In London, at the present day, it is estimated that nearly two thousand
persons, male and female, gain a livelihood under the guise of
fortune-telling. Some of them are "seers," or "astrologers," "seventh
sons," clairvoyants, etc.
From the London Telegraph of the year 1871 we gather the following
description of a few of the most prominent of these, with their arrest and
trial, as fortune-telling is there, as elsewhere, proscribed by law:--
"First was arraigned 'Professor Zendavesta,' otherwise John Dean Bryant,
aged fifty, and described as a 'botanist.' He was charged with having told
a woman's fortune, for the not very extravagant sum of thirteen cents. Two
married women, it seems, instructed by the police, went to No. 3 Homer
Street, Marylebone, and paid sixpence each to a woman, who gave them a
bone ticket in return. One might have imagined that it was a
spiritualist's _seance_, but for the fact that the fee for admittance was
sixpence, and not one guinea. Professor Zendavesta shook hands with one of
the women, and warmly inquired after her health. She told him she was in
trouble about her husband, which was false, and he bade her be of good
cheer, and made an appointment to meet her on another day. Subsequently,
two constables went to Bryant's house, and on going into a room on the
ground floor, found thirty or forty young women seated there. The ladies
began to scream, and there was a rush for the door; while the police, who
seemed to labor under the impression that to attend an astrological
lecture was as illegal an act as that of being present at a cock-fight or
a common gambling-house, stopped several of the women, and made them give
their names and addresses. The walls of the apartment were covered with
pictures of Life and Death, with the 'nativities of several royal and
illustrious personages, and of Constance Kent.' It is a wonder that the
horoscopes of Heliogabalus and Jack the Painter should have been lacking.
Then there was a medicine chest containing bottles and memoranda of
nativities; also a 'magic mirror, with a revolving cylinder,' showing the
figures of men and women, old and young. Of course the collection included
a 'book of fate.' This was the case against Bryant.
"One Shepherd, alias 'Professor Cicero,' was next charged, and it was
shown that the same 'instructed' women went to his house, paying sixpence
for the usual bone ticket. They saw Shepherd separately. When one of them
said that she wanted her fortune told, 'Professor Cicero' took a yard tape
and measured her hand. He gabbled the usual nonsense to her about love,
marriage, and good luck, hinting that the price of a complete nativity
would be half a crown, and before they left the place he gave them a
circular, with their phrenological organs marked. Indeed, the man's
defence was, that he was a professor of phrenology, and not of the black
art. A 'magic mirror' and a 'lawyer's gown' were, however, found at his
house, and the last named item has certainly a very black look. The
evidence against the next defendant, William Henry, alias 'Professor
Thalaby,' and against the fourth and last, Frederick Shipton, alias
'Professor Baretta,' did not differ to any great extent from the testimony
given against Zendavesta. The solicitor retained for this sage contended
that if he had infringed the law, it was likewise violated at the Crystal
Palace, where the 'magic mirror' was to be seen every day. Mr. Mansfield,
however, had only to deal with the case and the culprits before him, and,
convicting all the four fortune-tellers, he sent them to the house of
correction, there to be kept, each and every one of them, to hard labor
for three months."