The Witches of New York

But, although his ardor had not cooled, and though his strength and determination still held out, he had grown slightly cautious, and had conceived a plan for going like a spy into the camp of the enemy, and there thoroughly reconnoitring the positions that he had to storm, and at the same time making himself master of the wiles and stratagems that were the peculiar weapons of the female foe, and so learn some infallible way to capture a first-quality wife. At any rate, he would give himself the benefit of the doubt and make the experiment. He would a-wooing go, not apparelled in conquering broadcloth, in subjugating marseilles, or overpowering doeskin, but carrying the unaccustomed, but not less potent weapons of laces, moire-antique, crinoline, and gaiters.

In fact, there was also a stern necessity in the case, for the lady on whom he had now set his young affections was particular as to her customers, and did not admit the shirt-collar gender to the honor of her confidence.

But was this to stop him? If the lady shut out the whole masculine world from the inevitable fascinations of her superabundant charms, was it not for sweet charity’s sake, that a whole community might not go into ecstatic frenzies over her peerless beauty, and all men, being stricken in love of the same woman, go to cutting each other’s throats with bowie-knives and other modern improvements!

It was easy to see that Madame Morrow did not want to become another Helen, to be abducted to some modern Troy, and have a ten years’ row, and any quantity of habeas corpuses, and innumerable contempts of interminable courts, after the modern fashion of conducting a strife about a runaway maiden.

Such a considerate beauty, veiling her undoubted fascinations from the rude gaze of man, from purely prudential reasons, must be a prize of rare value, and well worth the winning.

Her qualifications in magic, too, seemed to be of the very first order, to judge from her notification to the wonder-seeking world.

“Astonishing to All. – Madame Morrow claims to be the most wonderful astrologist in the world, or that has ever been known, as I am the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter, who was also a great astrologist. I have a natural gift to tell past, present, and future events of life. I have astonished thousands during my travels in Europe. I will tell how many times you are to be married, how soon, and will show you the likeness of your future husband, and will cause you to be speedily married, and you will enjoy the greatest happiness of matrimonial bliss and good luck through your whole life. I will also show the likeness of absent friends and relations, and I will tell so true all the concerns of life that you cannot help being astonished. No charge, if not satisfied. Gentlemen not admitted. No. 76 Broome street, near Columbia.”

There was but one thing in this that troubled the “Individual” with any particularly sharp pangs. He intended to marry the Astonisher, but he was a little bothered what to do with the seven daughters, for of course the Madame would not fail to follow the excellent example of her revered mother, and would never stop short of the mystic number.

He finally concluded that all his duties as a father would be faithfully performed if he taught them to read, write, and play on the piano, and then gave them each a sewing-machine to begin the world with. He did think of bringing them up for the ballet, but their success in that profession being somewhat dependent on the size and symmetry of their dancing implements, he felt it would be improper to positively determine on that line of business before he had been favored with a sight of the young ladies. Reserving, therefore, his decision on this knotty point until time should further develop the subject, he prepared for the unsexing which was indicated as an inevitable preliminary to a visit to Madame Morrow, by the sentence “Gentlemen not admitted.”

He proposed to get himself up in a way that would slightly astonish the Madame herself, although she had faithfully promised in her advertisement to astonish him. He would have been willing to wager a small sum that with all her witchcraft she would be unable to keep that promise, for in the regular course of his business, he had become so accustomed to marvels, wonders, and miracles, that the upheaval of a volcano in the Park wouldn’t discompose him unless it singed his whiskers. He had a strong desire, however, to realize the old sensation of astonishment, and he was of the opinion that the “likeness of his future husband” would accomplish that feat if anything could.

Heroic was Johannes, and withal ingenious, and this then was his wonderful plan.

He would visit this Madame Morrow, not by proxy, but in his own proper person; if not as a man, then as a woman; yes, he would petticoat himself up to the required dimensions, if it took a week to tie on the machinery. Off with the pantaloons; on with the skirts; down with the broadcloth; hurrah for the cotton and hey for victory, and a look at his future husband.

