The city journals frequently contain such advertisements as the
following:
A TEST MEDIUM.--THE ORIGINAL MADAME F--- tells everything, traces absent
friends, losses, causes speedy marriages, gives lucky numbers. Ladies,
fifty cents; gentlemen, one dollar. 464 ---th Avenue.
A FACT--NO IMPOSITION. THE GREAT EUROPEAN Clairvoyant. She consults you
on all affairs of life. Born with a natural gift, she tells past,
present, and future; she brings together those long separated; causes
speedy marriages; shows you a correct likeness of your future husband or
friends in love affairs. She was never known to fail. She tells his
name; also lucky numbers free of charge. She succeeds when all others
fail. Two thousand dollars reward for any one that can equal her in
professional skill. Ladies, fifty cents to one dollar. Positively no
gents admitted. No 40 --- Avenue.
It seems strange that, in this boasted age of enlightenment, the persons
who make such announcements as the above can find any one simple enough
to believe them. Yet, it is a fact, that these persons, who are
generally women, frequently make large sums of money out of the credulity
of their fellow creatures. Every mail brings them letters from persons
in various parts of the country. These letters are generally answered,
and the contents have disgusted more than one simpleton. The information
furnished is such as any casual acquaintance could give, and just as
trustworthy as the reports of the "reliable gentleman just from the
front," used to prove during the late war. The city custom of these
impostors is about equal to that brought to them from the country by
means of their advertisements. Some of them make as much as one hundred
dollars per day, all of which is a clear profit. The majority earn from
three to six dollars per day. Servant girls are profitable customers.
Indeed, but for female credulity the business would go down.
Still, there are many male visitors. Speculators, victims of the gaming
table and the lottery, come to ask for advice, which is given at random.
The woman knows but little of her visitors, and has no means of learning
anything about them. Sometimes her statements are found to be true, but
it is by the merest accident.
The clairvoyants do not hesitate to confess to their friends, in a
confidential way, of course, that their pretensions are mere humbuggery,
and they laugh at the credulity of their victims, whilst they encourage
it. It seems absurd to discuss this subject seriously. We can only say
to those who shall read this chapter, that there is not in the City of
New York an honest fortune-teller or clairvoyant. They knowingly deceive
persons as to their powers. It is not given to human beings to read the
future--certainly not to such wretched specimens as the persons who
compose the class of which we are writing. The only sensible plan is to
keep your money, dear reader. You know more than these impostors can
possibly tell you.
Many of these fortune-tellers and clairvoyants are simply procuresses.
They draw women into their houses, and ply them so with temptations, that
they frequently ruin them. This is the real business of most of them.
They are leagued with the keepers of houses of ill-fame. No woman is
safe who enters their doors.
The women also offer for sale "amulets," "charms," or "recipes," which
they declare will enable a person to win the love of any one of the
opposite sex, and excite the admiration of friends; or which will "give
you an influence over your enemies or rivals, moulding them to your own
will or purpose;" or which will "enable you to discover lost, stolen, or
hidden treasures," etc., etc. For each or any of these charms, from
three to five dollars is asked, "with return postage," when sent by mail.
All these, as well as "love powders," "love elixirs," and the like, are
either worthless, or are composed of dangerous chemical substances.
Strange to say, the sale of these things is large. The world is full of
fools, and the best proof of it is that two of the most noted women of
New York, who practise the arts we have described, are worth respectively
one hundred thousand dollars and eighty thousand dollars.