FORTUNE-TELLING

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19633, 20 July 1935, Page 14 (Supplement)

FORTUNE-TELLING

The Clerkenwell Magistrate, Mr F. O. Langley, has, by declaring open war in his court on all fortune-tellers, given them a shrewd blow at the beginning of their profitable summer season, says a writer in the London Daily Mail. Two days ago he fined a woman who had been undiscerning enough to predict the future of two plain-clothes policewomen. At the same time he attacked thousands who make a regular living by “pretending to he in touch with the Powers that Be with regard to the future.” There was even, said Mr Langley, “the possibility of suicide in the case of neurotic women.” What effeejt his warning will have on the army of fortune-tellers (many of whom migrate at this time of year to the seaside resorts, where trade Is always gralifyingly plentiful) and on the credulous women whose money they take remains to be seen. Yet In this so-called enlightened age it Is certain that the profits of petty witchcraft were never more handsome. Most fortune-tellers drift into the business when they find, from a tittle amateur card-reading, how readily the average person (or, more particularly, the average woman) is impressed by their mysterious prophecies. It has the advantage of being very much easier than work, and, if you have a certain glibness and are a fairly shrewd Judge of character, the profits are certain. Your only capital outlay Is a crystal or a pack of cards.

Power for Evil.

The danger creeps in when trade begins to increase. One gullible woman recommends another to you (and if you think women to-day are not gullible just say to the next one you meet: “ I’ve heard of a marvellous new fortune-teller,” and see what she says), and on the •strength of their faith your power begins to grow. The law protects the public very fully against all such charlatans.

Warning All Should Heed. Dupes Who Defeat the Law.

Against its own -credulity it cannot protect them. That is why, in every street, from the shilling palmist to the two-guinea “clairvoyant,” the charlatans continue to flourish. In law, every fortune-teller who accepts money for predicting the future is technically a “rogue and a. vagabond.” The penalties for being a vagrant aro still -severe (though it is a long time since one was dragged through the town on a hurdle), and it is well within the prescribed penalties of vagrancy for a fortune-teller to suffer a heavy fine or go to prison for 12 months.

In law, all persons who pretend to tell fortunes by -cards, crystals, or palmstry, all astrologers and persons who, “with Intent to deceive and impose” pretend to get in touch with the dead, comes under the Vagrancy Act. With all tills panoply of the law ranged against them it might seem strange that fortune-tellers should continue to flourish as they do. The answer lies in the credulity of the countless thousands who consult them. It Is not for the protection -of the robust and sensible that the police take proceedings on -complaint against the fortune-telier.

It is to protect the nervous and the easily deceived and to discourage the growing horde that obtains its easy money by -these -cheaply false pretences.

Even the amateur fortune-teller at a charity bazaar comes, technically, under the Act —which is a fact -some of them might remember before warning their customers of the future in the name of the mothers’ outing or the village hall. Those who warn each customer that they have no supernatural powers and do not profess to foretell the future incur no penalty of the law. Such a formal warning might too have a salutary effect on the nervous credulity of the woman paying a guinea or half a crown for the consultation.