iness men, engaged in occupations, the operations of which are
presumed to be governed by the nicest mathematical calculations,
are ever so far influenced by the miserable jargon of these
"fortune-tellers," as to seriously consult them in business
matters of great importance.

Such, however, is the humiliating truth.

There are in New York city a number of merchants, bankers,
brokers, and other persons eminent in the business world, and
respectable in all social relations, who never make an important
business move in any direction, until after consultation with one
or another of the Witches of New York.

There are many who are regular periodical customers, and who
visit the shrine of the oracle once a month, or once in six
weeks, as regularly as they make out their balance-sheets, or
take an account of stock, and who guide their future investments
and business ventures as much by the written fifty-cent prophecy
as by either of the other documents.

Many country merchants have also learned this trick, and some of
them are in constant correspondence with the cheap sybils of
Grand Street; and others, when they come to the city for their
stock of goods for the next half year, visit their chosen
fortune-teller and get full and explicit directions how to
conduct their business for the coming six months. Of course,
these proceedings are conducted with the greatest possible
secrecy, and the attention of the writer was first awakened to
this fact by the indiscreet boastings of certain ones of the
witches themselves, who are not a little proud of their
influence, and after observations afforded ample proof and
corroboration of all he had been told.

Great money enterprises have without doubt been seriously
affected by the yea or nay of the Bible and key, and perhaps the
Atlantic Cable Company would have received more hearty assistance,
and its stock more extensive subscriptions in Wall Street, if
certain ones of the fortune-tellers had possessed more faith in
its success, and had so advised their patrons.

Incredible as these statements may seem, they are nevertheless
true, and this fact is another proof that gross superstition is
not confined to the low and filthy parts of the city, where rags
and dirt are the universal rule, but that it has likewise a
thrifty growth in quarters of the town where stand the palaces of
the "merchant princes," and in avenues where rags are almost
unknown, and broadcloth, and gold, and fin