt that if he had not rushed incontinently from the presence
of that underground star-gazer Dr. Wilson, he must either have
punched that respected person's venerated head, or have laughed
in his honored face. In either case he would, of course, have
roused the extensive ire of that potent worthy, and have been at
once exposed to a fire of supernatural influences that would have
been probably unpleasant, to say the least.
The unmusical Johannes looks upon accordeons as cruel instruments
of refined torture, and detests them as the vilest of all created
or invented things, and he had been very careful to offend none
of the magic community, lest he should, by some high-pressure
power of their enchanted spells, be transformed into an
accordeon, and be condemned to eternally have shrieking music
pulled out of his bowels by unrelenting boys.
Having this terrible possible doom continually before his mind's
optics, he felt that it would be only the part of prudence to
avoid the company of those black art professors in whose presence
he could not keep all his feelings well in hand. So, no more
wizards would he visit, but the witches should henceforth have
his entire attention.
It is a fortunate circumstance that there are no other men than
the aforesaid Doctor Wilson, in the witch business in New York,
so that there would be no temptation to break this resolve, and
he probably would not be troubled to keep it.
There is one breed of the modern witch that pretends to a sort of
superiority in blood and manners, and those who practise this
peculiar branch of the business put on certain aristocratic airs
and utterly refuse to consort with those of another stamp. They
disdain the title of "Astrologers," or "Astrologists," as most of
them phrase it, and in their advertisements utterly repudiate the
idea that they are "Fortune Tellers."
These are the "Clairvoyants," who do business by means of certain
select mummeries of their own, and who make a great deal of money
in their trade. There are a great number of these in the city, so
many indeed that the business is over-done, and the price of
retail clairvoyance has come materially down. The same dose of
this article that formerly cost five dollars, may now be had for
fifty cents, and the quality is not deteriorated, but is quite as
good now as it ever was.
To one of these supernatural women did the hero resolve to pay
his next visit, and he selected the abode of Mrs. Hayes, of 176
Grand Street, for his initiatory consultation.
With the mysterious psychological phenomena denominated by those
who profess to know them best, "clairvoyant manifestations,"
Johannes had nothing to do, and was content, as every one of the
uninitiated must perforce be, to accept the say-so of the
spiritualistic journals that there are such phenomena and that
they are unexplained and mysterious. No outside unbelievers in
Spiritualism and the kindred arts may ever know anything of
clairvoyant developments and demonstrations, save such one-sided
varnished statements as the journals that deal in that sort of
commodities choose to lay before the world. Every man must be
spiritually wound up to concert pitch before he is in a condition
to receive the highest revelations of the clairvoyant speculators.
So that, whether the clairvoyance that is sold for money be a
spurious or a superfine article few can tell. Certain it is that
it is the same sort of stuff that has ever been retailed to the
public under the name of clairvoyance, ever since the discovery
of that remunerative humbug. It is more than likely that the
twaddle of Mrs. Hayes, Mrs. Seymour, and the rest of the
fortune-telling crew, would be repudiated by Andrew Jackson Davis
and the rest of the spiritualistic firstchoppers, but it is none
the less true that these gifted women sell their pretended
knowledge of spirits and spiritual persons and things, with as
much pretentiousness to unerring truth, as that veritable seer
himself, and at a much lower price.
The clairvoyant department of modern witchcraft is necessarily
carried on by a partnership, and one which is not identical with
the legendary league with the devil. Two visible persons
constitute the firm, for it takes a double team to do the work,
and if the amiable gentleman just referred to makes a third in
the concern, he is a silent partner who merely furnishes capital,
while his name is not known in the business. The whole theory of
clairvoyance as applied to fortune-telling and other branches of
cheap necromancy, seems to be somewhat like this.
A strong-minded person, generally a man with a _physique_ like a
Centre-Market butcher boy, obtains by some means possession of an
extra soul or two, or spirit, or whatever else that intangible
thing may be called. These spirits are always second-rate
articles, not good enough to be put into vigorous and strong
bodies, and which have been therefore hastily cased up in an
inferior kind of human frame as a sort of make-shift for men and
women.
Your professional clairvoyant is always, both as to soul and
body, a botched-up job that nature ought to be ashamed of, and
probably is, if she'd own up.
The senior partner of the clairvoyant fortune-telling firm, the
strong-minded one, according to their professions, has the
arbitrary control of the cast-off souls that animate these refuse
bodies. By what spiritual hocus-pocus this is managed is not
known to those outside the trade. He uses their half-baked
spirits at his will, and makes his living by farming them out to
do dirty jobs for the paying public. He disconnects them from
their mortal vehicles, and sends them on errands in the
spirit-land in behalf of his customers, looking up their "absent
friends," both in and out of the body--telling of their health and
prosperity if they are still alive, and picking up little bits of
scandal about their angels if they are dead. The senior partner
also sends his abject two-and-sixpenny souls to explore the
bodies of his sick customers and examine their internal
machinery, point out any little defects or disarrangements, and
suggest the proper remedies therefor, and in short, to do
whatever other dirty work the customer may choose to pay for.
The senior partner of course pockets all the money, merely
keeping the mortal tenement in which the working partner dwells
in a good state of repair, in consideration of services rendered.
Such a partnership is the one of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, whose place
of business is advertised every day in the morning papers in the
words following:
"CLAIRVOYANCE.--Astonishing cures and great discoveries
daily made by MRS. HAYES, that superior and wonderful
clairvoyant. All diseases discovered and cured (if
curable). Unerring advice given respecting persons in
business, absent friends, &c. Satisfactory examinations
given in all cases, or no charge made. Residence, 176
Grand St. N. Y."
Johannes, whose general health was excellent, and whose internal
apparatus was all right so far as heard from, had therefore no
occasion to be astonishingly cured, or to have any great
discoveries made in him by Mrs. Hayes; still he was desirous of a
little "unerring advice about absent friends," etc., from "that
superior and wonderful clairvoyant."
Besides, it was barely possible that in the person of the
superior and wonderful Mrs. Hayes, he might find the bride for
whom he pined. With hope slightly renewed within his speculative
breast, he set off joyfully for the designated domicile, which he
achieved in the due course of travel.
The house No. 176 Grand Street is a brick two-story dwelling, of
a dingy drab color, as though it had been steeped in a Quaker
atmosphere and had there imbibed its color, which had since been
overlaid with "world's people's" dirt.
The door was opened by Mrs. Hayes in person, her body on this
occasion being sent with her spirit to do a bit of drudgery.
She is a woman of the most abject and cringing manner
imaginable; a female counterpart of Uriah Heep, with an unknown
multiplication of that vermicular gentleman's writhings; she wore
no hoops, she would have squirmed herself out of them in an
instant; her dress was fastened securely on with numerous visible
hooks and eyes, and pins, and strings, in spite of which
precautions her visitor expected to see her worm out of it before
she got up stairs, and would scarcely have been astonished to see
her jerk her skeleton out of her skin, and complete her errand in
her bones.
With a propitiating bow, whose intense servility would have
become Mr. Sampson Brass in the day of his discomfiture, she
asked her customer into the house, cringingly preceded him up
stairs, deferentially placed a chair, and abjectly departed into
an inner room, pausing at the door to execute an obsequious
wriggle, and to once more humble herself in the dust (of which
there was plenty) before her astonished visitor.
The reception-room to which she led him, is an apartment of
moderate size, from the front windows of which the beholder may
regale his eyes with a comprehensive view of Centre Market and
its charming surroundings; Mott and Mulberry Streets lie just
beyond, and the Tombs are visible in the dim distance. The room
was furnished with a superfluity of gaudy furniture; and sofas,
tables, chairs and pictures, crowded and elbowed each other,
showing plainly that the upholstery of a couple, at least, of
parlors had been there compressed into a bedroom.
From the inner room came a great sound, made up of so many
household ingredients as to defy accurate analysis--but the crying
of babies, the frizzling of cooking meat, the scraping of
saucepans, and a sound of somebody scolding everybody else,
predominated.
The voyager was unprepared for any _Mister_ Hayes, having taken
it for granted that the _Mrs._ of the superior and wonderful
clairvoyant did not imply a husband, but was merely assumed
because it looks more dignified in the advertisement. But there
_was_ a _Mr._ Hayes, and presently the door opened and that
worthy appeared; he was surrounded by an atmosphere of fried
onions, and the fragrant and greasy perspiration in his face
seemed to have been distilled from that favorite vegetable.
Mr. Hayes is a tall, fierce, sharp-spoken man, of manners so very
rough and bearish that his wife and children quailed when he
spoke as if they expected an instant blow. We don't know that it
ever will be possible for a man to garrote his guardian angel for
the sake of her golden crown, but the idea occurred to Johannes
that if that amiable feat is ever accomplished, it will be by
such another man as this. He seemed as unable to speak a kind or
gentle word as to pull his boots off over his ears. He is an
Englishman, and speaks with the most intolerable cockney accent.
Moderating his harsh tones until they were almost as pleasant as
the threatenings of an ill-natured bull-dog, and addressing his
auditor, he growled out the following specimen of delectable
English:
"There is lots of folks goin' round town pretendin' to do
clairvoyance, and to cure sick folks, and to tell fortunes, and
business, and journeys, and stole property; but we ain't none of
them people. We only do this for the sake of doin' good, and we
don't want to do nothin' that will make any trouble. We used to
tell things about stole property, and about family troubles, and
so we sometimes used to get folks into musses, but we don't do
nothin' of that kind now. If your business is about any kind of
muss and trouble in your family we don't want nothin' to do with
it. Sometimes folks that has quarrelled their wives away come to
us and wants us to get them back again, but we don't do nothing
of that sort. We can tell 'em if their wives are well, or if
they're sick and all about what ails 'em, and so we can about any
people that is gone off anywhere, and them's what we call 'absent
friends.' So if you've got any trouble with your wife we can't do
nothin' for you."
