The Prescott daily news., 1915-06-17
Too Many Women Were Seek
 ing Aid of CIairvoyants.
NEW SWINDLES SPRING UP.
Soldiers In Trenches Made Excuses For All Sorts of Crimes, While Latest Amusement Is Writing Love Letters to Men at Front Just to Cheer Them on Battle Line.

The happy days of fortune telling In Paris are over. Mediums, clairvoyants, astrologers, readers of palms and cards have now to make their living some other way.
 The police found that too many wom- en were spending their pittances in fortune telling parlors. So the ban has gone forth and in one week sixty-nine professors of occult knowledge were brought before the magistrates.
 What harm does it do?" they asked. We always tell encouragi things. We always prophecy letters and good news. It keeps people cheered up and happy"
 Many of them said their only sons, their husbands, were at the front All source of revenue was cut off and they had to do something. But the court was obdurate and said the profession was entirely out of keeping with the seriousness of the times.
 They Neatly Evade Law
 Some of them, however, continue to prophecy, but adhere strictly to the letter of the law in not giving any definite date. For instance, one of the best known of them told the fortune of a young actress in this neatly evasive way
 You will receive Il letter soon. 1 can't tell you exactly when. The pc lice have forbidden me to-
 And for that little phrase she ask ed $2
 In the Paris police courts many pa thetic cases are seen. There are many which are due solely to the war, new professions and new crimes which have sprung up.
 There are men with one leg who get uniform and go around soliciting aims under the pretense that they lost the leg In the trenches. What scores of men and women up for theft al- ways say is:
 Your honor. 1 have q son (a brother or perhaps husband) at the front. 1 know what he Is suffering there in the trenches, and I couldn't resist the wish to send him something. Alas, l had no money and that is why l committed this unpardonable act. But my love was stronger than my conscience"
 Having heard thls about twenty times one morning, one of the judges grew little weary of 1t. When a gf ho win Cr given short weight in butter-only half of what she was being paid for, In fact-he said:
 Well, you, at any rate, can't make use of the argument that you were sending something to the trenches"
 She Had the Old Excuse.
 Tt comes to the same thing" the woman said calmly. Il have friend In the trenches, and the morning this thing happened l got word that he was seriously wounded. l simply lost my head and didn't know what I was do- ing That was why 1 didn't notice how much butter l was selling
 Every sort of charitable society has DSSll IOILilttl Ill ul clAiNb thN "oA' There are those that concern them selves with the physical welfare of the soldiers and those of the moral and religious. But it remained for the jour nal named Fantasia to launch the lat est and evidently the most popular.
 This new and novel organization is called the Society For the Flirt at the Front and came into being through the letter of two sergeants to the Fantasio, in which they begged that paper to do something to provide them with a lit tie of the tender sentiment of life as relief from the strain of the trenches.
 They were so weared, the soldiers said. with the continual masculinity of the trenches that they thought if some kind and thoughtful young ladies of Paris would only write them tender epistles they would feel cheered to take the offensive against the Ger mans.
 Consequently the Fantasia has un- dertaken the work in all seriousness, forwarding such letters as are address ed tO us care Dy moueSt H1dluehs Who do not wish to sign their real names and acting in return as q distributing postoffice for the effusions which come back from the soldiers.
 Magistrate Harry Miller af Jamaica, N. r., sentenced Mrs Margaret Askins to eternal sobriety." She accepted the Iifa Snptapoa with thant.S ana loft tho court with her husband. whose plea to the court won for her that sentence instead of another