The city journals frequently contain such advertisements as the following:

A TEST MEDIUM.—THE ORIGINAL MADAME F--- tells everything, traces absent friends, losses, causes speedy marriages, gives lucky numbers. Ladies, fifty cents; gentlemen, one dollar. 464 ---th Avenue.

A FACT—NO IMPOSITION. THE GREAT EUROPEAN Clairvoyant. She consults you on all affairs of life. Born with a natural gift, she tells past, present, and future; she brings together those long separated; causes speedy marriages; shows you a correct likeness of your future husband or friends in love affairs. She was never known to fail. She tells his name; also lucky numbers free of charge. She succeeds when all others fail. Two thousand dollars reward for any one that can equal her in professional skill. Ladies, fifty cents to one dollar. Positively no gents admitted. No 40 --- Avenue.

It seems strange that, in this boasted age of enlightenment, the persons who make such announcements as the above can find any one simple enough to believe them. Yet, it is a fact, that these persons, who are generally women, frequently make large sums of money out of the credulity of their fellow creatures. Every mail brings them letters from persons in various parts of the country. These letters are generally answered, and the contents have disgusted more than one simpleton. The information furnished is such as any casual acquaintance could give, and just as trustworthy as the reports of the “reliable gentleman just from the front,” used to prove during the late war. The city custom of these impostors is about equal to that brought to them from the country by means of their advertisements. Some of them make as much as one hundred dollars per day, all of which is a clear profit. The majority earn from three to six dollars per day. Servant girls are profitable customers. Indeed, but for female credulity the business would go down.

Still, there are many male visitors. Speculators, victims of the gaming table and the lottery, come to ask for advice, which is given at random. The woman knows but little of her visitors, and has no means of learning anything about them. Sometimes her statements are found to be true, but it is by the merest accident.

The clairvoyants do not hesitate to confess to their friends, in a confidential way, of course, that their pretensions are mere humbuggery, and they laugh at the credulity of their victims, whilst they encourage it. It seems absurd to discuss this subject seriously. We can only say to those who shall read this chapter, that there is not in the City of New York an honest fortune-teller or clairvoyant. They knowingly deceive persons as to their powers. It is not given to human beings to read the future—certainly not to such wretched specimens as the persons who compose the class of which we are writing. The only sensible plan is to keep your money, dear reader. You know more than these impostors can possibly tell you.

Many of these fortune-tellers and clairvoyants are simply procuresses. They draw women into their houses, and ply them so with temptations, that they frequently ruin them. This is the real business of most of them. They are leagued with the keepers of houses of ill-fame. No woman is safe who enters their doors.

The women also offer for sale “amulets,” “charms,” or “recipes,” which they declare will enable a person to win the love of any one of the opposite sex, and excite the admiration of friends; or which will “give you an influence over your enemies or rivals, moulding them to your own will or purpose;” or which will “enable you to discover lost, stolen, or hidden treasures,” etc., etc. For each or any of these charms, from three to five dollars is asked, “with return postage,” when sent by mail. All these, as well as “love powders,” “love elixirs,” and the like, are either worthless, or are composed of dangerous chemical substances. Strange to say, the sale of these things is large. The world is full of fools, and the best proof of it is that two of the most noted women of New York, who practise the arts we have described, are worth respectively one hundred thousand dollars and eighty thousand dollars.

II. MATRIMONIAL BROKERS.

There are several women in the city who advertise to introduce strangers into the best society, and to procure wives and husbands from the same element for their customers. As a general rule, these women are simply procuresses. If, however, a man desiring to marry a woman in this city, seeks their aid, they will always find some means of assisting him. The charge for their services is either a percentage on the lady’s fortune, or a certain specified sum. The woman, or broker, will devise some means of making the acquaintance of the lady against whom her arts are to be directed, and will proceed cautiously, step by step, until she has caused her victim to meet the man for whom she is working. The arts used vary according to circumstances, but they rarely fail of success. Men who wish to accomplish the ruin of some innocent girl, also seek the aid of these brokers, and frequently, through their assistance, effect their purpose. If it is necessary, the victim, after being allured to the broker’s house, is drugged. These women are the vampires of society. It is very difficult for the authorities to make a case against them, and they generally go unpunished.

The offers of these wretches to procure wives for men wishing to be married, are often accepted by simpletons living in country districts. The fool is induced to come to the city, where he is introduced to a woman who is perhaps a prostitute, or a servant girl, or one who is willing to marry any man who will support her. She readily enters into the arrangement proposed by the broker, and marries the silly fellow, who goes back to his rural home with her, thinking he has married a lady.