The love-lorn visitor had no wives, a fact known to the reader
already, and when he does accumulate a help-meet, he sincerely
trusts she may not be so unruly as to require the interference of
outsiders to preserve harmony in the family. He expressed
himself to that effect, and added that his business was to find
out about the well-being of some friends in Minnesota, and to
ascertain particulars about some other trifles necessary to his
peace of mind.
Hereupon Mr. Hayes, with a growl like a sulky rhinoceros, opened
the door which cut off the pot-and-kettle Babel of the other
room, and commanded his wife to come, and that estimable lady,
who is evidently in a state of excellent subordination, instantly
writhed herself into the room. She sat down in an armchair, and
began to evolve a most remarkable series of inane smiles, each
one of which began somewhere down her throat, rose to her mouth
by jerks, and finally faded away at the top of her head and the
tips of her ears. It was a purely spasmodic thing of disagreeable
habit, without a particle of geniality or feeling about it.
While this curious process was going on, the Doctor had drawn
down the window-shades, thus darkening the room, and now
approached for the purpose of unhooking from its earthly
tabernacle the soul that was to step up to Minnesota and bring
back word to his customer "how all the folks got along." This he
accomplished by a few mysterious mesmeric passes, and when the
trance was induced, and the spirit had, so to speak, tucked its
breeches into its boots ready for the muddy journey, he placed in
the hand of Johannes that of the corpus which still remained in
the armchair, and said to the disembodied spirit:
"Now, I want you to go with this gentleman to Brooklyn and take a
fair start from there, and then go where he tells you to, and
tell him what things there is there that you see."
Having delivered this injunction in a tone so indescribably
savage that he had better a thousand times have struck her in the
face, this amiable animal retired to the Babel, taking with him
the fried-onion atmosphere.
Then the woman in the chair began to speak, in a style the most
disagreeable and affected that anybody ever listened to. It was
more like that sickening gibberish that nurses call "_baby-talk_,"
than anything else in the world. She spoke with a detestable
whine, and pronounced each syllable of every word separately, as
if she feared a two-syllable word might choke her. Sick at the
stomach as was her visitor at the whole babyish performance, he
so far controlled his qualms as to note down the words hereunder
written.
Whoever has heard this woman in a professional way can testify to
the verbatim truth of this sketch.
"There is wa-ter that we must cross, we must go in a boat musn't
we? Now we're in the boat, and O I see so many put-ty things,
men, and dogs, and ships and things going up and down; such
beau-ti-ful things I have never seened before. Now we are a-cross
the riv-er, and now we must get on the car, musn't we? What car
must we get on? O I see it now, the yellow car. Now we are going
a-long and I can see--O what a pret-ty dress in that store. O what
real nice can-dy that is. I wish I had some don't you? Now we're
at the house. Is it the one on the cor-ner, or the next one to
it, or is it the brick house with the green blinds? No, the wood
one with green blinds; so it is, but I didn't be here be-fore
ev-er in my life. Now we will go in-to the house; I see a car-pet
there and some chairs and some--O what a pret-ty pic-ture, and
what a nice fire. I see a la-dy of ver-y pret-ty ap-pear-ance.
She is a young la-dy; she has got blue eyes, she is stand-ing
sideways so I can't see noth-ing of her but one side of her face.
There is al-so an el-der-ly la-dy, but I can't see much of her.
They appear to be go-ing on a jour-ney, shall I go with them?
Yes, well I will. Now we are on the wa-ter and--O what a pret-ty
boat--now we are get-ting off of the boat--I didn't nev-er be here
be-fore. Now we are on a rail-road, I nev-er seened this
rail-road be-fore but--O what a pret-ty ba-by. Now we go along,
along, along, along, and now we are at the de-pot. I didn't ev-er
be here ei-ther--there is a riv-er here, and a mill and a--O what a
pret-ty cow--somebody is go-ing to milk the cow. There is a town
here--it seems as if I did be here before--yes I am sure--O what a
pret-ty lit-tle car-riage, and what a pret-ty dog. Yes I am sure
I seened this town be-fore, but these rail-roads didn't be here
then."
By this time the travellers were supposed to have reached St.
Paul, and the reliable clairvoyant then proceeded to describe
that interesting young city; and in the course of her speech made
more improvements there than will be accomplished in reality in
less than a year or two certainly.
Among other things, Mrs. Hayes described as at present existing
in St. Paul, two Colleges, a City Hall built of white marble, a
locomotive factory, and a place where they were building seven
ocean steamers.
She then, when she arrived at the house, in the course of her
mesmeric journey, where the people concerning whom Johannes had
inquired were supposed to be at that present domiciled, proceeded
to give descriptions of those whom she saw there, of the looks of
the country and of the house.
And _such_ descriptions, as much like the truth as a ton of "T"
rail is like a boiled custard.
By asking leading questions the seeker after clairvoyant
knowledge got some very original information. He only began this
course after he found that she, if left to herself, could
describe nothing, and could utter no speech more coherent or
sensible than that already set down as coming from her illustrious lips.
In fact, the policy of the clairvoyant-witch in every case, is to
wait for leading questions from the anxious inquirer, so that the
answers may be framed to suit the exigencies of the case.
Johannes was not slow to perceive this, and by way of testing the
science, or rather, art of clairvoyance, he put a series of
questions which established the following interesting facts, all
of which were positively averred to be true by Mrs. Hayes, "that
superior and wonderful clairvoyant."
Minnesota Territory is a small town situated 911 miles south-east
of the mouth of the Mississippi River--its officers are a chief
cook and 23 high privates, besides the younger brother of
Shakspeare, who is the Mayor of the Territory, and whose
principal business it is to keep the American flag at half-mast,
upside down.
When this last important information had been elicited, Johannes,
who thought he had got the worth of his money, recalled Dr.
Hayes, who reappeared, surrounded by the same old atmosphere of
the same old onions; to him the customer resigned the hand of the
twaddling adult baby who had held his hand for an hour and a
half, paid his dollar, and then prepared to depart.
The soul of the woman then returned from its long journey, and
was locked up in its squirmy body by the Doctor, ready to serve
future customers at one dollar a head.
She didn't seem glad to get her soul back again, there probably
not being enough to give her any great joy, after she had got it.
Johannes turned moodily away, feeling that the conjuress, his
future bride, the renovator of his broken fortunes, and the ready
relief to his present necessities, was as far distant as ever.
CHAPTER IX.
Tells all about Mrs. Seymour, the Clairvoyant, of No. 110 Spring
Street, and what she had to say.
CHAPTER IX.
MRS. SEYMOUR, CLAIRVOYANT, No. 110 SPRING STREET.
This woman is at the same time one of the most pretentious and
most clever of the clairvoyants, and she does a very large
business. Most of her customers come for medical advice,
although, in accordance with her printed announcement, she is
willing to talk about "absent friends," and whatever other
business the client may choose to pay for.
One branch of the clairvoyant trade which formerly brought as
much money to their pockets as any other department of their
business, was the finding lost or stolen property, and giving
directions for the detection of the thieves. This specialty has
however been pretty much abandoned of late by nearly all of them,
in consequence of law-proceedings against certain ones of the
sisterhood, which have in three or four instances been commenced
by parties who have been wrongfully accused of theft, through the
agency of the clairvoyant impostors. Several suits have been
instituted against them for defamation of character, and they
have been made to smart so severely that they are now all very
careful about accusing persons of crimes.
As an evidence of the implicit faith put in these people by their
dupes, it may be mentioned that many applications have been made
to Judge Welsh, of this city, and to the other judges, for
warrants of arrest against respectable persons, for theft, the
only grounds of suspicion against them being, that some
clairvoyant had said that the property had been stolen by a
person of such and such a height, with hair and eyes of this or
that color, and that the suspected person happened to answer the
description. Of course, all such applications for legal process
have been refused by the magistrates, and the applicants
dismissed with a severe rebuke.
Mrs. Seymour was an intimate friend of Mrs. Cunningham, of the
Burdell-murder notoriety, and was a witness in that memorable
trial.
The Cash Customer had an interview with this woman, which he thus
describes:
Another Clairvoyant, who is not much in particular.
If a man be desirous of knowing what sort of a moral character he
bears in the spirit-world, and what style of society his
disembodied soul will circulate in, or if he desires to know the
particulars of the after-death behavior of any of his acquaintances,
of course he will find it to his interest to marry a "medium" of
average respectability, and in good practice, and so save the
expense of frequent consultations. The "rapping" and "table-tipping"
communications from the spirit-world are hardly satisfactory. It
is, very likely, pleasant for a man to be on speaking terms with
his bedroom furniture, to spend an agreeable hour occasionally in
conversation with his washhand-stand, to enjoy a spirited
argument with his bedstead and rocking-chair, or to receive now
and then a confidential communication from his bootjack, but on
the whole, these upholstery dialogues do not satisfy the
"yearnings of the soul after the infinite." The powers of speech
of a washhand-stand are circumscribed, bedsteads and rocking-chairs
are seldom equal to a sustained conversation, and the most
talkative bootjack has not a sufficient command of language to
make itself agreeable for any great length of time. The logic of
a poker may sometimes be convincing, but it is not generally
agreeable; and the rhetoric of uneducated coal-scuttles is hardly
elegant enough to pass the criticism of a refined taste. It is
therefore much more satisfactory as well as economical, for a
person who desires to enjoy his daily chat with the Spirits, to
get a "speaking medium" to translate the eloquence of all parties
and make the thing pleasant. Even then, confidential communications
must be very guarded, and on this account the person who invents
some means by which every man can be his own medium, will win an
equal immortality with the author of that invaluable book, "Every
Man his own Washerwoman."
