Madame Morrowis the only one of the fortune-telling fraternity in New York who refuses to dispense her astrological favors to both sexes. She positively declines receiving any visits from “gentlemen,” and confines her business attention exclusively to “ladies,” of whom many are her regular customers. One reason for this course of conduct is, that she imagines her own sex to be the more credulous, and more readily disposed to put faith in her claims to supernatural knowledge, and she naturally prefers to deal with believers rather than with sceptics. Her “lady” customers are more tractable and easily managed than men, and are notso apt to ask puzzling and impertinent questions; and as the Madame can manage more of them in a day, of course the pecuniary return is larger than if she exercised her art in behalf of curious masculinity as well.
Of her history before she engaged in her present business, not much is known to those who have met her only of late years, for with regard to her early life she chooses to exercise a politic reticence. The whole “style” of the woman, however, her dress, manner, and conversation, are strong indications that her younger and more attractive days were not passed in a nunnery, but more probably in establishments where “Free Love” is more than a theory. The character of the greater part of her “lady” visitors is of a grade that goes to corroborate this supposition, and leads to the belief that among women of doubtful virtue “old acquaintance” is not easily “forgot.” By far the greater number of Madame Morrow’s customers are girls of the town, and women of even more disreputable character.
The fact that a visit to this renowned sorceress must be paid in a feminine disguise, made the attempt to secure an interview of more than ordinary interest. How this difficulty was mastered, and how an entrance was finally effected into the citadel from which all mankind is rigorously excluded, is best told in the words of the “Individual” who accomplished that curious feat.
The Cash Customer in pursuit of a wife had been rebuffed, but was not disheartened. He had, so to speak, fought a number of very severe hymeneal rounds and got the worst of them all; but he had taken his punishment like a man, and had still wind and pluck to come up bravely to the matrimonial scratch when “time” was called, and as yet showed no signs of giving in. His backers, if he’d had any, would have still been tolerably sureof their money, and not painfully anxious to hedge. The bets would have been about even that he’d win the fight yet, and come out of the battle a triumphant husband, instead of being knocked out of the field a disconsolate and discomfited bachelor.
But, although his ardor had not cooled, and though his strength and determination still held out, he had grown slightly cautious, and had conceived a plan for going like a spy into the camp of the enemy, and there thoroughly reconnoitring the positions that he had to storm, and at the same time making himself master of the wiles and stratagems that were the peculiar weapons of the female foe, and so learn some infallible way to capture a first-quality wife. At any rate, he would give himself the benefit of the doubt and make the experiment. He would a-wooing go, not apparelled in conquering broadcloth, in subjugating marseilles, or overpowering doeskin, but carrying the unaccustomed, but not less potent weapons of laces, moire-antique, crinoline, and gaiters.
In fact, there was also a stern necessity in the case, for the lady on whom he had now set his young affections was particular as to her customers, and did not admit the shirt-collar gender to the honor of her confidence.
But was this to stop him? If the lady shut out the whole masculine world from the inevitable fascinations of her superabundant charms, was it not for sweet charity’s sake, that a whole community might not go into ecstatic frenzies over her peerless beauty, and all men, being stricken in love of the same woman, go to cutting each other’s throats with bowie-knives and other modern improvements!
It was easy to see thatMadame Morrowdid not want to become another Helen, to be abducted to some modern Troy, and have a ten years’ row, and any quantity of habeas corpuses, and innumerable contempts of interminable courts, after the modern fashion of conducting a strife about a runaway maiden.
Such a considerate beauty, veiling her undoubtedfascinations from the rude gaze of man, from purely prudential reasons, must be a prize of rare value, and well worth the winning.
Her qualifications in magic, too, seemed to be of the very first order, to judge from her notification to the wonder-seeking world.
