FORTUNE-TELLING.
A 'melancbftly but too 'common ; 'phrase of " colonial experience " ; turned up at Darliughurst on Monday, wheu the «"*trologer, Hassan Bradstreet, com ,fted of " obtaining money under false pretences," was brougbt *up for sentence. Having told many fortunes, the luckless Hassan—•" Hassan " doubtltAS to give him the full Eastern flavor proper to a professor of the stars—proceeded to recount his •own. Born under Mars he was at an early age for a military carreer and-provided with a commission, when a fatal conjunction with Mercury compelled him to sell out, and a subsequent transit of Venus landed him in Kent street, the keeper of a house of jtiprofitable business it is no wonder if itJ +his moral city, he was reduced to starvation,and being too proud to work and far too honest to steal he bethought him of the " pastime of his youth," •and took to feeling bumps and swindling silly women. One has seen and heard of many ex-military officers in divers curious positions in this curious country. An ex-captain of dragoons long officiated as " boots "at the principal hotel at "Wagga, Toinarkable chiefly for the sharpness-with'- which ■he looked after his "tips';" and for many years an ex-guardsman, and the son of a bishop to boot, sold matches at the corner: of Erinces-bridge in MelLonrne. There is an ex-military friend of our own.,now, who would be happy to sell you any number of shares in any number of companies at any moment, and who, we fancy sometimes ury have been, or may yet be, in the sime regiment with Hassan. But ■Barely the fates never played military ibsvell a harder turn than to transform him into a fortune-teller, with a dash of pimp! This estimable character, who we wonder did not plead piety as well as poverty) inasmuch as he had been accustomed to trust to the •heavens for his bread, had one more reason to thank his " stars," when Mr Justice Eaucett, touched possibly with the fallen fortunes, as much of the ancient u science " now suuk to a common misdemeanour, as of the ex-officer turned brothel-keeper, sentenced him to the mild punishment of a two month's eclipse in Darling--hurst gaol.
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Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 1033, 27 December 1872, Page 3
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363FORTUNE-TELLING. Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 1033, 27 December 1872, Page 3
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