Johannes had been thinking over the spiritual subject, of course
with a view to profitable matrimony, for he thought he could
manage to turn an intimacy with the spirits to good pecuniary
account, and inveigle those incorporeal gentlemen into doing
something for those of their friends who are yet bothered with
bodies.
He knew that there are in New York, plenty of spiritualists in
such constant communication with their acquaintances on the
"other side of Jordan," that they know the bill of fare with
which those seventh-heaveners are served every day, and whenever
their jolly ghostships sit down to a pleasant game of whist, they
send word to their earthly relatives by "medium" every fresh
deal, what the new trump is, who hold the honors, and how the
game stands generally.
So close a familiarity with superior beings as this, could be
easily turned to practical account and made to pay handsomely, by
a Spiritualist with a utilitarian turn of mind. If he could but
get his spirits into proper subjection how useful would they not
be in the patent medicine business, in the way of inventing new
remedies; how invaluable would they be to an editor; in fact, how
particularly useful in almost any kind of business.
But his great plan was to train a corps of light-footed and
gentle ghosts to carry news; they would of course beat locomotives,
carrier pigeons, and electric telegraphs out of sight; seas,
mountains, and such trifling obstacles would be no hindrance to
them, and the Associated Press, to say nothing of the Board of
Brokers, would pay handsomely for their services. Of course a
ghost with any pretensions to speed would bring us detailed news
from London in half-an-hour or so, without putting himself out of
breath in the least, thus beating the telegraph by a length. And
so Johannes, fully determined on this promising scheme, began to
cast about him for a medium who was acquainted in the spirit
sphere, to introduce him to some of the eligible ghosts.
He knew that most of the clairvoyant women are "mediums," and
thought very naturally that women who already earned their living
by clairvoyance, would be the very ones to enter heart and soul
with him into his spiritualistic scheme.
Yes, he would marry a medium, and if she was a professional
clairvoyant, so much the better, his bow would have another
string.
In his search for a witch-wife he would not have been justified
in interfering at all with the clairvoyants had it not been for
the fact that they mix a little witchcraft with their regular
business. Their ostensible trade is to diagnose and prescribe for
different varieties of internal disease, and so this particular
branch of humbug would not have come within the scope of the
voyager's investigations, were it not that several of these
practitioners advertise to "tell the past, present, and future,
describe the future husband or wife, mark out correctly the exact
course of future life, give unerring advice about business,
absent friends, etc."
All this had too strong a savor of witchcraft to be ignored, and
accordingly Johannes set forth on his journey to visit another of
these mysteriously clear-sighted persons, keeping in view all the
time the probabilities of her being an A 1 spiritual medium, and
the very person whose aid would be invaluable in his new
journalistic enterprise.
Mrs. Seymour, of No. 110 Spring Street, was the person towards
whose house the Cash Customer bent his steps, after reading the
subjoined advertisement of her powers and capabilities.
"CLAIRVOYANCE.--MRS. SEYMOUR, 110 Spring Street, a few
doors west of Broadway, the most successful medical and
business Clairvoyant in America. All diseases
discovered and cured, if curable; unerring advice on
business, absent friends, &c., and satisfaction in all
cases, or no charge made."
The clairvoyant branch of the fortune-telling business seems to
require a certain amount of respectability in its practices, and
they sneer at the grosser deceptions of the more vulgar of the
necromantic trade. They keep aloof from the greasier sisters of
the profession, and they feel it due to the dignity of their
station to reject the cards, the magic mirrors, the Bibles and
keys, the mysterious pebbles and the other tricks which do well
enough for twenty-five cent customers; to sojourn in reputable
streets, in respectable houses, and to have clean faces when
visitors come in. There are, it is true, clairvoyants in the city
who live wretchedly in miserable cellars, whose garments and very
hair are populated with various specimens of animated nature, and
whose bodies are so filthy that the beholder wonders why the
spirits, which are so often disconnected from them and sent on
far-off missions, do not avail themselves of the leave of absence
to desert for ever such unsavory corporeal habitations. But the
majority of these persons prefer parlors to basements, and make
up the difference in expenses by double-charging their customers.
Many of them, as before stated, combine a little spiritualism of
the other sort with the clairvoyance, and they can all go into a
trance on short notice and rhapsodize with all the fervor if not
the eloquence of Mrs. Cora Hatch; they can all do the table-tipping
trick, and are up to more rappings than the Rochester Fox girls
ever thought of. For these several reasons therefore Mrs. Seymour
would be a wife worth having, or at least so thought Johannes as
he pondered these truths, and arranged in his mind his plan of
attack on the affections of that susceptible lady.
The house No. 110 Spring Street, occupied by Mrs. Seymour for
business purposes, is not more seedy in appearance than the
majority of half-way decent tenant houses, which all have a
decrepit look after they are four or five years old, as though
youthful dissipations had made them weak in the joints. From
appearances, Mrs. Seymour's house had been more than commonly
rakish in its juvenility, but it still had that look of better
days departed, which, in the human kind, is peculiar to decayed
ministers of the gospel. It is a house where a man on a small
salary would apply for cheap board. Hither the inquirer repaired,
and shamefacedly knocked at the door, and was admitted by a
frowzy, coarse, plump, semi-respectable girl, who would have been
the better for a washing. She opened the door and the customer
entered the reception-room, and had ample time before the
appearance of the mistress to take an observation.
The parlor was neatly, though rather scantily furnished, with a
rigid economy in the article of chairs. The apartment communicated
by folding-doors with another room, whence could be heard an iron
noise as of some one scraping a saucepan with a kitchen-spoon.
The frowzy girl disappeared into this retired spot, and in about
the space of time that would be occupied by an enterprising woman
in rolling down her sleeves, taking off her apron, and washing
her hands, the door opened, and Mrs. Seymour presented herself.
She was a frigid-looking woman, of about 35 years of age, with
dark hair and eyes, projecting lips and heavy chin, and was of
medium height and size. Her appearance was perhaps lady-like, her
movements slow and well considered. She was perfectly self-possessed
and calculating, and appeared to cherish no dissatisfaction with
herself. Her demeanor, on the whole, was repelling and chilly,
and impressed her visitor very much as if some one had slipped a
lump of ice down his back and made him sit on it till it melted.
She regarded him with a look of professional suspicion, cast her
eye round the room with a quick glance, which instantly
inventoried everything therein contained, as though to assure
herself of the safety of any small articles which might be
scattered about, and then seated herself with an air of
preparedness, as if she was perfectly on guard and not to be
taken by surprise by anything that might occur. She volunteered a
frozen remark or two about the state of the weather, and then
subsided into silence, evidently waiting to hear the object of
the visit.
Her appearance and demeanor had instantly frozen out of the
voyager's mind all thoughts of marriage; he would as soon have
wedded an iceberg, or have taken to his heart of hearts a
thermometer with its mercury frozen solid. All he could do was to
buy a dollar's worth of her clairvoyance and then get out.
As soon therefore as the first chill had passed off, and he had
thawed out a few words for immediate use he asked for a little of
that commodity.
When as he announced that he desired to know about the present
well or ill of some absent friends, and that clairvoyance was the
branch of her business which would on this occasion be called
into requisition, she rose from her seat, walked to the door,
never taking her eyes from the hands and pockets of her customer,
and called to some one to come in. In obedience to the summons,
the frowzy girl entered; this latter individual, since her first
appearance, had taken off her apron and pinned some kind of a
collar around her neck, but had not yet found time to comb her
hair, which was exceedingly demonstrative, and forced itself upon
attention.
Mrs. Seymour seated herself in a rocking-chair and closed her
eyes; the plump girl stood behind her and pressed her thumbs
firmly upon the temples of Mrs. S. for about two minutes, during
which time this latter lady lost every instant something of life
and animation, until at last she froze up entirely. Then the
frowzy girl made one or two mysterious mesmeric passes over the
sleeping beauty from her head to her feet, to fix her in the
iceberg state; then placing the hand of Mrs. S. in the palm of
the customer, she left the room.
The worst of it was that Mrs. Seymour's hand is not an agreeable
one to hold; it is cold and flabby, and not suggestive of
vitality. Her face, too, had become pallid and corpse-like, and
her thin blue lips were not pleasant to regard. Johannes was
puzzled; he didn't know what to do with the flabby hand, and how
he was to get any information about absent friends from a
fast-asleep woman he did not, as yet, exactly comprehend. At this
juncture, the lips asked, "Where am I to go to?" The sitter
suppressed a sulphurous reply, and substituted, "To Minnesota."
