The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-01-10
From the New York Sun.

" gist, astrologist, cairvoyant'
crystal gazer, soothsayer and SO
on-there are more than 1000 of them in
New York ready and anxious to make
their living by telling the rest of the pop
ulation how 1t is going to live. From 10
cents to SIS reading is the price; pro-
vision is made for all.
You may get the best there is to be had
up Harlem way for the price of 81 Up
two flights you must climb to reach
seat of occultism highly recommended by
a neighboring clientele. The soothsayer
is woman and she greets you cheerfully
from her seat behind deal table, where
she looms and Tolls in bulky comfort
she evidently does not fear that a goodly
abundance of the material hampers the
workings OF the purely spiritual and other
orientalism here-the professors rich
brogue excludes it.
You have pleaded slight deafness that
you may take your friend in with you
to interpret by sign language If necessary
and, wonder of wonders, after she of the
brogue has discovered in your hand and
in the cards a handsome husband for you,
unqualified prosperity, pleasant journeys
across the sea and everything else that
is delightful to mention and that could be
hoped for for 81 she looks closer and
closer, and
'Ah, darlin', what is this see? Yes
no-yesi Now don't you fret and worry,
darlin'-sweet smile she has, hasn't she?'
this to your friend-''Now don't you fret
and worry any more over that deafness.
see 1t and I tell you true, 1t is going to
be taken away from you. a miracle when
you least expect it. Do you hear me?
You are going to get your hearing back
Do you hear?
And SO she shrielSs the glad tidings over
and over into your poor ears till you al
most wish that the opposite dire prophecy
was being made and would straightway
come true After giving you careful di-
rectfons as to how to aid the miracle, for
mulas for lamentations to be gone over in
the mind while making strange signs
over the ear she accepts the fee you ten
der as a slight though inadequate re-
turn for all the blessings of which you
have been assured. Happy prophecies are
more popular than the other kinds with
the prophets, for they are more popular
with the clients.
Your deafness accompanies you to an
Oriental bedraped establishment down.
town on Sixth avenue. 1t is accepted by
the genuine scientific Egyptian" who
do1 f1,A
tries, silently closing DOORS befezzed at
tendants and all. but he can do nothing
for you, as he shouts with measured ac-
cents into your long suffering ears, with
out an appointment and IS. And you
must admit that this is very little to
ask in return for the imposing decorations
and the dictum of him whose family ex-
perience dates three centuries back, what
ever that may mean; who speaks the Ian
guages and who has read the hand of
king.
But s5i Alasi you shake your head
sadly and turn away, never to know
whether your ears will be made new
again, when the professor behring's him
self of his assistant, marvellous reader
for 81. So you take heart and are shown
into a second room, smaller but more ta-
pestried, with shaded lights and the eff
feet of myriads of invisible eyes peering.
The too expensive sovereign reader
accompanies you to keep you company
your interpreting friend has been firmly
excluded-while you wait for the assist
ant He converses amiably on such mat
ters as the given names of your parents,
the locality in which you were Ill three
years ago and other drawing out topics
while the tapestries wave eerily in the
shaded light. He has just read your own
given name telepathically through psych-
ic hand pressure when the assistant en-
tiers and tells you wonderful things. You
drink it all in, most eagerly Of all the
news that the ultimate recovery Of your
hearing is certain, and leave half prom
Using to return for the s. worth.
This outfit Is typical of the many gang
outfits which operate in the city It is
clever, undeniably clever. and the SOW
ereign reader is the cleverest of all, but
he, too, fell to the deaf trick and shouted
as loudly as did the fat Harlemite.
The Tenderloin district IL filled with
prophets of varying applications. A
widely advertised school of mental
sciences, teaching largely by mail. when
visited in its third floor home disclosed
the fact that the professor, whose name
is followed by an imposing array Of titu-
lar initials, is a negress For sums rang
ing up to 500 she imparts at the school or
preferably by mall instruction in the
sciences of phenology, physiognomy,
psychology. palmistry, anthropology, an
atomy, physiology and hygiene. She APP
pears to carry on fourishing and
profitable business among both races
and to distribute appendage letters of dis
tinction for other names as freely as she
has added them to her own.
Length of days is In her right hand
and in her left riches and honor" quotes
the ebony seeress from Proverbs Iii. is,
in sort OF justification typical of her
race and again she quotes from Isaiah
Xix, 1s: Behold, have given thee
upon the palms of my hand" and SO on
and so on.
A little further up town you may find
all the accompaniment of splendor you
desire and can pay for. This is the re-
gion of the fashionable clientele and you
have to pay the price of a fashionable
reading or go without. The reading is no
longer. may be shorter. in fact. but the
atmosphere is expensive.
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