To an inventor of theatrical costumes hied he with this fell design in his heart.

The requisite paraphernalia were bargained for and sent home to the ambitious voyager, who, at the sight thereof, was “astonished” in advance, and stricken aghast by the complicated mysteries of laces, ribbons, strings, bones, buttons, pins, capes, collars, and other inexplicable articles that met his gaze.

The question instantly occurred, “Could he get into these things?”

Not a bit of it; he would sooner undertake to report in short-hand the speech of a thunder-cloud, and with much better prospects of success. He felt his own insignificance, and as he looked out at the window, he regarded a passing female with awe. He felt that he was fast becoming imbecile, not to say idiotic, when he bethought him of his friends. Two discreet married men, who knew the ropes, were called to the rescue, and began the work; they piled on layer after layer of the material, and in the course of four or five hours had built him into a pyramid of the proper size, when they gave him their solemn assurance that he was “all right.” He has since discovered that they had tied his under-sleeves round his ankles, and that the things he wore on his arms must have belonged somewhere else. There was trouble about the hair, and it required the combined ingenuity and wisdom of the masculine trio to keep the bonnet on, and this difficulty was only overcome at last by tying strings from the inside of the crown of that invention to the ears of the sufferer.

Then, and not till then, had anybody thought of the whiskers. They must be sacrificed; and though the miserable victim to his own ambition consented to the disfigurement, how was it to be accomplished? The luckless Johannes could no more sit down in a barber’s chair than the City Hall could get into an omnibus. At last he knelt down, which was the nearest approach he could make to a sitting position, and Jenkins, mounted on the bed, shaved him as well as he could at arm’s length.

When the operation was concluded, his head looked as if it had been parboiled and the skin taken off. He didn’t dare to curse Jenkins for his clumsiness, knowing that if he relieved his mind in that desirable manner, Jenkins would refuse to help him undress when he wanted to get out of the innumerable manacles that now confined every joint. He was as helpless as a turtle that the unkind hand of ruthless man has rolled over on his back.

However, the disguise was complete; he looked in the glass and thought he was his own landlady; his best friends wouldn’t have known him, and the teller of the bank would have pronounced him a forgery and refused to certify him; he felt like a full-rigged clipper ship, and got under sail as soon as possible and bore down upon Madame Morrow’s residence. He nearly capsized as he stepped into the street, but he righted after a heavy lurch to the north-east, and kept his course without further serious disaster. He made a speedy run to Broome street, the voyage being accomplished in less than the expected time, although a heavy sea, in the shape of a boy with a wheelbarrow, struck him amidships, on the corner of Sheriff street, doing some damage to his lower works and carrying away a yard or so of lace from his main skirt. He finally came up to the house in splendid style, and cast anchor on the opposite sidewalk to take an observation.

The anchorage was good, and he rode securely for a short time until he could repair damages, he having carried away some of his upper rigging; in other words, he had caught his veil on a meat-hook and had been unable to rescue it. He rigged a sort of jury-veil with the end of his shawl, so that he could hide his blushing countenance in case of too close scrutiny.

Madame Morrow lives, as he now discovered, in a low, three-story brick house, which cannot be called dirty, simply because that mild word expresses an approximation towards cleanliness which no house in this locality has known for years. City readers can get an idea of its condition by understanding that it is in the worst part of “The Hook;” to readers in the country, who have luckily never seen anything filthier than a barn yard, no information can be given which would meet the case. Sunshine is the only protection for a well-dressed man against the population of this part of the town. In the twilight or darkness he would be robbed, if not garroted and murdered. The boldest and most desperate burglars, and others of that stamp, have their homes about here – fathers who teach their children the thief’s profession, and mothers who carry pickpockets at the breast. In the midst of this nest of crime the fortune-teller has her home, and here she thrives.