Thereupon, without any more definite direction as to what part of
that rather extensive territory she was expected to visit, she
sent her spirit off, and immediately uttered these words:
"I see two old people, two _very_ old people--one is a man and
one is a woman; one of them has been very sick of bilious fever,
but is now better, and will soon be quite well again. I can't
tell exactly how these people look except that they are very old
and both are very grey. They may be husband and wife. I think
they are. They are both sitting down now. I also see two young
people--one of them is a male and the other a female. The male I
do not perceive very plainly, and I cannot make out much about
him; he seems to be standing up and looking very sad, but I can't
tell you a great deal about him. The female I can see much
better, and can make out more about. She is tall, and has dark
hair. She appears to be connected in some way to the old people,
but I do not think she is related to the young man, though I
cannot exactly make out. She is a very agreeable-looking female,
rather pretty, I should say, if not positively handsome. She has
straight hair and does not wear curls. She is standing up now,
and appears to be talking to the young man, who has his back
partly turned toward her. I don't quite make out what they are
saying. She has had a very severe attack of sickness, but has
nearly or quite recovered. She is not, however, what I should
call a healthy female, and she will soon have another fit of
sickness, which will be worse than the first, and will bring her
very low indeed--very near to death. But she will not die then,
though she is not what I should call a long-lived person. She
will certainly die in six or eight years. What disease she will
die of I can't just make out, but it will not be of a lingering
character: it will carry her off suddenly. These people are all
very anxious about you, as if you was one of their family. They
have not heard from you lately, and are looking daily for
intelligence from you. They have written to you twice within
three months. One of the letters got to this city--a man took it
out of the mail. I don't know where he took it out, and I can't
exactly describe the man, but a man took it out of the mail.
These people are not satisfied to live where they are now; they
are discontented with the country, and will return here in the
Spring. They are talking about it now. They would like to come
back this Winter, but circumstances are so that they cannot. You
may be sure, however, that you will see them here in the Spring.
There is no doubt of it; they will come here in the Spring. The
other letter that I told you of that they had written has got
here safe, and is now in the Post-Office. You will find it there
if you inquire; you will be sure to get it as soon as you go down
to the office."
This was delivered in a very jerky manner, with occasional
twitchings of the face and violent claspings of the hand, which
her visitor retained, although it gave him a cold sweat to do it.
Johannes, who has friends in Minnesota, and whose questions were
therefore all in good faith, tried to get the sleeping female to
descend a little more to particulars, to describe individuals or
localities minutely enough to be recognised if the descriptions
approached the truth; but Mrs. Seymour was not to be caught in
this manner. She invariably dodged the question, and dealt only
in the most vague and uncertain generalities--giving no
description of persons or things that might not have applied with
equal accuracy to a hundred other persons or things in that or
any other locality. Her assertions concerning the persons
supposed to be her customer's friends did not approach the truth
in any one particular; nor was there the slightest shadow of even
probability in any single statement she uttered. She is not,
however, a woman to lack customers, so long as there remain in
the world fools of either sex.
When the inquirer had concluded his questioning, he was somewhat
at a loss how to awake the woman from her trance, but she solved
that little difficulty herself by opening her eyes (as if she had
been wide awake all the time) and calling for the beauteous
maiden of the snarly hair, who accordingly appeared and made a
few mysterious mesmeric passes lengthwise of her sleeping
mistress, and awoke her to the necessity of dunning her visitor,
which she did instantly and with a relish. He paid the demanded
dollar and departed.
CHAPTER X.
Describes Madame Carzo, the Brazilian Astrologist, of No. 151
Bowery, and gives all the romantic adventures of the "Individual"
with that gay South American Naiad.
CHAPTER X.
MADAME CARZO, THE BRAZILIAN ASTROLOGIST, No. 151 BOWERY.
The illustrious lady who is the subject of the present chapter,
came to the city of New York in 1856, and at once took lodgings
and began business in the fortune-telling way. She did well,
pecuniarily speaking, for a time, but the details of a visit to
her having been published at length in one of the daily journals,
she at once retired from the business, and subsided into private
life. She is not now extant as a witch, and it is not impossible
that she is earning an honester living in other ways.
The newspaper article that convinced her of the error of her
ways, and induced her to give up fortune-telling, is the
subjoined chapter by the "Individual:"
He meets a Yankee-Brazilian. She is not ill-looking, etc.
Whether the budding beauties of maidenhood are inconsistent with
the orgies of witchcraft; whether there be an irreconcilable
antagonism between youth and loveliness, and the unknown
mysteries of the black art, is a vexed question of some interest.
Can't a woman be supposed to indulge in a little devilment before
her hair turns grey, and her teeth fall out? and is it impossible
for her to have reliable and trustworthy dealings with Old
Scratch until she is wrinkled and withered?
That's what I want to know.
And I am very naturally urged to the inquiry by the observation
that every professional witch in New York calls herself a
"Madame." There is not a "Miss" or a "Mademoiselle," in the whole
batch. They all make a pretence of being widows, or wives at the
very least, as if a certain amount of matrimonial tribulation was
indispensable to their accomplishment in the arts of sorcery and
magic. The only exception to this rule is found in the person of
a female calling herself "The Gipsy Girl," who is otherwheres
mentioned, and in _her_ case the several agencies of nature, rum,
and small-pox have made her so strikingly ugly that old age could
not add a single other trait of repulsiveness to her excruciating
features.
Now this is all a sad mistake. Let some young and undeniably
pretty girl go into the business, and she'd soon get a run of
exclusive customers who would stand any price and pay without
grumbling. If the original Satan should refuse to recognise her
eligibility, and should decline to furnish her with the requisite
quantity of diabolic knowledge to set her up in business, she
could easily find an opposition devil who would provide her stock
in trade, and possibly at something less than the usual rates.
I'll be bound that Lucifer doesn't monopolize the whole trade in
witchcraft, and pocket all the profits himself; for if some of
the numerous clerks in his employ haven't yet learned the trick
of stealing the stock and selling it at a reduced price, then the
young gentlemen of our earthly mercantile houses are a good deal
up-to-snuffer than the virtuous demons of Mr. Satan's establishment.
This last-named dealer generally demands the soul of the contracting
party in return for the powers and privileges conferred; and in
very many cases he must get decidedly the worst of the bargain,
for some of his precious adopted children never had soul enough
to pay for the ink to sign it away with; but there is no doubt,
in case a brisk competition should arise for customers, that some
of his cashiers and head-clerks would contrive to under-sell him
even at this price.
The person who is so very anxious to effect this desirable
consummation, and to bring on a crop of young and pretty witches
to supersede the grizzled ones of this present generation was
Johannes, who had of late been getting rather sick of the
"Madames," and would prefer, if possible, to have the rest of his
fortunes told by ladies of tenderer age, and greater inexperience
in the ways of the world.
However, he was not the man to be deterred, in his pursuit of
wisdom, by the age and ugliness, grey hairs, wrinkles, false
teeth, _no_ teeth, dirt, ignorance, and imbecility he had
encountered, and he was determined to go on to the very end and
see if these are the sum total of modern witchcraft.
And then _duns_ came o'er the spirit of his dream, and fond
visions of sundry small debts, paid by magic and a wife, as soon
as he should succeed in finding the wife who had the magic,
floated across his hard-up brain, and encouraged him to
perseverance in his matrimonial quest. And when he had won that
invaluable lady, he would stuff his mattress with receipted
bills, and cram his pillow with cancelled notes, lie down to
pleasant dreams, and awake to ready cash.
Sweet thought!
So he made ready to visit the humble abode of MADAME CARZO, THE
BRAZILIAN ASTROLOGIST, _No. 151 Bowery_.
To say that he discovered, in this lady, the ideal of his search,
that he found her handsome, intelligent, learned in the stars and
thoroughly posted in the other branches of her trade, would be
to anticipate. Suffice to say that boa-constrictors, half-naked
savages, dye-woods, Jesuit's bark, cockatoos, scorpions and
ring-tailed monkeys, are not, as he had hitherto supposed, the
only contributions to the happiness of mankind afforded by South
America, for the Province of Brazil grows fortune-tellers of a
very superior quality as to respectability and neatness of
appearance. A Brazilian witch was something new, and without
stopping to inquire how she had strayed so far away from home, he
immediately argued that that single fact was decidedly in her
favor. Thus ran the logic:
If there be any diabolism in modern witchcraft, the practisers
thereof who have received their education in tropical latitudes
ought to be the most worthy of credence and belief, inasmuch as
the temperature of their places of residence seems to afford a
supposition that they live nearer head-quarters, and are,
therefore, most likely to receive information by the shortest
routes.
By the time he arrived at the spot where the great astrologist
condescended to abide, he had, by this course of reasoning,
convinced himself that he ought to place implicit confidence in
any revelations of the future made by the mysterious woman who
advertised herself and her calling, daily in the papers as
follows:
"MADAME CARZO, the gifted Brazilian Astrologist, tells
the fate of every person who visits her with wonderful
accuracy, about love, marriage, business, property,
losses, things stolen, luck in lotteries, absent
friends, at No. 151 Bowery, corner of Broome."
The South American lady had located her mysterious self in a
fragrant spot.
The corner of Bowery and Broome Street and vicinity seems to have
some kind of a constitutional disorder, and it relieves itself by
a cutaneous eruption of low rum shops and pustulous beer saloons,
which always look as if they ought to be squeezed and rubbed with
ointment of red lead. To an observing person it appears as if the
city wanted to scratch itself in that particular part to relieve
the local irritation, and then ought, for the sake of its general
health, to take a large dose of brimstone immediately afterward.
The liquors sold at these places are those pure and healthful
beverages, "warranted to kill at forty rods," and are the very
drinks with which a convivial, but revengeful man, would wish to
regale his friend against whom he held a secret grudge. Why
Madame Carzo had chosen this particular locality, does not
appear; perhaps because the liquor was cheap and the rent low.
Certain it is that there she sat, at a window overlooking the
Bowery, in full view of all the pedestrians in the street and the
passengers in the 4th Avenue Railroad.
