Los Angeles herald., 1906-11-04
by BESSIE BEATTY


ure can avail anything, Los Angeles.
heretofore the heaven Of the charla-
tan. will soon be too warm for even
the most heat-proof fake spiritualist
medium, clairvoyant, psychic or "busi-
ness" adviser.
Not only psychic but Legislative
forces are working against the reign
of the crooks who take the money OF
the foolish and unsuspect1ng, uhder
false pretenses.
A general round up of the occult
workers who tack their signs in dingy
windows, looking out from dingy lodg-
ing houses, reveals some startling facts.
Fooling some of the people all of the
time and all of the people some of the
time Is a lucrative occupation in Los
Angeles. The fake mediums work qui-
etly but persistently, and a few dis
coveries mean little to them. When
people who have been duped become
too persistent, the medium moves on
to another house or drope out of sight
for a little while, only to bob serenely
up again.
The exposure of the methods of Mrs.
Elsie Reynolds at the seance given
Wednesday evening at TAB South
Broadway, when the spot light dis
covered Mrs. Reynolds hidden under d
bundle of gauze and masqueradmg as
the sririt of some ones dead sister,
has led to an investigation of the meth
ods OF others, and steps have been
taken to have her license revoked.
Illlterate and Uncouth
Several times before side lights have
been thrown on the methods OF this
woman. but in each case she mas
changed her lodgings and gone on WIN
her practice of taking money from tne
gullible. In the letter which is pup
Hshed in The Herald today she explains
her own methods better than anyone
else could. She is writing TO Mrs;
Ta,,ra IIvland a medium who worked
in Sawteile, playing on the feelings ol
the old Soldiers, and also in Los Ange-
les. Mrs. Hyland retired from actlVe
business life because the people Wnon
she has duped made life in beautifu
Southern California uncomfortable lol
her.
Mrs. Reynolds is a woman with prac-
tically no education, and 1t would seem
that the person who could be fooleo
long by her must be fool indeed
and yet she appeals to large class ol
neopIe who have absolute faith in her
Sbn is illiterate and uncouth, as her
letter indicates.
She is one of those women who refuse
to grow old gracefully. Her face is
deeply wrinkled and filled with hard
lines. Her hair has been bleached and
the black pencil she uses lavlshly III
her eyebrows. Her smile is slcKly anu
forced. her voice Is cracked, ana alto-
aetber she is a person to inspire only
pity. M,rk
sbe is cautious and yet easy to fool,
,f there is a dollar in sight, as those
from whom she takes her living;
IT first saw her at the Wednesday
evening seance. .,,o of de+ec-
Tn company with a couple or uelec-
tives and Claude Hadley OF tne AllliI
Eslrer society. I went to the seance.
,,as renresented to be Mrs. Hadley
and was admitted without questioning.
Mr.. Hadley had called several tlmes
mon Mrs. REYNOLDS, had been Vlslteo
bv the spirit of his dead motner, WIZ,
by the way is not dead. ana hao peen
advised, he says, to puy properItS A A.
Searchlight, NeVada' lHlouen
Plaisaunce. ~ Do,,
Mr.. Hadley had prepared Mrs. Key,
nolds for my coming. He represented
himself as a man with money VINO hau
come from Kansas City. He SAID ms ms
wife was coming in few DAYS Win
his baby boy, and thus sne vas was i'SbS eLs
TO welcome me without suspicion. She
was even more than ordinarily cordlal
and asked me to bring my baby to see
her.
Two of my friends came later and
they rad a more difficult time to get
in. Mrs. Reynolds was not taking any
chances and she put them in the back
room, though 1 was given seat neal
the cabinet Mrs. Reynolds does not
stop at little things Her seance was
for full forms and when they began
coming they came in all sizes.
Runs Pretty Graft
Before stepping into the cabinet she
invited the skeptical ones to examine
1t. OF course no one did, for all within
that circle were supposed to be firm be-
lievers. There were thirty persons in
the two rooms and II we mad not
broken up the little party so soon Mrs.
Reynolds would have received so cents
from each of them making total of
SIS for couple Of hours graft.
She announced that she wanted no
strangers.
1T have 70 be very careful whom
admit" she said.
"They have run so many people ont
OF town that / guess 1 am the only
phenomenal medium left, and intend
to stay here all winter If they will let
me-"
MRS. Reynolds ought to have a
larger room," said the man who sat
next to me to friend on the other
side.
"This place is much too crowded She
should have large square room built
especially for her. She has to move so
often, too"
While we waited for the visitors from
spiritland, noted the women who
made up the circle. There were sad
faced all, women with white hair and
trusting faces. There were young wo-
men with sallow complexions and stu
pid eyes, and others that revealed
signs of intelligence of kind that
should be able to penetrate the sort OF
shams which Elsie Reynolds offered.
Cruel DeoeptIons
The men We're as plentiful as the
women some OF them were her con-
federates, as the fist fight which closed