The daring man, protected by his false colors, there being no officious authority in that neighborhood to exercise the right of search, came alongside the house and prepared, metaphorically, to board; that is, he rang the bell.

He was admitted by an Irish girl, whose incrusted face showed that the same deposit of dirt had probably held possession undisturbed for weeks. They had just entered the hall door when two small children, who were contending for their vested rights with a big yellow dog that had interfered with their dinner, commenced an unearthly squalling, which, for the instant, made the millinery delegate fairly believe that Tophet was out for noon. The Hibernian maiden, with great presence of mind, immediately attempted to quiet the storm by administering to each inverted brat a sound correction, in the manner usually adopted by mothers.

Particulars are omitted.

Then she resumed her attentions to the stranger, and convoyed him into port in the parlor. Securely harbored in this safe retreat, Johannes took another observation.

The room was small, and what few things were in it looked shabby and dirty of course. The principal article of furniture was a huge basketful of soiled linen, which had probably been “taken in” to wash, and from a respectable family, for every single article looked ashamed to be caught in such company, and tried to burrow down out of sight. Disconsolate shirts elbowed humiliated socks, which in turn kicked against mortified flannels, or hid themselves beneath disconcerted sheets; abashed shirt-collars and humbled dickies tried to shrink out of sight in very shame beneath a dishonored tablecloth, the wine-stains on which showed it to belong in better society. A dejected and cast-down woman was assorting the despairing contents of the basket with a look of desolation.

The girl, who had disappeared, now returned, and with an air of mystery slipped into the hand of her visitor a red card, on which was inscribed:

No Person allowed to remain in the Establishment without a ticket. Please present this on entering Madame Morrow’s room. Fee in full, $1.

For an hour and a half after the receipt of this card and the payment of $1 therefor, did Johannes quietly wait in the room with the big basket, being entertained meanwhile by the two women who conversed with each other upon the relative merits of engines No. 18 and 27, and with a long discussion as to the comparative personal beauty of “Tom” and “Dick,” who, it seemed, belonged respectively to those two mechanical constituents of our Fire Department.

At the end of that time the Irish girl, who had succeeded in establishing “Dick’s” claim to her satisfaction, arose and invited the stranger to the room of Madame Morrow.

He passed up a narrow flight of stairs, the condition of which, as to dirt, was concealed by no friendly carpet; then he sailed into a front parlor which was furnished elegantly, and perhaps gorgeously, with carpets, mirrors, sofas, and all the usual requirements of a lady’s apartment.

Madame herself appeared at the door. She is a tall, sallow-looking woman, with a complexion the color of old parchment: with light brown eyes and light hair; being attired in a handsome delaine dress of half-mourning, and decorated with a costly cameo pin and ear-drops, she looked not unlike a servant out for a holiday, making a sensation in her mistress’s finery.

She led her lovely visitor into a little closet-like room, in which were a bureau, two chairs, a table, and a small stand, covered with a number of her business hand-bills and a pack of cards. She asked first: “What month was you born?” On receiving the answer, the Astonisher took a book from the bureau and read as follows: “A person born in this month is of an amiable and frank disposition, benevolent, and an amiable and desirable partner in the marriage relation. Your lucky days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, on which days you may enter on any undertaking, or attempt any enterprise with a good prospect of success.” Then she took up the cards again, and after the usual shuffling and cutting, the Astonisher fired away as follows.

“You face luck, you face prosperity, you face true love and disinterested affection, you face a speedy marriage, you face a letter which will come in three days and will contain pleasant news – you face a ring, you face a present of jewelry done up in a small package; the latter will come within two hours, two days, two weeks, or two months – you face an agreeable surprise, you face the death of a friend, you face the seven of clubs which is the luckiest card in the pack – you face two gentlemen with a view to matrimony, one of whom has brown hair and brown eyes, and the other has lighter hair and blue eyes – they are both thinking of you at the present time, but the nearest one you face is the one with light eyes – your marriage runs within six or nine months.”