Madame Carzo was, doubtless, deeply attached to her old Brazilian
home, and loved to surround herself with circumstances and things
that would constantly and vividly recall pleasant memories of her
southern country. Cherishing, probably, kindly and regretful
remembrances of the harmless reptiles of her own Brazilian
forests, she had taken up her abode in the very thick of the
Bowery bar-rooms, as the only things afforded by our frigid
climate, at all approaching in life-destroying malignity the
speedier venoms to which she had been accustomed in her
delightful southern home. First-rate facilities for drugging a
man into a state of crazy madness are offered at the bar across
the way; he may swill himself into a condition of beastly
stupidity with lager beer from next door below; he may be
pleasantly poisoned by degrees with the drugged alcohol, in
various forms, which is sold next door above; or he may be more
speedily disposed of with a couple of doses of "doctored" whiskey
from the festering den just round the corner. Lucrezia Borgia was
a novice, a mere babe in toxicology. New York wholesale liquor
dealers could teach her the alphabet in the fine art of slow
poisoning. She would no longer need the subtle chemistry of the
Borgias; she could learn of them to poison wholesale and to do
the work by labor-saving machinery.
Johannes, resolved that if he should marry the astrologist he
would move out of the neighborhood, and take a house in a cleaner
part of the city, for he felt that if he had to do even the
courting here, he would have to fumigate himself after every
visit to his lady-love as though he had just come out of a
yellow-fever ship. He knew that if he should chance to meet the
Health Officer in the street after a two hours' stay in that
locality, that trusty official would, from the unhealthy smell of
his coat, quarantine him for forty days, and put him up to his
neck in a barrel of chloride of lime every morning.
But a full-fledged Cupid is a plucky animal, and not easily
killed by anything no more tangible than smell, and the
particular Cupid that had possession of the voyager's heart came
of a long-suffering breed, and was equal to almost any emergency.
So as Johannes did not feel his ardent passion die, or even turn
sick at the stomach, he thought he could manage to get through.
If he couldn't get along any other way, he could fill his pockets
with brimstone matches, and his boots full of blue vitriol. Or
he could carry a bunch of Chinese fire-crackers in his hat, and
touch them off on the sly whenever he felt himself in need of a
healthy smell. Then he could wash himself all over in lime-water,
and drink a quart or so of some liquid disinfectant every time he
came away. So he went ahead.
Madame Carzo, the Brazilian interpreter of Yankee fate and
fortunes, lives in the third story of the house No. 151 Bowery,
with her sister, a girl of about fifteen years of age. The two
occupy themselves with plain sewing, except when the Madame is
overhauling the future and taking a look at the hereafter of some
anxious inquirer, who pays her as much for the reliable
information she imparts in three minutes, as she would charge him
for making three shirts. The inquirer gave his customary modest
ring at the door, and was admitted with as little question as if
he had been the taxes, the Croton water, or the gas. Up the two
flights of stairs walked the gentleman in the pursuit of
witchcraft, gave a bashful knock at the door, at the side of
which was painted, on a small bit of pasteboard, "Madame
Carzo"--repented of his temerity before the echo of the knock had
died away, but was admitted into the room before his repentance
had time to develop itself into running away.
A shabby-looking girl, with her hair in as much confusion as if
the city had contracted to keep it straight, with one ear-ring in
her ear, and the other on the table, with her shoes down at the
heel, her dress unhooked behind, and her breast-pin wrong side
up, was the model young woman who had answered the knock. She had
evidently been engaged in an animated single combat with another
young woman, of about the same quality and age, who was seated on
a low stool in the corner, for she instantly renewed hostilities
by stabbing her antagonist in the arm with a needle, tapping her
on the head with a thimble, and kicking her pin-cushion under the
table, so she could not recover it without crawling on her hands
and knees.
On a small sofa or lounge at the side of the room was a quantity
of what ladies call "work," thrown down in a great hurry, with
the needle yet sticking in it, and the scissors, and the beeswax,
and the measuring tape, and the bodkin half-concealed inside, as
if the knock at the door had startled the needle-woman, and she
had flown to parts unknown. It was undoubtedly Madame Carzo
herself who had so unceremoniously deserted her colors and her
weapons, and Johannes looked at the needle with veneration,
viewed the thimble with respect, and regarded the beeswax and the
bodkin with concentrated awe.
A small cooking-stove was in the side of the room, and
immediately over it was a picture of St. Andrew in such a
position that he could smell all the dinners; a number of other
pictures of Roman Catholic subjects were neatly framed and
hanging against the wall. St. Somebody taking his ease on an
X-shaped cross, St. Somebody Else comfortably cooking on a
gridiron, and St. Somebody, different from either of these,
impaled on a spear like a bug in an Entomological Museum. There
was also an atrocious colored print labelled "Millard Fillmore,"
which, if it at all resembled that venerated gentleman, must
have been taken when he had the measles, complicated with the
mumps and toothache, and was attired in a sky-blue coat, a red
cravat, yellow vest, and butternut-colored pantaloons.
The room was neatly furnished with carpet, table, chairs, cheap
mirror, and a lounge. While the visitor was taking this
observation, the two young ladies before mentioned had continued
to spar after a feminine fashion, and had finished about three
rounds; the model, who had answered the bell, had got the other
one, who was black-haired and vicious, under the table, and was
following up her advantage by sticking a bodkin into the tender
places on her feet and ancles. When the model had at length
thoroughly subjugated and subdued the black-haired one, and
reduced her to a state of passive misery, she turned to her
visitor with an amiable smile, and asked him if he desired to see
the Madame. Receiving an affirmative reply, she gave a sly kick
to her fallen foe, stepped on her toes under pretence of moving
away a chair, and then disappeared into another room to inform
Madame Carzo that visitors and dollars were awaiting her
respectful consideration in the anteroom.
The "gifted Brazilian astrologist" regarded the suggestion with a
favorable eye, for the model soon reappeared and showed the
searcher after hidden knowledge into a bedroom nearly dark,
wherein were several dresses hanging on the wall, a bed, two
chairs, a table, and Madame Carzo. The light was so arranged as
to fall directly in the face of the stranger, while the
countenance of the Madame was, to a certain extent, hidden in
shadow.
Johannes, nevertheless, in spite of this disadvantage, by careful
observation, is enabled to give a tolerably accurate description
of Madame Carzo, as follows: She is a tall, comely-looking woman,
with unusually large black eyes, clear complexion, dark hair worn
_à la Jenny Lind_, a small hand, clean, and with the nails
trimmed, and she has a low sweet voice. Her dress was lady-like,
being a neat half-mourning plaid, with a plain linen collar at
the neck, turned smoothly over; altogether, Madame Carzo, the
Brazilian astrologist, who speaks without a symptom of foreign
accent, impressed her customer as being a transplanted Yankee
school ma'am, with shrewdness enough to see that while civilization
and enlightenment would only pay her twenty dollars a month, and
superstition and ignorance would give her twice that sum in a
week, she couldn't, of course, afford to live in a civilized and
enlightened neighborhood, and depend exclusively on civilization
and enlightenment for a living.
And Johannes was smitten, he had found her, and if his fortune
was propitious he would yet win and wed the Brazilian astrologist,
and she should have the honor of paying his debt, and earning his
bread and butter. But he would make no advances yet for fear of
accidents; he would not commit himself until he had called upon
the rest of the witches on his list, to see, if perchance, he
might not find one more eligible. If not, then by all means
Madame Carzo should be the chosen one. The first thing evidently
was to ascertain her proficiency in the magic arts.
The sorceress and the anxious inquirer seated themselves face to
face, and the following dialogue ensued: "Do you wish to consult
me, Sir?" "Yes."
"My terms are a dollar for gentlemen."
The expected dollar was handed over, when the 'cute Yankeeism of
the Brazilian lady blazed out brilliantly, for she instantly
produced a "Thompson's Bank-note Detector" from under a pillow,
and a one dollar note, issued by the President and Directors of
the "Quinnipiack Bank" of Connecticut, underwent a severe
scrutiny. At last the genuineness of the bill and the solvency of
the bank were certified to the Madame's satisfaction, in his
oracular pamphlet, by Thompson with a "p," and Madame Carzo was
evidently satisfied that her customer didn't mean to swindle her,
but was good for small debts not exceeding one dollar each.
Accordingly she took his left hand, regarded it for some time,
apparently delighted with its model symmetry, but at last so far
conquered her silent admiration as to speak and say:
"You were born under two planets, Moon and Mars, Moon brings you
a great deal of trouble in the early part of your life. Moon has
occasioned a great deal of anxiety to your parents on your
account. Moon made you liable to accidents and misfortunes while
you was a boy, and Moon will give you great trouble until you
arrive at middle age. You were born, I should say, across the
water, and you will die across the water in a city, but not a
great city. You are, I should say, now far away from that city,
and from your home, and parents, and friends, who are, I should
say, all now far across the water. You will be sure, however, I
should say, for to see them all before you die, and to die in the
city that I told you of. Your line of life runs to 60; you will,
I should say, live to be 60, but not much after. Moon will cause
you much trouble for many years, but you will be certain for to
succeed well in the end, I should say. You will be certain for to
have final success and to conquer every obstacle, in spite of
Moon, I should say."
Incensed as was Johannes at Moon for thus unjustifiably
interfering with his prospects and meddling with his private
affairs, he still admired the more the profitable science of the
wonderful lady whose acquirements in magic had given her so
intimate an acquaintance with Moon, as to enable her to tell so
exactly the plans and intentions of that unruly and adverse
planet.
He mastered his indignation and listened attentively to the
sequel.