“Astonishing to All.—MadameMorrowclaims to be the most wonderful astrologist in the world, or that has ever been known, as I am the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter, who was also a great astrologist. I have a natural gift to tell past, present, and future events of life. I have astonished thousands during my travels in Europe. I will tell how many times you are to be married, how soon, and will show you the likeness of your future husband, and will cause you to be speedily married, and you will enjoy the greatest happiness of matrimonial bliss and good luck through your whole life. I will also show the likeness of absent friends and relations, and I will tell so true all the concerns of life that you cannot help being astonished. No charge, if not satisfied. Gentlemen not admitted. No. 76 Broome street, near Columbia.”
“Astonishing to All.—MadameMorrowclaims to be the most wonderful astrologist in the world, or that has ever been known, as I am the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter, who was also a great astrologist. I have a natural gift to tell past, present, and future events of life. I have astonished thousands during my travels in Europe. I will tell how many times you are to be married, how soon, and will show you the likeness of your future husband, and will cause you to be speedily married, and you will enjoy the greatest happiness of matrimonial bliss and good luck through your whole life. I will also show the likeness of absent friends and relations, and I will tell so true all the concerns of life that you cannot help being astonished. No charge, if not satisfied. Gentlemen not admitted. No. 76 Broome street, near Columbia.”
There was but one thing in this that troubled the“Individual” with any particularly sharp pangs. He intended to marry the Astonisher, but he was a little bothered what to do with the seven daughters, for of course the Madame would not fail to follow the excellent example of her revered mother, and would never stop short of the mystic number.
He finally concluded that all his duties as a father would be faithfully performed if he taught them to read, write, and play on the piano, and then gave them each a sewing-machine to begin the world with. He did think of bringing them up for the ballet, but their success in that profession being somewhat dependent on the size and symmetry of their dancing implements, he felt it would be improper to positively determine on that line of business before he had been favored with a sight of the young ladies. Reserving, therefore, his decision on this knotty point until time should further develop the subject, he prepared for the unsexing which was indicated as an inevitable preliminary to a visit to Madame Morrow, by the sentence “Gentlemen not admitted.”
He proposed to get himself up in a way that would slightly astonish the Madame herself, although she had faithfully promised in her advertisement to astonish him. He would have been willing to wager a small sum that with all her witchcraft she would be unable to keep that promise, for in the regular course of his business, he had become so accustomed to marvels, wonders, and miracles, that the upheaval of a volcano in the Park wouldn’t discompose him unless it singed his whiskers. He had a strong desire, however, to realize the old sensation of astonishment, and he was of the opinion that the “likeness of his future husband” would accomplish that feat if anything could.
Heroic was Johannes, and withal ingenious, and this then was his wonderful plan.
He would visit this Madame Morrow, not by proxy, but in his own proper person; if not as a man, then as a woman; yes, he would petticoat himself up to the required dimensions, if it took a week to tie on the machinery. Off with the pantaloons; on with theskirts; down with the broadcloth; hurrah for the cotton and hey for victory, and a look at his future husband.
To an inventor of theatrical costumes hied he with this fell design in his heart.
The requisite paraphernalia were bargained for and sent home to the ambitious voyager, who, at the sight thereof, was “astonished” in advance, and stricken aghast by the complicated mysteries of laces, ribbons, strings, bones, buttons, pins, capes, collars, and other inexplicable articles that met his gaze.
The question instantly occurred, “Could he get into these things?”
Not a bit of it; he would sooner undertake to report in short-hand the speech of a thunder-cloud, and with much better prospects of success. He felt his own insignificance, and as he looked out at the window, he regarded a passing female with awe. He felt that he was fast becoming imbecile, not to say idiotic, when he bethought him of his friends. Two discreet married men, who knew the ropes, were called to the rescue, and began the work; they piledon layer after layer of the material, and in the course of four or five hours had built him into a pyramid of the proper size, when they gave him their solemn assurance that he was “all right.” He has since discovered that they had tied his under-sleeves round his ankles, and that the things he wore on his arms must have belonged somewhere else. There was trouble about the hair, and it required the combined ingenuity and wisdom of the masculine trio to keep the bonnet on, and this difficulty was only overcome at last by tying strings from the inside of the crown of that invention to the ears of the sufferer.
