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Show GOTHAM FAKERS REAP HARVEST All Classes Bilked by Swindlers in Guise of Fortune Tellers. New York. It's this time of year that the fortune teller comes buck from playing the tank town carni-vuis carni-vuis nnd sideshows and prepares to reap a winter harvest from those most gullible of creatures-real creatures-real New Yorkers. Which led Chief Magistrate McAdoo to lean down from his bench a short time ago and issue a more dire than usual warning. The chief magistrate phrased It nicely, adjuring "all confiding and credulous men and women" to avoid swindlers in the guise of seers, seeresses and spiritualists. The fakers reap among all classes of New York society, but especially do they harvest among the lower middle classes and glean their life savings. Magistrate McAdoo cited several Instances of the sucker season thus far, among them the prize stories of the "seven black curses" and the Brooklyn political boss who sprinkled good luck powder on the meeting room floor. It was from the dapper and dramatic dra-matic Alfred Byrne, the chief magistrate's mag-istrate's secretary, that interesting amplification of these stories came. Mr. Byrne collected the statistics on which his chief based his warning, warn-ing, and, being a good raconteur, retold them. The Seven Black Curses. "The scene of the 'seven black curses' was in Ridgewood, Queens. The characters included a hard-headed hard-headed German woman who married mar-ried an Irishman and opened a restaurant; res-taurant; the fortune telling lady; the Irish husband, and an honest, hon-est, non superstitious policewoman. Business had not been so good In the restaurant. "So," said Mr. Byrne, "this lady went to the fortune teller. This gypsy looked her over, told her a few nice things that were going to happen to her, and said come back in a few days. And the woman went back hard-headed German woman, too. "So now the fortune teller shuffled shuf-fled up a deck of cards and began dealing them out She dealt out seven all black. 'My heavens,' she said to the restaurant woman. 'You see that? All black I Ace, king, queen, jack-r-all black. It's the seven black curses I May heaven pity you, my good woman I' "You can imagine how this woman wom-an felt by now. She pleaded with the fortune teller to do something for her. The fortune teller just shook her head sadly. 'It's no use,' she said. 'You see the cards dealt out there? Seven of them ail black. The seven black curses. There's nothing I can do for you but pity you.'' Piling on the Horrors. "So she ushered the poor woman out of her place, terrified, knowing know-ing well that she would come back. In a day or two back she came. She was in tears. 'Please,' she said to the fortune teller, 'you've got to help me.' "The fortune teller got out her crystal ball and looked in it and said: 'Each one of those black curses is seven years of bad luck. You've got a business, ain't you?' 'Yes,' said the woman. 'Restaurant business.' '1 thought so,' said the fortune teller. 'Well, your business will be ruined. And you've got a husband, ain't you?' And the poor woman said yes, she had a husband. hus-band. 'Well,' said the fortune teller, tell-er, 'he will run away from you. And you've got some children, ain't you?' And the woman said yes, she had a son. 'He will be run over by a truck,' said the fortune teller, 'and be burned up.' "By this time the poor woman was almost out of her head and crying for the fortune teller to take the seven black curses off her. So finally the gypsy said, 'Wait a minute,' min-ute,' and reached behind her for a telephone. She pretended like she was talking to some one. "'Ten dollars a year for the curses?' she said, like she was arguing ar-guing with the person at the other end of the line. 'Why, that would be seven times seven ly $490. No, that's too much. This .woman is a poor woman. What? You'll do it for $400? All right, I'll tell her.' Irish Husband to Rescue. "So the fortune teller told the woman : 'For $400 he will take off the seven black curses, and that's cheap. Now, you come back . tomorrow to-morrow with the $400 and we'll take off the curses.' And the poor woman went home still more terrified, ter-rified, for she had only $150 in the bank. "Well, her good Irish husband noticed no-ticed how worried she hud been for the last several days, and he finally wormed it out of her. He didn't take any stock in the fortune teller or her seven black curses, either, and he went right out and told a cop. "That's the wny we get all these cases the people that are gypped tell the cop on the beat, and then we have to arrest them on warrants. war-rants. We can't touch the fortune tellers except when people complain, com-plain, and then it's too late to save the poor people's money. "The next day the restaurant woman went back to the fortune teller with her $150, and nlong with her took Mary Sullivan, the policewoman. police-woman. Mary waited in the anteroom ante-room aud the woman went in. Fortune Teller Takes Air. "'Well,' said the fortune teller, 'did you bring the $400'." The woman said no; all she had in the world was $150, and wouldn't the fortune teller please take it and remove the seven curses? The fortune teller said no she would not. Then she asked, who it was the woman had brought with her, and she said one of her waitresses. 'Well,' said the fortune teller, "waitresses make good money, and maybe she'll loan you some to make up the $400. Go bring her in.' "But when the fortune teller caught sight of the policewoman she ducked out of the back door and slammed it. We had to get a warrant war-rant to make the arrest." Mr. Byrne said the fortune teller has been on bail out in Ilidgeway for trial on a disorderly conduct charge, the only one which can be made when no money changes hands. Then he went on to tell about the Brooklyn politician and the good luck powders. He cauie all the way over to the chief magistrate's office of-fice to make his complaint realizing realiz-ing after a while that he had been played for a sucker. Was Precinct Captain. "This fellow is captain of an election elec-tion district no, I won't tell you which party," began Byrne, "and there is a lady captain in the same district. The captain's wife went to a fortune teller who told her that her husband and the lady captain were a little closer than being just political friends, and the husband went hot footed to the fortune teller tell-er to jump on her for saying such things. That's the way, he said, that he came to go there in the first place. "He got to talking with the fortune for-tune teller, he said, aud she told him about this powdar that would bring good luck when you sprinkled it around. lie got to believing it, I guess, and paid her $5 for a little can of it. "He was kind of embarrassed telling tell-ing me all this, and I was embarrassed embar-rassed asking him if he actually fell for the bunk. So I put it easily : " 'And did you use any of the powder?' and he said, yes, sheepishly. sheep-ishly. "She had told him if he sprinkled it around in the meeting room the ticket would sure be elected, elect-ed, and he did. But when he got to thinking it over he realized what a sucker he'd been played for, so over he came. We got out a warrant war-rant and arrested the woman." Judge Issues Warning, Mr. Byrne could have gone on nil the rest of the day telling such stories, but these iliustrate the point. In person and from his secretary sec-retary the chief magistrate had heard enough to warrant his warning. warn-ing. "Not," said Mr. Byrne, "that it will do much good, though. I'm afraid it won't. These poor people who fall for fortune tellers and the fake spiritualists (these latter nre the ones that trim the what you might say upper classes), won't listen to any warnings. They just say all we unbelievers are just too prejudiced aud dumb to understand under-stand it!" |