On the small stand were two packs of cards of different sizes,
and a volume of Byron. Madame Carzo took up one pack of the
cards, presented them to the young man, waited for them to be cut
three times, after which she said:
"You face up a good fortune I should say, you have had trouble
but can now, I should say, see the end of it--you face up money,
which is coming to you from over the water, I should say, and you
will be sure for to get it before a great while. You will never
have much money from relations or friends, though you will, I
should say, perhaps have some--but though you will handle a great
deal of money in your lifetime you will make the most of it
yourself, I should say--you will not, however, I should say, ever
be able for to become very rich, for you will never be able for
to keep money, although you will have the handling of a great
deal in your life. No, I am certain that you will never be rich."
Here Johannes remembered the malicious influence of Moon upon his
fortunes, and as he clinched his fists, felt as if he would like
to get at the man who resides in that ill-conditioned planet, and
have a back-hold wrestle with him on stony ground.
But the astrologist continued thus: "You face up a letter; you
also face up good news which is to come speedily I should say;
you don't face up a sick bed, or a coffin, or a funeral, or any
kind of immediate bad luck that I am able to see. You face up two
men, one dark and one light complexioned. You must beware of the
dark-complexioned man, for I should say he will do you an injury
if you allow him for to have a chance. You like to study: the
kind of business you would do best in is _doctor_. You face up a
light-complexioned lady; you will, I should say, be able to marry
this lady, though a dark-complexioned man stands in the way. You
must, I should say, be particularly careful to beware of the
dark-complexioned man. You will be married twice; your first wife
will die, but your last wife, I should say, will be likely for to
outlive you. You will have three children, which will be all, I
should say, that you will be likely for to have."
And this was all for the present, except that she told her
visitor that he might draw thirteen cards, and make a wish, which
he did, and she, on carefully examining the cards, told him that
he would certainly have his wish.
Cheered by this last grateful promise, and bidding a mental
defiance to Moon, the traveller left the room. In the reception
chamber he found the model and the black-eyed one just coming to
time for what he should judge was the twenty-seventh round, both
much damaged in the hair, but plucky to the last.
Johannes walked briskly away, feeling that his matrimonial
prospects were brighter now than for many a day, and fully
determined that if, on going further he fared worse, he would
certainly retrace his steps and wed Madame Carzo off-hand.
CHAPTER XI.
In which is set down the prophecy of Madame Leander Lent, of No.
163 Mulberry Street; and how she promised her Customer numerous
Wives and Children.
CHAPTER XI.
MADAME LEANDER LENT, No. 163 MULBERRY STREET.
I have before suggested, in as plain terms as the peculiar nature
of the subject will allow, that these fortune-telling women,
having most of them been prostitutes in their younger days, in
their withered age become professional procuresses, and make a
trade of the betrayal of innocence into the power of Lust and
Lechery. This assertion is so eminently probable that few will be
inclined to dispute it, but I wish to be understood that this is
no matter of mere surmise with me--it is a proven fact. And the
evidences of its truth have been gathered, not alone from the
formal and hurried records of the police courts, but from the
lips of certain inmates of various Magdalen Asylums who have
been reclaimed from their former homes of shame; and from the
mouths of other repentant women, who, under circumstances where
there was no object to deceive, and at times when their hearts
were full of grateful love for those who had interposed to save
them from utter despair, have in all simple truthfulness and
honor, related their life-histories. It is impossible to give
even a plausible guess at the aggregate number of young women, in
this great city, who compromise their honorable reputations in
the course of a single year; but of those whose shame becomes
publicly known, and especially of those who eventually enter
houses of ill-repute, the percentage whose fall was accomplished
through the instrumentality, more or less direct, of the
professional fortune-tellers, is astounding. And a curious fact
connected with this subject is, that of these unfortunates who
thus wander astray, not one in ten but has ever after the most
superstitious and implicit faith in the supernatural powers of
the witch. Each one sees in her own case certain things that have
been foretold to her by the fortune-teller with such circumstantiality
of time and place, and which have afterwards "come to pass," so
exactly in accordance with the prophecy, that she can only
account for it by ascribing supernatural prescience to the
prophetess.
The true solution of the matter is, of course, that the wonderful
fulfilments are achieved by means of confederacy and collusion
with parties with whom the dupe is never brought in contact; a
common _modus operandi_ of this sort is elsewhere described.
Nor are the fortune-tellers and the brothel-keepers by any means
content with playing into each other's hands in a general sort of
way; there are, in New York, several _firms_, consisting each of
a fortune-teller and a mistress of a bawdy-house, who have
entered into a perfectly organized business partnership, and who
ply their fearful trade with as much zeal and enthusiasm as is
ever exhibited in the active competition between rival commercial
houses engaged in legitimate trade.
Although this fact is one that cannot be substantiated by the
production of any sworn documents, it is as well proven by the
observations of keen-eyed detectives attached to the police
department, and to some of the charitable institutions of this
city, as though attested articles of co-partnership could be
exhibited with the signatures of the contracting parties attached
thereto. A gentleman of this city, in whose word I have the most
perfect confidence, tells me that he once, by a curious accident,
overheard a business consultation between the two members of such
a firm; and that such partnerships _do_ exist, and that by their
means hundreds of ignorant young women, of the lower classes, are
every year betrayed to their moral ruin, I no more doubt than I
doubt the rotundity of the earth.
If the illustrious woman who is the subject of the present
chapter should ever surmise that the foregoing observations are
intended to have a personal application to herself, the author
will give her much more credit for sagacity and discernment than
he did for supernatural wisdom.
Madame Leander Lent is one of the most shrewd, unscrupulous, and
dirty of all the goodly sisterhood of New York witches. She has
so great a run of customers that her doors are often besieged by
anxious inquirers as early as eight o'clock in the morning, and
the servant is frequently puzzled to find room and chairs to
accommodate the shame-faced throng, till her ladyship sees fit to
get out of bed and begin the labors of the day. She is then
impartial in the distribution of her favors; the audiences are
governed by barber-shop rules, and the visitors are admitted to
the presence in the order of their coming, and any one going out
forfeits his or her "turn" and on returning must take position at
the tail end of the queue.
The Fates show no favoritism.
The quarter in which Madame Lent has domiciled herself and her
familiars, is by no means in the most aristocratic part of the
city. "Mulberry," is the pomological name of the street, and it
has never been celebrated for its cleanliness or for its
eligibility as a site for princely mansions. In fact it has
been, on the whole, rather neglected by that class of society who
generally indulge in palatial luxuries.
Hercules, in his capacity of an amateur scavenger, once attempted
the cleaning of the Augean stables, or some such trifle, and his
success was trumpeted throughout the neighborhood as a triumph of
ingenuity and perseverance. If Hercules would come to Gotham and
try his hand at the purgation of Mulberry Street, our word for
it, he would, in less than a week, knock out his brains with his
own club in utter despair.
There never yet were swine with stomachs strong enough to feed
upon the garbage of its gutters, or with instincts so perverted
as to wallow in its filth. Dogs, lean and wild-eyed, the outcasts
of the canine world, sometimes, driven by sore stress of hunger,
sneak here with drooping tails and shame-faced looks, to search
for bones, and then, wounded in their self-respect by the very
act, they drag their osseous provender to a distance, and upon
some sunny mud-heap, dine in dainty neatness. The very pavement
is broken into countless hillocks and ruts like waves, as if, in
utter disgust at the place and its associations, the street was
trying to roll itself away in stony billows. The shattered wrecks
of worn-out drays and carts stand forsaken in the street, keeping
each other dismal company, while an occasional shackly wheelbarrow
makes the place look as though, after some monstrous fashion, it
were a lying-in hospital for poverty-stricken vehicles, and the
wheelbarrows were the new-born children, decrepit even in their
babyhood. The houses in this pleasant vale have a disheartened
tumble-down look, and give the impression of having been
originally built by apprentices out of second-hand material. They
lean maliciously over the narrow sidewalks, and keep up a
constant threatening of a sudden collapse and a general smash of
passers-by. If the houses are not dirtier than the street, it is
only because every possible element of filth enters into the
latter; if they are not dirtier inside than outside, it is
because superlatives have no superlative.
Pawnbrokers' shops are plentiful, kept always by sharp-featured
restless Jews, who watch for unwary passers-by like unclean
beasts crouching in noisome, dangerous lairs; while bar-rooms
yawn in frequent cellars to devour bodily the victims the Jews
only rob.
In this, one of the dirtiest streets in this dirty metropolis,
directly opposite the English Lutheran Church of St. James, in
one of the dirtiest tenant-houses in the street, abideth Madame
Leander Lent, the prophetess. Why the mysterious powers didn't
select an earthly representative with a more reputable dwelling-place
is a mystery; but there seems to be an inseparable congeniality
between prophetic knowledge and concentrated nastiness, utterly
beyond all power of explanation. The Madame advises the public of
her business in the terms following:
"ASTROLOGY.--Madame LEANDER LENT can be consulted about
love, marriage, and absent friends; she tells all the
events of life at No. 169 Mulberry-st., first floor,
back room. Ladies 25 cents; gents 50 cents. She causes
speedy marriage. Charge extra."
Her customers are much more addicted to love than marriage, so
that the wedlock clause cannot be relied on to bring many fish to
the net, but it is supposed to give an air of respectability to
the advertisement.
The Cash Customer was, perhaps, an exception to this general
rule, and feeling that he would on the whole rather like a
"speedy marriage," and wouldn't so much mind the "extra charge,"
he went, in cold blood, with this matrimonial intent to the
street, found the number, and heroically entered the house in the
very face of a threatened unclean baptism from the upper windows.
His timid knock at the door of the room was answered by a sturdy
"Come in," from the inside; hat deferentially in hand he modestly
entered, and was received by a fat woman with a bust of
proportions exceeding those of Mrs. Merdle in "Little Dorrit,"
and who was attired in a dress which may have been clean in the
earlier years of its history, though the supposition is
exceedingly apocryphal. This lady pointed to a chair, and then
composedly seated herself and resumed her explorations with a
comb, in the hair of a vicious boy of about three years old, the
eldest scion of Madame Leander.
