BOGUS PROPHETS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4430, 22 August 1939, Page 3

BOGUS PROPHETS

UNSCRUPULOUS WOMEN IN NEW RACKET

Unscrupulous women who batten, on the credulity of the more imaginative of their sex are reaping a rich harvest from a new “ fortune-telling ” racket m Britain, states ‘ Reynolds Mews.’ Gangs of these “ practitioners ” are travelling about the towns and villages in motor cars.

They know that the old game of telling fortunes would bring them scant reward, so they have invented a new “gag.” They "select special areas, and stage mock seances and ‘‘ readings ” in the homes of their clients. They use crystal-gazing, hand-reading, and cards, and by their system of “ divination ” pretend to remove the shadow of illness or unemployment from the household. After garaging their cars they “ work ” streets in the special areas as hawkers of charms and lotions, threatening to lay a curse on the house if they are turned away.

In going from door to door, to tell the talc of destiny, the “ mystics ” arc quick to discover the mentality of young wives and girls, and they are astute in the selection of their victims. It is known that in some cases wives have paid high prices to be assured, so they believe, of future married happiness, immunity from illness, or for cures for invalid and delicate children. Other “ seers ” operate in back streets and working-class districts. Week after week they are filching money which the victims can ill alford to lose. Many care-lined wives of unemployed men are persuaded to part with money because these “ prophets ” pretend to find their clients a ‘ ‘guide to work ” for their husbands. And poor women, grasping at any straw to revive their fortunes, take the bait. The police have declared war on these “ seers,” and it is only lack of courage on the part of victims that prevents a round-up of a small army ot women who are making a good living from the credulous-

“ People who have been duped are too fearful of the consequences to their domestic happiness, and shrink from disclosing their foolishness in the courts, and that is what these so-called ‘ for-tune-tellers ’ play on,” a police official stated in an interview.