A CONFIDENCE TRICK.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 114, 6 July 1911, Page 7

A CONFIDENCE TRICK.

Life, it has been said, is at once surface and symbol. Those who regard it as the latter, do so at their peril, for they must if they would make progress in their studies o I ■jccult sciences run the risk of falling into the clutches of the followers of : ‘Mr. Sludge.” Last year, two Amori■ans arrived in London, and after paying six months’ rent in advance, wore able to establish themselves in i suite of rooms -as clairvoyants, rystal-gazers, and palmists. Every : iy a little hand of sandwich-men boro ■'acards, telling choir merits, through the streets. A lady heard of thoni, mid went to their rooms. The shrewd oimg man in charge asked that she .haul'd write her name, and the date nd year of her birth, upon a slip of Kipor, and ihb name of any relative •ivho had died lately, taking care that •10 one saw what she had written. The .visard then made a great impression m her by telling hei the particulars .die had sot down. It was done by a •oimnon conjuring trick, but she suspected nothing. Having prepared the round well, the young’ man told her ! -v.t her money was in a bank, and ait it was not safe there. She must ithdraw it at once, or she would ;se it. They would he pleased to del it on her behalf. Here was a oriunate discovery. The lady thank'd the clairvoyant for his timely .arcing, and hurried to the bank, here she withdrew a cum of £553. ’he was mud in hanky notes, and, , idr a sigh of relief that sue had reovored her money in time, she wont ydhdiy back, as she had arranged to in, to the clairvoyant. Then, naiivally, the cliaivvoyant■ disappeared. Viien tiie mail left England the poise had the matter in hand. Somevhero about the story there , should >0 a moral, but to the cynical it oukl scorn that it is merely another (lustration of a proverb that has wea quoted too often—-‘‘A fool and ••is (or her) money are soon parted.”