The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1920-06-02

fortune teIlef II q tat pale woman
With the alert and wary eyes which
belong to men and women and 9TH
er animals that live by wit and
cunning. She Is curious being.
half fraud and half fanatic. The
method by which she pears into
your future u an absurdly simple
trick, easily analysed and easily
defeated. And yet beyond . doubt
she more than half believes n her
own supernatural powers.
She tells You that she 10 . proph-
ct like the prophets Of old. and es-
pecially like Daniel. and that she
has three angel guides who tell her
Of the future and through whom
she communicates with the cead.
Her voice rises dramatically and
her green eyes roll as she tells you
how the secrets Of the universe are
revealed to her power. Then her
voice sinks to . weird low tone a.
she tells yoa that she has enemies.
not less than fifty Of them, and
that they are fighting her through
the black astral with evil sugges-
ton. Through the black astral they
are able to hover about her unseen.
She hears them In her room at
night; they move furniture and
rustic curtains. She feels the cold
wind OF their passing and the faint
disturbing shock Of their evil sug-
gestions. But is she not afraid Of
them? Not she. She repeats q
certain formula and hurls into
them with all the force Of her
mighty will her own counter sug-
gestion and they are COMPOUNDED
and fly away moaning.
A silly old woman, you will say,
with q touch OF paranoia taking
the form Of persecutional delusions.
True enough. Then why write q
story about her? Because she is a
part Of almost every American
community, q factor in our ma
tional life. There is demand for
such as she, and all kinds Of PEG,
pie make it. This woman, for ex-
ample, claims that society women
and members OF congress are
among her patrons. She may lie
! about this, but certain it is that
taxicabs and automobiles bear
prosperous and intelligent looking
people to her door. and they pay
from 81 to IS each to listen to her
strange rigmarole. She is full
(, brother to the medicine man Of the
red savage and in essence exactly
the same thing as the voodoo wom-
an of the Haitian negro. She ha(
no more place in civilization than
has cannibalism. And yet she is
one of many here in Washington,
one Of thousands, no doubt, in the
whole country. And America, high
and low, black and white, troops to
her door. She exists in many forms
from the primitive gypsy appealing
to the lowest types. to the so-called
scientific palmist and occult ply
biologist, who stir a SAVIOR of sci
ence into their broth OF savagery
to make it appeal to a more sophis-
!; ticated taste. She is the visible
proof that we have not after all
travelled so far from the spook-
haunted jungles of primitive life.
She is the cloven foot of the satyr
projecting grotesquely from under
our neat garments Of civilization.
How She Works. Z
You shuttle the cards and she
spreads them before her and con
contracts" Her method of reading
your past is shrewd but simple
Il see water" she says. "You
have been across-to Europe?"
No, you have never been across
But I see water-not so much
perhaps-but water, surely water.
You finally admit that you cross
ed the Potomac in a rowboat last
Sunday.
"Ah, that is i'll only knew wa.
ter. Do you know a dark man
very dark man."
Now everyone in Washington
knows dark men. The janitor oil
your apartment house is one of thu
darkest men on earth. So you ad,
NIT that you know a dark man.
Watch out for him. Keep youl
eye on him. He is going to do you