Her enthusiasm in the cause of entomological science was too
ardent to be quenched by the mere presence of an observer, and
she continued to hunt her insect prey with all the ardor of a
she-Nimrod, and with a zeal that was rewarded by a brilliant
success. The youth, over whose fertile head the game seemed to
rove and range in countless numbers, was somewhat restless under
the operation, and oftentimes disturbed the eager sportswoman by
manifesting a desire to run into the street and carry the
hunting-ground with him, and was as often recalled to a sense of
the proprieties by a few judicious slaps, which he stoically
endured without a whimper, being evidently used to it.
This feminine lover of the chase, this Diana of the fiery scalp,
looked up from her occupations long enough to say to her visitor
that Madame Lent would soon be disengaged. Meantime, he made a
careful survey of the premises.
Two chairs, an old lounge with its dingy red cover fastened on
with pins, and a trunk covered with an old bit of carpet, were
the accommodations for seating visitors. A cooking-stove, and a
suspicious-looking wash-bowl which stood in the corner of the
room, without a pitcher, were probably for the accommodation of
the Madame and the lady with the comb. On the shabby lounge sat a
stolid-looking Irish girl, who was waiting her turn to have her
fortune told. Having fully comprehended the room and everything
in it, the visitor turned his attention to literary pursuits, and
thoroughly perused an odd copy of a newspaper that lay invitingly
on the table.
Visitors kept dropping in, mostly servant-appearing girls, though
there were three women attired in silk and laces, who would have
appeared respectable had their faces been hidden and their
conversation been suppressed. The lady with the comb and the boy
presently departed to some unknown region, and soon returned
with a reinforcement of chairs and stools. The number of visitors
increased, until, besides the original stranger, nine were
waiting. Among others, there came, in a friendly way, but still
with a sharp eye to business, a tall woman, attired in a red
dress and a purple bonnet, who is the keeper of a well-known
house in Sullivan street, and whose name is not strange to the
police. An unrestrained business conversation ensued between her
and the heroine of the comb, which must have been interesting to
the female listeners.
One hour and eleven minutes did the Cash Customer patiently wait
before he was admitted to the mysterious conference with the
queen of magic. At last, after the man who was at first closeted
with her had concluded his inquiries, and the stolid Irish girl
had been disposed of, the woman with the suggestive bust beckoned
the long-suffering and patient man to follow, and he fearfully
entered the sanctum.
The room of conjuration was a closet, dark and dirty, and was
lighted by one tallow candle, stuck in a Scotch ale bottle. A
number of shabby dresses, bony petticoats, and other mysterious
articles of women's gear, hung upon the walls; two weak-kneed
chairs, a tattered bit of carpet upon about two feet square of
the floor, and a little table covered with a greasy oilcloth,
composed the furniture of the mystic cell. The cabalistic
paraphernalia was limited, there being nothing but a dirty pack
of double-headed cards, a small pasteboard box with some scraps
of paper in it, and two kinds of powder in little bottles, like
hair-oil pots.
Madame Lent is a woman of medium height, about thirty-five years
of age, with light-grey eyes, false teeth, a head nearly bald,
and hair, what there is of it, of a bright red. Her manner is
hurried and confused, and she has a trick of drawing her upper
lip disagreeably up under the end of her nose, which labial
distortion she doubtless intends for a smile.
She was robed in a bright-colored plaid dress, a dirty lace
collar, and a coarse woollen shawl over her shoulders. Motioning
her visitor to one chair, she instantly seated herself in the
other, and, without demanding pay in advance, commenced
operations. She handed the cards to be cut, and then laying them
out in their piles, uttered the following sentences:
"I see that your fortune has been and is quite a curious one.
Your cards run rather mixed up, you have been very much worried
in your head, you were born under two planets, which means that
you have seen a great deal of trouble in your younger days, but
you are now getting over it and your cards run to better luck,
but it is rather mixed up, your cards run to a lady, she is
light-haired and blue-eyed, but she is jealous of you, for
sometimes you treat her more kinder and sometimes more harsher,
and just now she is in trouble and very much mixed up about you.
There is a man of black hair and eyes, a dark-_complected_ man
who pretends to be your friend and is very fair to your face, but
you must beware of him, for he is your secret enemy and will do
you an injury if he can; he is trying to get the lady, but I
don't think he'll do it, though I don't know, for the thing is
so much mixed up--he has deceived you, and the lady has deceived
you, they have both deceived you, but now they have got mixed up,
and she turns from him with scorn, and seems to like you the
best--I don't exactly see how it all is, for it seems rather mixed
up like--you must persevere, you must coax her more; you can coax
her to do anything, but you can't drive her any more than you can
drive that wall--always treat her more kinder and never more
harsher, and she will soon be yours entirely--beware of the
dark-complected man; you must not talk so much and be so open in
your mind, and above all don't talk so much to the dark-complected
man, for he seems to worry you, and your affairs and his are all
mixed up like."
Here her auditor expressed a desire to know something definite
and certain about his future wife, whereupon the red-haired
prophetess shuffled the cards again with the following result:
"You will have but one more wife. She will be good and true, and
will not be mixed up with any dark-complected man. She will be
rich and you will be rich, for your business cards run very
smooth, but your marriage cards do not run very close to you, and
you will not be married for six or eight months; you will have
three children; you will see your future wife within nine hours,
nine days, or nine weeks; do not blame me if it runs into the
tens, but I tell you it will fall within the nines. Another man
is trying to get her away from you, he is a light-complected man,
he has had some influence over her, but she now turns from him
with disdain, and she will be yours and yours only--things are a
little worried and mixed up now, but she will be yours and yours
only, the light-complected man can't hurt you. I have something
that I can give you that will make her love you tender and true;
it will force her to do it and she won't have no power to help
herself, but you can do with her just what you please; I charge
extra for that."
Here was a chance to procure a love-philtre at a reasonable rate,
and unless the dark woman kept that article ready made and done
up in packages to suit customers, he could observe the terrible
ceremonies with which it was prepared, listen to the spells and
incantations with an attent eye, and take mental notes of all the
mighty magic. The opportunity was too good to be lost, and he at
once signified his desire to try a little of the extra witchcraft,
and his willingness to draw on his purse for the requisite amount
of ready cash to purchase this gratification of a laudable curiosity.
Madame Lent now assumed an air of the most intense gravity, and
shook into a very dirty bit of paper a little white powder from
one of the pomatum pots, and a corresponding quantity of grayish
powder from pot No. 2, and stirred them carefully together with
the tip of her finger. When she had mixed them to her liking she
folded the diabolical compound in a small paper. Then she
prepared another mixture in the same manner, and made a pretence
of adding another ingredient from a little pasteboard box, which
probably hadn't had anything in it for a month. Folding this
also in a paper she presented them both to her interested guest,
with these directions:
"You must shake some of the first powder on your true-love's
head, or neck, or arms, if you can, but if you can't manage this,
put it on her dress--the other powder you must sprinkle about your
room when you go to bed to-night--this will draw her to you, and
she will love you and you alone and can't help herself; this will
surely operate, if it don't, come and tell me."
One more cabalistic performance and the hocus-pocus was ended.
She desired her customer to give her the first letter of his true
love's name. He, unabashed by the unexpected demand, with great
presence of mind promptly invented a sweetheart on the spot, and
extemporized a name for her before the question was repeated.
Then the mysterious Madame required his own initial, which, being
obtained, she wrote the two on slips of paper with some mystic
figures appended, in manner following. E., 17; M., 24. Then she
shiveringly whispered:
"You must do as I told you with the powders before eleven o'clock
to-night, for between the hours of eleven and twelve I shall boil
your name and hers in herbs which will draw her to you, and she
can't help herself but will be tender and true, and will be yours
and yours only. When she is drawed to you then you must marry
her."
The anxious inquirer promised obedience, and agreed to give the
powders as per prescription, before the midnight cookery should
commence, paid his dollar (fifty cents for the consultation and a
like sum for the love-powders), and made his exit with a
comprehensive bow, which included the Madame, the bony petticoats,
the beer-bottle, and the fast-vanishing remains of the single
tallow-candle in one reverential farewell.
CHAPTER XII.
Wherein are inscribed all the particulars of a visit to the
"Gipsy Girl," of No. 207, Third Avenue, with an allusion to Gin,
and other luxuries dear to the heart of that beautiful Rover.
CHAPTER XII.
THE GIPSY GIRL.
There is much less affectation of high-flown and lofty-sounding
names among the ladies of the black-art mysteries, than might
very naturally be expected. Most of them are content with plain
"Madame" Smith, or unadorned "Mrs." Jones, and "The Gipsy Girl"
is almost the only exception to this rule that is to be
encountered among all the fortune-tellers of the city.
This arises from no poverty of invention on their part, but from
a sound conviction that in this case, simplicity is an element of
sound policy. There has been no lack of "mysteriously gifted
prophetesses," and of "astonishing star readers;" there have
been, I believe, within the last few years, a "Daughter of
Saturn," and a "Sorceress of the Silver Girdle;" and once the
"Queen of the Seven Mysteries" condescended to sojourn in Gotham
for five weeks, but on the whole it has been found that a more
modest title pays better. To be sure, the "Daughter of Saturn"
was tried for conspiring with two other persons to swindle an old
and wealthy gentleman out of seventeen hundred dollars, and the
"Queen of the Seven Mysteries" was dispossessed by a constable
for non-payment of rent; and these untoward circumstances may
have acted as a "modest quencher" on the then growing disposition
to indulge in fantastic and romantic appellations.
