The Nevada journal., 1855-04-13
DOeStickS has His Fortune Told.

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the qualification of some of your Wall ST.
neighbors, | have resolved, with your
leave, and for their especial delectation,
to indite letter now and then as special
contribution to your hospitable columns
the first of which is here offered for your
consideration and the public's. Should it
prove acceptable, others shall follow-and
so, without further prelude, let me pro-
ceed to describe visit lately made by me
to certain fortune telling den uptown.
Since the memorable day of that visit my
destiny is no longer mystery. l know
it ALL | know what kind of woman Pm
to marry, how many children we're to
have, how many will die of measles, and
how many will be choked with the Group,
and can calculate to quart how much
castor oil | shall have to lay in for fam
lily consumption. I've had my fortune
told by witch. The witches of modern
times do not frequent graves and gibbets
at midnight, to collect the marrow of in
nocent babes, and grease that's sweaten
from the murderer's gibbet,' as choice in
gradients for their incantations-they hold
no nocturnal orgies with dancing skeletons
and corpses, brought by the black art back
to temporary life-they nowadays take
no pains to conceal their trade, but adver-
tise it in the daily papers, Their believ-
ers are not now the great men and wise
women of the earth, but chamber-maids
and servant girls, who want love-powders
to win some noble swain, or some verdant
countryman anxious to recover the pilfer-
ed eelskin which contained his treasured
pennies. They easily satisfy these gullible
customers, by promising the first no end
of rich, handsome princes, who are to ap-
pear some day and carry off their brides
in four horse coaches; and the latter by
an extemporaneous description of the thief,
and a wish that he may suffer pains in his
head, heart, liver, and all other important
parts Of his body, until the property is re-
stored. Witchcraft is rife in our midst,
and We do not hang or burn the hags and
beldames who practice it, or stick them
full of needles, or duck them in the horse
ponds, as in the good old days of Salem
more's the pity.
In this day of railroads and three-cent
stages, they have no occasion to perform
their journeys upon broomsticks and in
our city, where cream is only traditionary,
they cannot bewitch their neighbors' churn-
ings, or throw their dire enchan tments
over the incipient cheese-so the protec-
tive horseshoe is of no avail.
They have robbed the trade Of all its
mystery and romance we hear no more
of mighty magian, with hoary beard and
flowing robe, with magic wand and atten :
dant spirits no more 'wierd sisters with
talon fingers and sunken eyes; not even
romantic wandering gipsies-but ugly wo-
men, with unwashed hands, who can spell.
The calling has degenerated, and the ne
cromantic trade has passed into the hands
of unworthy successors, who would steal
their living, if cheating wasn't easier
And the trade thrives, and the swindling
practicers thereof faunt in silks, while
honost virtue slaves off destitution by ma
king hickory shirts at eight cents piece.
For at this time of triumphant and sue
cessful humbug-when indiscriminate puff
| ferry is freely used to boost into notice all
kinds Of sham, deception and deceit, which
thereupon grow fat and thrive-when YER
min exterminators, lucifer matches and
patent blacking employ such high-fown
language in commentator of their merits,
that inventions of real merit and impor-
tance must resort to the bases bombast to
keep pace with the foolcry of their neigh
bors-when solid merit which Tould sue
ceed, must vie in euphuistic phrase with
brainless emptiness which scaI-when, in
| I ofc ctc
diluted humor ,and feeble fiction are spawn
ed in scores from weak Drained fops and
aspiring women, inflated by unsparing puff
fiery into transient notoricty, and palm
ed upon the public as works Of sterling
merit-when even these Doesticks Letters
are purchased and perused, it may easily
be imagined that no impudent humbug, if
properly managed, will turn the stomach
of the enlightened Yankee Nation.
Having read the advertisement of a
Grand street fortune-teller, who adver-
tised herself the seventh daughter of a
seventh daughter lineal descendant
from some Of the Egyptian magicians
who couldn't kill the frogs-l stralghtway
resolved to pay her a visit. Went up
town, found the house, rung the bell, and
was shown into shabby room by slut
tering girl, who informed me by install
ments that her mistress would see me pres
emily. Examined the furniture -rickety
table, ditto chairs, bare floor with knot
holes in it, unctuous mirror, two hair
trunks, clothes-basket, and.a hat-box
Enter mistress minus youth, beauty,
hair-pins and clean stockings. She wore
no flowing robe figured with cabalistic
signs, she bore no sable wand of magic,
but she was clad in calico dress, and
had brass candlestick in her hand-she
drew no mystic circle, she performed no
inscrutible incantations, she spoke IN no
unknown tongue-but she put the candle
stick on the rickety table, sat down IN a
cane-bottomed chair, and asked me VIVA, ",
my nama vyas and what | wanted. 0lO