Ke Alakai o Hawaii, Volume VI, Number 7, 15 June 1933 — TRICKS OF THE FORTUN ETELLERS [ARTICLE]

TRICKS OF THE FORTUN ETELLERS

By FOREST HILLS I (Contin.ued from last week) "Do you think anyone wlth a bag of trlcks ean be a magieian?" Mulholland asked me, before I could reply sald, "Here,! •fell," and stuck out his.hand.-Hei is a big fellow with a body hard! aj? oak; yet his hand was soft and pliant, until he tensed itj when I discovered it was heavily" padded with miivscles "not dever~ i oped at all in mj- v own hands. That explained how he ean teai ,: a paek of playing cards i'n half and then quarter the halves. Xt helped explain the amazing; deftness with whieh I have seen j him fool a group of writers, artists/and editors clustered at hls elbows in a smart New York luneheon club. He has uneommon powers, all right, but he developed them by practice. "For a while," he told me, "I ; thought fortune telling was just; an idle pastime. Then, to my amazement, I discovered that some of the persons whose for- i tunes I told were actually guidiiig their conduct by my baseless predictions. My trick was to fmd' out secretely a lot about an individual atid then make indirect statements based on this information. For example, you learn from one of his friends that he | is about to sail for China. You! never mention China; that would make him suspicious. You |£y: 'I see a distant land. Thel people have yel!ow faces andj slant eyes. I see your face in a street throng there. You are| smiling. You have just signed a| paper.' After that he tells hisi own fortune and thinks you arej wc>nderful. But, as I say, the I big trick is to get plenty of in-| form'ation about those whose i forttmes you tell—what happen-1 ed to them in sehool; deaths in their family; their social and finaneial position. All these thing» ean be found oūk by any newspaper reporter or any investigator—or fortune U Uer. When these facts are revtaled by means of indirect statements as something disclosed through occult powērs, the subject thinks 'How wonderful'." "How do they.get the names of the unidentified visitors who pop into their establishmehts on the a?>ur of the moment?" I asked. "fcixcuse me a moment," said Muihoiland and vanished into the hailway of his home. In a moment he returned. "I knpw your name, of course, but if I dia not I could identify you now. I could teil you a recent date when you were feeling prosperous. I v,ouid with one telephone eaii find out if you were a good credit risk; that is, if you pay your biils promptiy or not at all." I iooked mystified. "Easy," said Mulholland. "It's out on a litUe lable hidden ih your overcoat whieh you left in the hali as you eame in. The date you bought it is there although you probably have forgotten it; but I'll wager you were feeimg prosperous when you boughfc ttiat eoae. Moreover, the same iahel glves me the name of your taUor, He will know whether you pay your bilis and when I teiephone him, pretending to be another merchant, I might find out a lot more about you. AU fortune tellers have confederates w**ose it ls 4o poliiely the overcoat, brief ea.se or other iuipedimenta of the casuai visitor iato auvother room where lt e&n be explored. Some of thein have evt'n In'en known to employ pickpockets to lift the \vallets of visltors sitt n», in the darkness of seances. If such metliods fail the fortime teller ean alwai's refuse to see ttie vlsitor. "You are told; 'Madame X is busy, very busy. You must eoane haek anatlier day.' KaturaUy ija maki£g an appoii;tincut you give your name «nd probabiy your address. Yery likelj you will be asked for a eard. limt makes it easy, All of us nowadays are r«-1 corded in gome kind of direc-

tories, the telephone book, the ~ rredit-rating llsts. club-member-shjp lists. loeal Who's Whos, or even ihēßocial Register. All any investigatoi- needs is such.a lead. With a few days of research anyone who pretends to be a credit investigator ; <>r a- newspaper reporter, ean. find out en.ough about an mdividual to wrUe an ! impressi.ve short biqgraphy. \ "Now, then, suppose you .have not given your name but when j you walk into the presence of a . strange £ortune telier she greets i you by name. If you are silly j enough to lorget the label in j-your overcoat, you are convincedj at onee, 'Here is iui «extraordiI nai'y person.' From that time on, j you are ready to believe anything I she tells you. But the big p.oint you want to keep in mind is that fortune tellers always deal in tricks." To supplement that whieh Mulholiand told me, I went to poiiee headquarters in New York . City and talked with Detective Sergeant Mary Sullivan who is in charge of the patrolwomen. Some of the womea under her command are charming people. They have tobe because it is frequently their job to get iiito theestablishments of fortune tellers in the guise of rich. pampered women. Mary Sullivan herself has had her fortune told huhdreds of times.- They never agree. "Sometimes," she told me with a smile, "I'm told I'm goin?; to marry a millionaire. Sometimes I've been told I was going to have six children; sometimes that I'il be left a fortune. Usually I'm told something the fortune teller thinks I wsnt to hear. Then, I'll tell the fortune t-ejler's fortune. 'Come along," ril S ay. bad news I'm bringing you. You are under arrest for fortune telling." I've never met one yet who was enough of a clairvoyant to spot. me or to realize that trouble was shadowing her own life. We convict a great many but the supply seems to be inexhaustible. Tbe gypsy fortune tellera givo us e, great deal of trou-' " blo for tney tixe very often downright tl:icrves. One of their eommt»i tr. cks is to ask a 7isitor to put ?,11 iis money in a handkerchief. The gypsy ties a 'magic' knot in the handkerdiief and cautions the subject against untying the knot for a period. of days, 'When you open,' the gypsy will say, 'you will have a lot more money.' When the vicUm does untie that knoL., ie finds a wad of worthlesi> paper. By sleight of hand the gypsy has worked her magie." . . . Everv- big city in the United States has its fortune telling charlatans today. Some ar,e men and some are women. Sonie eall themselves Hmdu mj'gtics;' some are astrologers; sonae sxc numerologists and some are just gypsy fortune teUers. ButjOi of them, of whatever species,. are thriving today because of the depression. They are using the mails, the radio, the columns of some ne\vspapers aS weH as their j private "studios" to profit by the ; bewilderment caused by hard j times.—Prom Popular Mevh&nics j o — ! Some transport planes eonsume 2,500 gailons of gas on a coast to coast trip, Mary: Why do tliey keep lions at the Cl?n tral telephone office'> ! Teaoher: wHy do".you ask i such a question, Mary? i Well, when I eall mv papa sometimes the central girl s&ys "The lion ls busy." r . ■ ! "Here John.. look at this letI can*t make out whetlier H s from my tailor or lawyer. both named Smith " this is wh&t John read: 1 Jiave begun ymtr suit. Remdy w Uued Thursday Sniith.*" Piut,l P Q«ri: Rv ma says rm Smmug beauUful. vr<egarding her i: You lue&n beauutully, boy has impn>nM h not bemg tardy any more>: eariy. Ycm 'osed to be be bWt mm