Superstition always goes hand in hand with Higher Civilization. While we have not so many ladies and gentlemen—still known to the Law as vagabonds—who follow the cult of Esoterica, as they have in Paris, we still have more than enough, and there is never any issue of any paper which does not contain some reference to their activities.
Any coloured gentleman who comes from an exotic clime can safely establish himself in business with the aid of Oriental robes, secured secondhand on the hire purchase system, with a few heavy curtains in a dark room, sixpennyworth of cheap incense, one crystal globe and two stuffed birds, and he will soon collect remunerative clientele at what is known as "a bob a nob",.. until the police step in. He will then be hauled up and have to pay 40 shillings, which represents about one day's work, since the spirits work overtime' and apparently never charge more than ordinary rates. On & second conviction he will be fined £5, and if he again troubles the Courts the grateful ratepayer will have to keep him in some State-supported establishment to which a King's carriage will take him with certain others of the baser sort.
For years it has been a cold time for palmists, crystal-gazers. dream-readers, fortune tellers, and the rest of the fraternity, at the hands of the police. It is one of the drawbacks of Scotland Yard that they have no imagination. How can you expect 2 man who wears sixteens in boots to have any? Asa result the fraternity has been harassed all over London. and even in the provinces, until at last they have discovered that their business, while remunerative, suffers at the hands of an unsympathetic world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.