Spiritualism is booming. Yet, oddly enough, there seems to be a slump in the fortune-telling trade.
Or is it simply that the trade has been driven underground?
Scotland Yard itself confesses to it reports nothing like so many inbeing rather puzzled. There were,
formations under this head laid in 19% as in 1919, or in any of the war years.
Possibly the police campaign forced the fortune-tellers to seek a less picturesque (and profitable) means of livelihood. Possibly they have migrated to Paris, where there are said to be 35,000 men and women making a fair income out of this and kindred forms of occultism. Possibly they have simply adopted some form of protective colouring.
"My own view is that there is more fortune-telling going on than ever,"' was the opinion of a gentleman who has been critically interested in occultism for the past ten years. 'Some of the practitioners now call themselves miniature painters' or manicurists.' So long as nobody lays an information against these bumbler followers of the trade the police don't bother them.
"But the cloak for practically all the big practitioners is spiritualism. Dozens of West End mediums' are really nothing more nor less than fashionable fortune-tellers. Of course, they would deny it. They call themselves by al! sorts of pseudo-scientific names. But it's simply the old game played under new rules, and for bigger stakes."
Since the war ended there has been a genuine slump in what may] lief that their "boys" are safe.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.