Then, and not till then, had anybody thought of the whiskers. They must be sacrificed; and though the miserable victim to his own ambition consented to the disfigurement, how was it to be accomplished? The luckless Johannes could no more sit down in a barber’s chair than the City Hall could get into an omnibus. At last he knelt down, which was the nearest approach he could make to a sitting position, and Jenkins, mounted onthe bed, shaved him as well as he could at arm’s length.
When the operation was concluded, his head looked as if it had been parboiled and the skin taken off. He didn’t dare to curse Jenkins for his clumsiness, knowing that if he relieved his mind in that desirable manner, Jenkins would refuse to help him undress when he wanted to get out of the innumerable manacles that now confined every joint. He was as helpless as a turtle that the unkind hand of ruthless man has rolled over on his back.
However, the disguise was complete; he looked in the glass and thought he was his own landlady; his best friends wouldn’t have known him, and the teller of the bank would have pronounced him a forgery and refused to certify him; he felt like a full-rigged clipper ship, and got under sail as soon as possible and bore down upon Madame Morrow’s residence. He nearly capsized as he stepped into the street, but he righted after a heavy lurch to the north-east, and kept his course without further seriousdisaster. He made a speedy run to Broome street, the voyage being accomplished in less than the expected time, although a heavy sea, in the shape of a boy with a wheelbarrow, struck him amidships, on the corner of Sheriff street, doing some damage to his lower works and carrying away a yard or so of lace from his main skirt. He finally came up to the house in splendid style, and cast anchor on the opposite sidewalk to take an observation.
The anchorage was good, and he rode securely for a short time until he could repair damages, he having carried away some of his upper rigging; in other words, he had caught his veil on a meat-hook and had been unable to rescue it. He rigged a sort of jury-veil with the end of his shawl, so that he could hide his blushing countenance in case of too close scrutiny.
Madame Morrow lives, as he now discovered, in a low, three-story brick house, which cannot be called dirty, simply because that mild word expresses an approximation towards cleanliness which no house in this locality has known for years. City readers canget an idea of its condition by understanding that it is in the worst part of “The Hook;” to readers in the country, who have luckily never seen anything filthier than a barn yard, no information can be given which would meet the case. Sunshine is the only protection for a well-dressed man against the population of this part of the town. In the twilight or darkness he would be robbed, if not garroted and murdered. The boldest and most desperate burglars, and others of that stamp, have their homes about here—fathers who teach their children the thief’s profession, and mothers who carry pickpockets at the breast. In the midst of this nest of crime the fortune-teller has her home, and here she thrives.
The daring man, protected by his false colors, there being no officious authority in that neighborhood to exercise the right of search, came alongside the house and prepared, metaphorically, to board; that is, he rang the bell.
He was admitted by an Irish girl, whose incrusted face showed that the same deposit of dirthad probably held possession undisturbed for weeks. They had just entered the hall door when two small children, who were contending for their vested rights with a big yellow dog that had interfered with their dinner, commenced an unearthly squalling, which, for the instant, made the millinery delegate fairly believe that Tophet was out for noon. The Hibernian maiden, with great presence of mind, immediately attempted to quiet the storm by administering to each inverted brat a sound correction, in the manner usually adopted by mothers.
Particulars are omitted.
Then she resumed her attentions to the stranger, and convoyed him into port in the parlor. Securely harbored in this safe retreat, Johannes took another observation.
The room was small, and what few things were in it looked shabby and dirty of course. The principal article of furniture was a huge basketful of soiled linen, which had probably been “taken in” to wash, and from a respectable family, for every single article looked ashamed to be caught in such company, and tried to burrow down out of sight. Disconsolate shirts elbowed humiliated socks, which in turn kicked against mortified flannels, or hid themselves beneath disconcerted sheets; abashed shirt-collars and humbled dickies tried to shrink out of sight in very shame beneath a dishonored tablecloth, the wine-stains on which showed it to belong in better society. A dejected and cast-down woman was assorting the despairing contents of the basket with a look of desolation.
