This week I was in great form on the whole,
and on Thursday I sent all six winners. A thousand pounds will be paid
to any one who can disprove this statement." Considering that the sage
sent you six losers on the Thursday, you naturally feel a little
surprised at his tempestuously confident challenge. All the seers are
alike; they pick names at haphazard from the columns of the newspapers,
and then they pretend to be in possession of the darkest stable secrets.
If they are wrong, and they usually are, they advertise their own
infallibility all the more brazenly. I do not exactly know what getting
money under false pretences may be if the proceedings which I have
described do not come under that heading, and I wonder what the police
think of the business. They very soon catch a poor Rommany wench who
tells fortunes, and she goes to gaol for three months. But I suppose
that the Rommany rawnee does not contribute to the support of
influential newspapers. A sharp detective ought to secure clear cases
against at least a dozen of these parasites in a single fortnight, for
they are really stupid in essentials. One of the brotherhood always sets
forth his infallible prophecies from a dark little public-house bar near
Fountain Court.
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