Justice Wendell, not long ago, ordered a fortune-teller to find heavy bail and refund her dupe’s money or go to the workhouse for six months, and, like a sensible “clairvoyant,” she didn’t go to the workhouse. These fortune-tellers and clairvoyants have always flourished in New York, and twenty-five years ago there was a whole nest of ‘em in the city, more than there are to-day, at least in proportion to the population.
Among them was a Madame Widgers, of First avenue. This woman had cheek enough to run a “reform” racket, or a “temperance association,” or a women’s rights convention, or all three combined. She was always hand and glove with politicians, and got favors from ‘em of all kinds.
Before she came to New York she lived in Albany, and there she worked for a long while a very neat little game. Albany, almost every Spring, is overflowed or inundated, just round the wharfs, by the Hudson River. These inundations every now and then do some damage, for which the city or State in the long run has to pay. On this point the madame worked her racket. She had a little house, she claimed, right near the river, and somehow or other this little house was always injured by the inundations, and every time it was injured naturally, madame, being a poor, lone widow, put in her claim for damages, which, through the influence of a politician friend of hers, was always allowed and paid.
But there came a time when this political friend of madame’s “lost his pull.” The inundation took place as usual, the little house was damaged as usual, and madame’s claim for damages was put in as usual. But it wasn’t allowed and audited all right as usual. On the contrary, there was an investigation which resulted in discoverin’ three things: first, the house specified had not been injured at all; second, the house had never belonged to madame at all; and third, the house itself hadn’t been in existence for several years at all, havin’ been torn down right after the first inundation, although madame’s claims had gone on all the same.
These discoveries resulted in a local scandal, and in madame findin’ it advisable to leave Albany. She came to Gotham, of course; everybody who is driven out of everywhere else strikes straight for New York; and here she set up shop in pretty good style as a soothsayer and prophetess.
She professed to see the future through a “magic stone,” a colored pebble which she always held up to her eyes whenever she told fortunes for her customers. She put whole pieces in the paper about her “magic stone” and seemed to set great store by it. So a sport one day put up a job to divert madame’s attention and get hold of this precious pebble. The job succeeded, but when the sport examined this prophetic oracle in the street outside, it turned out to be nothin’ more nor less than a colored pavin’ stone. Yet this pavin’ stone must have brought in during all the years she had used it to prophesy by, as much money as if it had been a diamond.
Then there was Madame Prewster, in the Bowery. She claimed to have been the first regular professional fortune-teller who settled in New York. She had been here a good many years before I came here, and was a very old woman, though very spry and active for her years.
She put on a heap of airs, and really had some cause to put ‘em on, for, old and ugly as she was now, she had been handsome once, and had, it was said, attracted the attention of the great Napoleon when he was master of Europe. She had never forgotten this fact, and up to the day she died she always had a sort of style about her, as if she was the Empress Josephine herself. Yet for all her airs and style she was keen as a razor about money, and though she was in the habit of telling her customers yarns about her early history, which were a great deal more interestin’ and more true than her prophecies, yet she never told anythin’ until after they had paid the regular fee of one dollar.
Then there was Mme. Bruce, of Broome street, “the mysterious veiled lady,” so called because she never allowed people to see her without a veil. Some said she was ugly, a few said she wasn’t; but the ugly ones had it, because it was taken for granted that no pretty woman would ever hide her face if she could help it.
This Mme. Bruce lived next door to a policy shop, and she spent all the money she got by prophecy in policy, invested all the proceeds of her lyin’ in the lottery. One would think that a woman smart enough to control the good fortune of others could at least manage to get some good luck of her own. But she couldn’t. She could beat the public, but she couldn’t beat the lottery dealers. Policy was too much for prophecy.
One of the smartest of these fortune-tellin’ women was a Miss Pugh who lived, when at home–which was very seldom, at South First street, Williamsburg. She had one of the neatest rackets and safest jobs that, I guess, any woman could work herself into, a scheme which I often wonder hasn’t suggested itself to more women, for accordin’ to the laws of human nature the person who tries this lay has almost a dead sure thing.
She pretended to be a “monthly nurse,” and got good pay that way. Then she pretended, on the sly, to be able to tell the fortune of the baby just born under her care, sometimes by the cards, when the family wasn’t pious, and sometimes by the Bible, when the family was pious. It was all one to her, and the baby.
Of course the mother of the new-born baby was willin’ to pay a good round some for a good rich fortune for her “tootsy wootsy,” and of course papa couldn’t interpose any objections. The mother in these cases has it all her own way with the father, and the nurse has it all her own way with the mother, so between her nursin’ and necromancin’ Miss Pugh had a very payin’ thing of it.
And she made a very good point off the baby this way. No matter what she prophesized for it nobody could gainsay her for many years to come. If she foretold that a boy just born should live to be President of the United States, who could swear she was lyin’ for 21 years at least? And if she prophesied that a girl in swaddlin’ clothes would live to marry a tall young man of dark complexion, with half a million dollars, who could disprove that–for at least eighteen years? This was a tip top double racket, and Miss Pugh made a house and lot in Williamsburg out of it.
Down in Forsyth street there was a fat Dutch woman whose real name was Kuhler, under which name she ran a little but payin’ grocery store. Next door to this grocery store was a sign: “Madame Bellini, Planet-reader.” Now between the grocery and the planet-readin’ establishment was a communicatin’ door, and Kuhler, green grocer, and Madame Bellini, planet-reader, were one and the same person. She, like Miss Pugh, combined two distinct branches of business, prophecy and potatoes, lies and lettuce, and it has never been satisfactorily ascertained which of her lays was the most profitable, the green groceries or the green people.
It is all very easy to laugh at these frauds now, reading about ‘em, but they were no laughin’ matter in their day. They not only made money, but had considerable “influence” and were believed in by a good many men and women, who would have indignantly denied ever havin’ heard of ‘em.
Morse, the great speculator, used to consult fortune-tellers, and it is said by those who ought to know that old Commodore Vanderbilt once or twice visited a soothsayer. The story goes that one of the men most interested in the layin’ of the Atlantic cable, bein’ doubtful about goin’ into the enterprise any further, called upon a Mrs. Seymour, a fortune-teller in Spring street, who in her time was a great friend of Mrs. Burdell Cunningham, and asked her to consult the stars about the future of the enterprise.
Either Mrs. Seymour was really a sensible woman, and guessed how the thing would turn out, or the stars knew more than they were supposed. At any rate, she encouraged her customer to keep on advancin’ his money in Atlantic cable stock, and so did a good thing for the country, without probably knowin’ it herself.
A funny idea this–the future of a great enterprise, interestin’ the whole world, decided by the whims of a star-readin’ old woman. Yet funnier ideas are constantly turnin’ up in this very funny world.
It is well known in certain quarters that Jim Fisk used to consult an old woman who read the stars in West Twenty-Fourth street, near the Grand Opera House. And Jay Gould once caught him at it, but didn’t succeed in laughin’ him out of it.
There were a tremendous lot of soothsayers and star swindlers, women and men, thirty years ago in Gotham. Mme. Harris of West Nineteenth street; Mme. Cazo, the Brazilian astrologer; Dr. Wilson, of Delancey street; Maurice, the old planet prophet of Bleecker street; Mrs. Fleury of Broome street, the “wild-eyed reader of the midnight stars;” the Gypsy girl of Third avenue; Mme. Leander Lent, known as the mad woman of Mulberry street, and thirty or forty others, “all doing well.” Then a colored individual called Grommer, in Williamsburg, combined whitewashin’ walls with tellin’ fortunes, while his wife united soap suds and soothsaying’, bein’ laundress and seer. While, somewhat curious to relate, a Mrs. Hayes, a clairvoyant, of Grand street, may be said to have originated the idea of an electoral college which many years afterwards elected her namesake to the Presidency, as she was in the habit of submittin’ doubtful matters to an “electoral college” of three: herself, her husband and her cook, the majority of this college being 2 to 1 instead of 8 to 7.
But perhaps the queerest duck of the whole lot of these frauds was a woman called Mme. Morrow, who pretended to be an astrologer on Christian principles, and was so highly moral that she wouldn’t admit gentleman to her sanctum, not on any account whatsoever.
I have already alluded to a friend of mine, a sport, who tried some tricks on one of these tricksters. Well, this sport had some real sport out of this Mme. Morrow.
She had a ranch in Broome street, which was then quite a resort for seers, astrologers, soothsayers, witches, fortune-tellers, clairvoyants, planet-readers, spiritual mediums and all that ilk. She was a little, fat woman, but quite fussy, and she held up her head very high among the other frauds, because she was so much more “highly toned.” They admitted men as well as women, whereas her wonders were “for ladies only.”
The real reason for Mme. Morrow’s exclusiveness was a very shrewd one and hadn’t a bit to do with morality. In fact I don’t believe that madame knew or cared what morality meant. All she did know or care about the matter was that women had much more “faith,” that is, were more becomin’ than men; that they asked more questions than men, and so gave her a chance to find out more about ‘emselves through their own questions, and that they were her most numerous customers, ten to one, and weren’t “impertinent” like the men. And then the “morality” dodge brought her a better payin’ class of customers. Therefore the madame made it a cast-iron rule, “gentlemen not admitted.”
So my friend, the sport, for the first and last time in his life, made a woman of himself, put himself into feminine attire, or rather was put in it by two of his friends, and makin’ his way to Madame Morrow’s he was admitted by the Irish girl, and ushered into the presence of madame. He (she) paid his (her) fee, and was told the awfulest lot of rigmarole that ever he (she) had listened to, and he had been used to hearin’ some pretty steep yarns around the old Ocean House, where Rooster Kell used to vegetate.
All this was for fifty cents, but then madame had another racket, for twenty-five cents extra. She offered to show my friend the portrait of her (?) future husband!
Wantin’ to see how far the madame would go, the disguised sport said he didn’t care much for the mere picture of a future spouse, but that if madame would introduce her (?) to a real flesh and blood hubby right off, she (?) would stand a V. At the mention of a V the moral madame’s eyes sparkled, and her visitor saw that the bait took.
In a half hour more the fat he-she had been introduced to a tall, thin, villainous-lookin’ chap who madame said was a Christian “friend and brother,” who was looking for “a partner both for this world and the next.” My friend, the sport, thought that one world would be quite enough to be in the company of such a partner, but he said nothin’. It was all he could do to listen to the gassin’ of the Christian friend and brother, who talked like a steam engine.
After awhile the friend and brother let down somewhat on the talkin’, but put my friend, the sport, in a very delicate and embarrassin’ posish, by commencin’ to take liberties with her, puttin’ his long, lean, lank arm around her waist, or at least tryin’ to get it round. Long as the arm was it wouldn’t go round all the waist.
My friend repulsed these liberties as well as he could, afraid all the while he would burst with inward laughter, but the friend and brother believed in the great principle of love, and wouldn’t be satisfied till he had a kiss. Had my friend been the really modest female he assumed to be, he couldn’t have heartily detested the idea of bein’ kissed and slobbered over by such a chap. So he resisted the salute in good earnest, and finally prevailed upon her too ardent suitor to be content with a chaste salute upon her (!) hand.
But in this case of taffy and sweetness business the Christian friend and brother kept all the time handlin’ suspiciously my friend’s pocket. So my friend, pretendin’ to have no suspicions, watched his lover’s (!) operations, and soon caught him fumblin’ with his hand in his dress pocket for the pocketbook that wasn’t there.
Then my friend, the sport, revealed himself in his true character, gave his Christian thief lover a lickin’, got his money back from the moral madame, who was frightened half out of her wits, and went home as a man, carryin’ his women’s duds away with him in a bundle.
[Editor’s notes: This entire column was adapted from an 1859 book, The Witches of New York by Q. K. Philander Doesticks (aka Mortimer Thomson, humorist of the New York Tribune), available online via Project Gutenberg.]