The girl, who had disappeared, now returned, and with an air of mystery slipped into the hand of her visitor a red card, on which was inscribed:
No Person allowed to remain in the Establishment without a ticket. Please present this on entering Madame Morrow’s room. Fee in full, $1.
No Person allowed to remain in the Establishment without a ticket. Please present this on entering Madame Morrow’s room. Fee in full, $1.
For an hour and a half after the receipt of thiscard and the payment of $1 therefor, did Johannes quietly wait in the room with the big basket, being entertained meanwhile by the two women who conversed with each other upon the relative merits of engines No. 18 and 27, and with a long discussion as to the comparative personal beauty of “Tom” and “Dick,” who, it seemed, belonged respectively to those two mechanical constituents of our Fire Department.
At the end of that time the Irish girl, who had succeeded in establishing “Dick’s” claim to her satisfaction, arose and invited the stranger to the room of Madame Morrow.
He passed up a narrow flight of stairs, the condition of which, as to dirt, was concealed by no friendly carpet; then he sailed into a front parlor which was furnished elegantly, and perhaps gorgeously, with carpets, mirrors, sofas, and all the usual requirements of a lady’s apartment.
Madame herself appeared at the door. She is a tall, sallow-looking woman, with a complexion thecolor of old parchment: with light brown eyes and light hair; being attired in a handsome delaine dress of half-mourning, and decorated with a costly cameo pin and ear-drops, she looked not unlike a servant out for a holiday, making a sensation in her mistress’s finery.
She led her lovely visitor into a little closet-like room, in which were a bureau, two chairs, a table, and a small stand, covered with a number of her business hand-bills and a pack of cards. She asked first: “What month was you born?” On receiving the answer, the Astonisher took a book from the bureau and read as follows: “A person born in this month is of an amiable and frank disposition, benevolent, and an amiable and desirable partner in the marriage relation. Your lucky days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, on which days you may enter on any undertaking, or attempt any enterprise with a good prospect of success.” Then she took up the cards again, and after the usual shuffling and cutting, the Astonisher fired away as follows.
“You face luck, you face prosperity, you face true love and disinterested affection, you face a speedy marriage, you face a letter which will come in three days and will contain pleasant news—you face a ring, you face a present of jewelry done up in a small package; the latter will come within two hours, two days, two weeks, or two months—you face an agreeable surprise, you face the death of a friend, you face the seven of clubs which is the luckiest card in the pack—you face two gentlemen with a view to matrimony, one of whom has brown hair and brown eyes, and the other has lighter hair and blue eyes—they are both thinking of you at the present time, but the nearest one you face is the one with light eyes—your marriage runs within six or nine months.”
There was very much more to the same effect, but as Johannes was pining all this time for a look at his future husband, he did not pay the strictest attention to it. Finally, when she had finished talking, she said, “Step this way and see your future husband.”
This was the eventful moment.
The disguised one went to the table and there beheld a pine box, 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 advantageto 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.
Thisignorant, half-imbecile old man is the onlywizardin 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, andit 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 thefollowing description, and his oracular communication is given, word for word.
“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 noeasy 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 oflearning 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.”
“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 ofthe 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 givehimany 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 inperson. 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 crippledlegs, 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 Delanceystreet 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 wasonce 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 thendesired 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 byab, and made “equal to” an infinitesimal part of some unknownx. 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 timeof 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 timeof 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. ThisI 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, andbecame 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 thatyou 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 Johanneswas 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.
Thereare 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 aperson 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 tosee into the body of the patientand 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:
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 mostinfinitesimal trituration of the homœopathicest 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 hewas 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-pressurepower 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. Theydisdain 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 nothingto 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 itis 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 aphysiquelike 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 goodenough 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 seniorpartner 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: