here was no object to deceive, and at times when their hearts
were full of grateful love for those who had interposed to save
them from utter despair, have in all simple truthfulness and
honor, related their life-histories. It is impossible to give
even a plausible guess at the aggregate number of young women, in
this great city, who compromise their honorable reputations in
the course of a single year; but of those whose shame becomes
publicly known, and especially of those who eventually enter
houses of ill-repute, the percentage whose fall was accomplished
through the instrumentality, more or less direct, of the
professional fortune-tellers, is astounding. And a curious fact
connected with this subject is, that of these unfortunates who
thus wander astray, not one in ten but has ever after the most
superstitious and implicit faith in the supernatural powers of
the witch. Each one sees in her own case certain things that have
been foretold to her by the fortune-teller with such circumstantiality
of time and place, and which have afterwards "come to pass," so
exactly in accordance with the prophecy, that she can only
account for it by ascribing supernatural prescience to the
prophetess.

The true solution of the matter is, of course, that the wonderful
fulfilments are achieved by means of confederacy and collusion
with parties with whom the dupe is never brought in contact; a
common _modus operandi_ of this sort is elsewhere described.

Nor are the fortune-tellers and the brothel-keepers by any means
content with playing into each other's hands in a general sort of
way; there are, in New York, several _firms_, consisting each of
a fortune-teller and a mistress of a bawdy-house, who have
entered into a perfectly organized business partnership, and who
ply their fearful trade with as much zeal and enthusiasm as is
ever exhibited in the active competition between rival commercial
houses engaged in legitimate trade.

Although this fact is one that cannot be substantiated by the
production of any sworn documents, it is as well proven by the
observations of keen-eyed detectives attached to the police
department, and to some of the charitable institutions of this
city, as though attested articles of co-partnership could be
exhibited with the signatures of the contracting parties attached
thereto. A gentleman of this city, in whose word I have the most
perfect confidence, tells me that he once, by a curious accident,
ove