At this present time "The Gipsy Girl" enjoys almost a monopoly of
this sort of thing, and she is by no means constant to one name,
but sometimes announces herself as "The Gipsy Woman," "The Gipsy
Palmist," and "The Gipsy Wonder," as her whim changes.
This woman has not been in New York years enough to become
complicated in as many rascalities as some of her elder sisters
in the mystic arts, but her surroundings are of a nature to
indicate that she has not been backward in her American education
on these points. She has not been remarkably successful in making
money, as a witch; not having been educated among the strumpets
and gamblers of the city she lacked that extensive acquaintance
on going into business, that had secured for her rivals in trade
such immediate success. Her fondness for gin has also proved a
serious bar to her rapid advancement, and has given not a few of
her customers the idea that she is not so eminently trustworthy
as one having the control of the destinies of others should be.
In fact, she loves her enemy, the bottle, to that extent, that
she has many times permitted her devotion to it to interfere
seriously with her business, leading her to disappoint customers.
The quality of her sober predictions is about the same as that of
others in the same profession, but her intoxicated foretellings
are deserving of a chapter to themselves, and they shall have it,
for from force of peculiar circumstances, which will be
explained hereafter, the Cash Customer made three visits to this
celebrated woman. Her first address was 207 3d Avenue, between
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets.
The Gipsy Girl! How romantically suggestive was this feminine
phrase to the fancy of an enthusiastic reporter. Was it then,
indeed, permitted that he should know Meg Merrilees in private
life? His heart danced at the poetic possibility, and his heels
would have extemporized a vigorous hornpipe but that his
saltatory ardor was quenched by the depressing sturdiness of
cow-hide boots. With the most pleasing anticipations he perused
the subjoined advertisement again and again, and looked to the
happy future with a joyful hope.
"A Wonder--The Gipsy Girl.--If you wish to know all the
secrets of your past and future life, the knowledge of
which may save you years of sorrow and care, don't fail
to consult the above-named palmist. Charge 50 cents.
The Gipsy has also on hand a secret which will enable
any lady or gentleman to win or obtain the affections
of the opposite sex. Charge extra. No. 207 3d av.,
between 18th and 19th sts."
How the knowledge of all the secrets of his past life was to save
him years of sorrow and care at this late day he could not
exactly comprehend, and was willing to pay fifty cents for the
information. And then wasn't it worth half a dollar to see a live
gipsy? Of course it was.
Kettles, camp-fires, white tents under green trees, indigenous
brown babies and exotic white ones, with a panorama of empty
cradles and mourning mothers in the distance, moonlight nights,
midnight foraging excursions, expeditions against impertinent
game-keepers, demonstrations against hen-roosts--successful by
masterly generalship and pure strategic science--and the midnight
forest cookery of contraband game, surreptitious pigs and
clandestine chickens--were among the romantic ideas of a
delightful vagabond gipsy life that at once suggested themselves
to the mind of the Cash Customer. He did not really expect to
find the Third-Avenue gipsy camped out under a bed-quilt tent in
the lee of the house, or cooking her dinner in an iron pot over
an out-door fire in the back yard, but he had a vague undefined
hope that there would be some visible indications of gipsy life,
if it was nothing more than the pawn-tickets for stolen spoons.
He thought to find at least one or two beautiful babies knocking
about, decorated with coral necklaces and golden clasps,
suggestive of rich parents and better days, and had firmly
resolved to send the little innocents to the alms-house by way of
improving their condition. Full of these romantic notions, the
reporter started on his philanthropic mission, taking the
preliminary precaution of leaving at home his watch and
pocket-book, and carrying with him only small change enough to
pay the advertised charges.
In one of those three-story brick houses so abounding in this
city, which seem to have been built by the mile and cut off in
slices to suit purchasers, in the Third Avenue above Eighteenth
Street, dwelt at that time the gay Bohemian. The building in
which she lived, though three stories in height, is very short
between joints, which style of architecture makes all the rooms
low and squat, as if somebody had shut the house into itself like
a telescope, and had never pulled it out again.
Out of the chimney, which was the little end of the telescope,
issued a sickly smoke; and through a door in the lower story,
which was the big end thereof, was the stranger admitted by a
little girl. This girl was, probably, a pure article of gipsy
herself originally, but had been so much adulterated by partial
civilization that she combed her hair daily and submitted to
shoes and stockings without a murmur. Ragged indeed was this
reclaimed wanderer; saucy and dirty-faced was this sprouting
young maiden, but she was sharp-witted, and scented money as
quickly as if she had been the oldest hag of her tribe; so she
asked her customer to walk up stairs, which he did. She herself
went up stairs with a skip and a whirl, showed her visitor into
the grand reception room with a gyrating flourish, and disappeared
in a "courtesy" of so many complex and dizzy rotations that she
seemed to the eyes of the bewildered traveller to evaporate in a
red flannel mist. As soon as she had spun herself out of sight he
recovered his presence of mind and looked about him.
The romantic gipsy who sojourned here had tried to furnish her
rooms like civilized people, doubtless out of respect to her many
patrons. A thread-bare carpet was under foot; a little parlor
stove with a little fire in it was standing on a little piece of
zinc, and did its little utmost to heat the room; an uncomfortable
looking sofa covered with shabby and faded red damask graced one
side of the apartment, and a lounge, of curtailed dimensions,
partially covered with shreds of turkey red calico, adorned
another side.
This latter article of furniture, with its tattered cover,
through which suspicious bits of curled hair peeped out, and wide
crevices in its rickety frame were plainly visible, looked much
too suggestive of cockroaches and other insect delicacies of the
season to be an inviting place of repose.
Three chairs were dispersed throughout the room, on one of which
the reporter bestowed himself, and the rest of the furniture
consisted of a table, so exceedingly shaky and sensitive in the
joints that it might have been the grim skeleton of some former
table, loosely hung together with unseen wires; and a cheap
looking-glass that had suffered so serious a comminuted fracture
as to be past all surgery--this was all except some little plaster
images of saints, strangers to the Cash Customer, and a black
rosary, which article would seem to show that efforts had been
put forth to Christianize this nut-brown gipsy maid.
A clinking of glasses was heard in the adjoining apartment, then
the door was opened with an independent flirt, and the gay
Bohemian appeared on the scene.
If it were desired to fancy visions of enchanting loveliness it
would be necessary to insert therein other ingredients than the
gipsy girl of the Third Avenue; alone she would be insufficient;
too much would be left to the imagination; and in any event the
illusion would be too great to last long.
She is of medium height, her eyes are brown and bright, and her
hands are very large and red. She has no hair, but wears a
scratch red wig, which gives her head a utilitarian character.
Her face is deeply pitted with the small-pox, more than
pitted--gullied, scarred, and seamed, as though some jealous rival
had been trying to plough her complexion under; little short
light hairs are thinly scattered on her cheek bones and upper
lip, and in the shadows of the little ridges that disease had
left, irresistibly compelling the mind to make an absurd
comparison of her face with a sterile field, and imagine that at
some past day it had been spaded up to plant a beard, which had
only grown in scanty patches, here and there. Her nails were
horny and ill-shaped, and underneath them and at their roots were
large deposits of dirt and other fertilizing compounds, under the
stimulating influence of which they had grown lank and long. Her
attire was a sort of cross between the picturesque wildness of
the gipsy, and the more civilized and unbecoming dress of Third
Avenue Christians.
She was apparelled, principally, in a red flannel jacket, and a
check handkerchief, which was passed under her chin and tied on
the top of her wig, where the knot looked like a blue butterfly.
There was a gown, but a series of subsoiling experiments would
have been necessary to determine the material and texture; the
surface was palpably dirt. Accompanying her there was a strong
smell of gin, and from the odor of the liquor the visitor judged
that it was a very poor article.
This gay old gipsy drew a chair to the table, and sat down, not
in a graceful and composed manner, but more as if she had been
dumped from a cart. She soon partially recovered herself, and
straightened up slightly from the heap into which she had
collapsed, and, turning her head away from her customer, she
elaborately remarked: "Fifty cents and your left 'and."
The Individual made a careful search for his small change, and
fished out the exact amount which he promptly paid over.
This delightful gipsy then took his left hand and looked at it
for a minute in an imbecile kind of way, as if she didn't know
exactly what to do with it, and was undecided whether it was to
be made into soup, or she was to drink it immediately with warm
water and a little sugar. This last impression evidently
prevailed, for she tried to pour it into her apron, and only
recovered from her delusion when the fingers tangled themselves
up in the strings. Then a glimmering of the true state of the
case seemed to dawn upon her, and she began to have a dim idea
that she was expected to say something.
Now the roving gipsy was not by any means intoxicated at this
time; that is to say, she may have been partaking of gin, or gin
and water, or may have been sucking sugar that had gin on it, or
she may have been taking a little gin and peppermint for a
stomach-ache, or she may have been bathing her head in gin, or
have been otherwise making use of that potent remedy as a
medicine, but she was by no means a subject for official
interference in case she had wandered into the street, but she
was, to tell the truth, not in her most clear-headed condition;
although probably she did not see more than one Cash Customer
sitting solemnly before her, still that one was quite as many as
she could well manage at that time.
After the signal failure of her little demonstration on the hand
of her guest, she, by a strong effort, seemed to concentrate her
faculties, and after several trials she roused herself and spoke
as follows, emphasizing the short words with spiteful vindictiveness,
and paying the most particular attention to the improper aspiration
of the h's.