The record-union., 1897-07-27

quently their business is a cloak TO
something different and worse. At best
they empty the slender purses of their
confiding patrons, finding one pretext
and another to bring them back to
their offices. In a communication to
the Governor in 1894, De Lancey Mic
oil, the then District Attorney, de-
clared that it was almost impossible
to break up the practice of astrology;
it was rooted too much in the super
stitions of certain classes and safe
guarded in their instincts of secrecy.
Other than the very poor have had
recourse to the vaticinations Of these
on Wall street have any basis, an oc-
casional broker has at some time al
lowed their judgment TO decide a fling
at the market The racing men used
to consult the gypsy queen, whose
tents were pitched in summer time
near the Guttenburg track. A regular
part of the income of the Coney Island
seeress is derived from the tips or
credulous sports, who are interested in
the contests at the neighboring tracks.
The gypsy fortune-tellerS throng to-
ward the metropolis as the out
season approaches. Several Romany
bands are now moving through the out
lying New Jersey towns, and every
summer finds an encampment on the
| nights opposite New York. South
Beach, Bergen Beach and Coney Island
are dotted with their booths, and the
dusky Prineesses that preside there
turn many an honest penny by sage
warnings relative to dark and light
men and the other woman in the path.
1t is not quite an honest penny; ii is
a harmless one. And as much cannot
be said of those whose business is a
fixture in town. Not long ago a citizen
of the Greater New York, who ap-
preached with some trepidatiOn the
shrine of an Indian royalty at Coney
Island, was confronted by his own
| washerwoman, resplendant in the ha-
biliments of the Orient.
EAST SIDE QUACKS.
Another guild Of charlatans is shell
tered by the tenements, and its prac-
tices shade on the one side into the
forbidden arts of necromancy, and on
the other into the legitimate field of the
physician The thickly settled districts
| Of the lower East Side are Oyerrun with
| quacks who assume without right a
doctors title and practice his func-
tions. According to common report,
there are hundreds of these in the re-
gion which centers at Essex Market.
! With them the County Medical Soci-
ETY., through its counsel, Robert c.
| Taylor, wages a perpetual warfare and
a large proportion of the convictions
secured through it yearly are Of these
Unauthorized leeches.
The method of the East Side quacks
indicate a degree of enterprise that is
/ not countenanced in medical ethics.
Like his brother, the ambulance law
yer, he does not wait for business to
| come to him: he goes after it, and he
goes where it is likely to be found. With
| his little bag of implements and nos
| trums he travels from tenement to ten
/ ement. He has his regular beat, and at
! the door of each family he inquiries if
there is sickness within. His visit is as
much the expected thing as that of the
ragman and the huckster, and his
prices are not much greater. child
has sore eyes, or the mother is suffer
| lFS lIOiIl d ItSdQ<tSi4Cs VI SOAlAC al 0AOi~
| in the family diet has done general
mischief. Your quack does not hesi-
| tate. He produces his medicine case
and he prescribes. His fee. perhaps.
is a quarter Then he descends the
stairs to the fiat below.
Cne of these peripatetic quacks is now
in Sing Sing because he conducted a
side ent erprise. He had a confederate,
or consulting physician, with him, and
while his partner attended to the sick
ones he would industriously loot their
fiat of its small valuables. Another
man who is likely to do time had his
headquarters in a restaurant where his
patrons were accustomed to find him at
stated hours A barroom is a familiar
office for the East Side quack.
1t should be said that some of the
unauthorized practitioners have a set
| tied hahitation and affect reputable
airs. They do not court the notice of
! the authorities but every week letters
! reach the County Medical Society in
which some poor tenement dweller con-
veys the i1l-spelled but important in
formation that on a certain floor at a
certain address a quack has established
| himself and that streams of patients
visit him daily.
| 1t has been observed that these men
are more frequently old frauds than
young adventurers. They wear their
| hair long and cultivate the confidential
atmosphere of the family doctor. F're-
quently they have followed the same
vocation in communities abroad, where
| the medical systems are not so strict,
and they are really ignorant that they
! are committing a miSdemeanor every
| time they write a prescription. When
arrested they are the loudest in denun-
| citation of what they are pleased to call
! the selfish, trades union spirit of the
| regular physician.
QUESTION OF DEFINITION.
! No one can practice without license
duly registered with the County Clerk,
and it is a separate offense TO assume
! the degree of NJ D. without warrant.
! For either offense the penalty is a fine
of $3.50 or imprisonment for not more
! than six months. and for a subsequent
conviction a fine of $500 or imprison-
ment for not less than a year. But to
come within the law. as interpreted in
a decision of the Supreme Court, one
! must use instruments or administer
medicine According to this interpreta-
| ton ii is no part of its intent to pre-
vent mere imposition. This language
| is used in the case of a Tnasseur, who,
as the court remarked, advertised sub
oysra would ayaY7 "rOh