The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1910-11-12
BY "PRoF." sooTHSAYER.

BY PROF." SOO 1SAYEh.
l was telling you about women
who want a fortune teller to re
move their husbands.
You'd be surprised to know how
many women there are who are
paying money to fortune tellers
every day in the belief that the for
tune teller can cause the evil spirits
to remove their husbands from the
world. This kind of business is the
best paying business for fortune
tellers. After woman is com
pletely in their grasp and tells them
everything she wants-how she
wants her husband to die, for in
stance, so that she can marry an
other mantle fortune teller gets
her to put her statement down in
writing. 1t will read something like
this:
"a hereby agree to pay Pro-
fessor So-and-So $50 a week
until he gets the evil spirits to
kill my husband, and when my
husband dies promise to pay
him $500 of the life insurance
money. Signed, etc"
Now, you wouldn't think many
women would write thing like
that, would you? Well, piles OF
them do. I've had scores of such
papers in my hands, as every for
tune teller has. After he gets a
paper like that, signed by woman
it's a case of bleeding. She can't
squeal, and she turns over to him
money which her husband thinks
goes for meat and groceries
There's many man paying money
to fortune tellers who doesn't know
thing about it.
You know l told you that when
started out in Minneapolis l tried
to live on the Is and so cent read.
ings. Well | found out from some
other fortune tellers that it wasn't
the readings, but the confidential
graft that came after reading that
paid the rent and bought the dia-
monds and the newspaper advertis-
ing space. So started out to work
the thing right.
l married a pretty girl, and we
took French name and went to
M MINI. l taught her lot OF
stuff from the palmistry book, and
l borrowed some money and took
some of hers and bought a part OF
fortune teller's plant. A plant Is
made up of old city directories and
newspaper clippings about people
I've got plant now that's worth
$4,000 I've got old city directories
running back many years, from all
the prominent cities in the country
You see, as soon as my wife, by the
envelope trick that told you about
finds out the name of the customer
and where she was born, l run out
into another room and look in the
city directory for that city and that
year. There l find it all-the name
of her father, her mother, her sis
tiers and brothers and whether they
were brakemen or clerks and the
address of their home. l slip this
information to my wife, as she's
reading the palm or the cards, and
it helps to gain the customers con
fidence. 1t does more than that; ii
nearly knocks her over with sur.
prise as my wife doles it out to her
with a worried scowl on her face
as if it were hard work. She makes
believe the work is hard because
the customer hasn't given her com
plete trust and confidence.
Nvnl1 tho fret nocn of roa1 e.
we got was a corker. 1t scared us
out of town. We hadn't been in
M more than two weeks before
an elderly woman came to us. My
wife handled her, with my aid. We
gained her confidence and then she
told us that her husband was an in
valid and had been bedridden for
many years. She wanted to marry
a childhood sweetheart. Believe me,
we hear some fine love stories. If
her husband would die he would
not only be out of his suffering, but
she would get $4,000 in life insur.
ance and could marry the man she
wanted. She was ignorant and it
wasn't hard to prove to her that we
could put the evil spirits to work.
She gave me $3.50 and signed a
paper saying that when her hus-
band died she would give me $3.50
more.
She used to come to us every
day, and We used to tell her to re.
peat such phrases as Hi diddle
dick" and other things we made up
This went or about two weeks
and | kept assuring her that the
evil spirits would do the work.
really was ashamed of myself and
so was Belle, but we've got out of
that stage now. All of us do, in
time.
One morning at o'clock our
doorbell rang. l lighted the gas
and went to the door and the old
woman dashed in past me to the