There was very much more to the same effect, but as Johannes was pining all this time for a look at his future husband, he did not pay the strictest attention to it. Finally, when she had finished talking, she said, “Step this way and see your future husband.”

This was the eventful moment.

The disguised one went to the table and there beheld a pine box, about the size of an ordinary candle-box, though shallower; it was unpainted, and decidedly unornamental as an article of furniture. In one end of it was an aperture about the size of the eye-hole of a telescope; this was carefully covered with a small black curtain. This mystic contrivance was placed upon a table so low that the husband-seeker was compelled to go on his knees to get his eye down low enough to see through. He accomplished this feat without grumbling, although his knees were scarified by the whalebones which surrounded him. The Astonisher then drew aside the little curtain with a grand flourish, and her customer beheld an indistinct figure of a bloated face with a mustache, with black eyes and black hair; it was a hang-dog, thief-like face, and one that he would not have passed in the street without involuntarily putting his hands on his pockets to assure himself that all was right. But he felt that he had no hope of a future husband if he did not accept this one, and he made up his mind to be reconciled to the match.

This contrivance for showing the “future husband” is sometimes called the Magic Mirror, and may be procured at any optician’s for a dollar and a quarter. The “future husband” may of course be varied to suit circumstances, by merely shifting the pictures at one end of the instrument; or a horse or a dog might be substituted with equal propriety and probability.

Disappointed, and sick at heart and stomach, the Cash Customer bore away for home, and accomplished the return voyage without disaster. He didn’t so much mind the unexpected difference in the personal attractions of Madame Morrow from what he had hoped, for he had been rather accustomed to disappointments of that sort of late, but he couldn’t see that his admission to the camp of the enemy had enabled him to spy out anything of particular advantage to him in future operations. So he cogitated and mournfully whistled slow tunes, as he cut himself out of his unaccustomed harness by the help of a pen-knife with a file-blade.

CHAPTER VII.

DR. WILSON, No. 172 DELANCEY STREET

Contains a full account of the interview of the Cash Customer with Doctor Wilson, the Astrologer, of No. 172 Delancey Street. The Fates decree that he shall “pizon his first Wife.” Hooray!!

This ignorant, half-imbecile old man is the only wizard in New York whose fame has become public. There are several other men who sometimes, as a matter of favor to a curious friend, exercise their astrological skill, but they do not profess witchcraft as a means of living; they do not advertise their gifts, but only dabble in necromancy in an amateur way, more as a means of amusement than for any other purpose. On the other hand Dr. Wilson freely uses the newspapers to announce to the public his star-reading ability, and his willingness, for a consideration, to tell all events, past and future, of a paying customer’s life. He professes to do all his fortune-telling in a “strictly scientific” manner, and it is but justice to him to say, that he alone, of all the witches of New York, drew a horoscope, consulted books of magic, made intricate mathematical calculations, and made a show of being scientific. In his case only was any attempt made to convince the seeker after hidden wisdom, that modern fortune-telling is aught else than very lame and shabby guesswork. The old Doctor has by no means so many customers as many of his female rivals; he is old and unprepossessing – were he young and handsome the case might be otherwise.

He has been a pretended “botanic physician,” or what country people term a “root doctor;” but failing to earn a living by the practice of medicine, he took up “Demonology and Witchcraft” to aid him to eke out a scanty subsistence. He does but little in either branch of his business, the public appearing to have slight faith in his ability either to cure their maladies or foretell their future.

The character of his surroundings is noted in the following description, and his oracular communication is given, word for word.

An Hour with a Wizard. – The Cash Customer is to “Pizon” his First Wife, and then get Another. Hooray!

“I am like a vagabond pig with no family ties, who has no lady pig to welcome him home o’nights, and with no tender sucklings to call him ‘papa,’ in that prattling porcine language that must fall so sweetly on the ears of all parents of innocent porklings. Like Othello, I have no wife, and really I can see little hope in the future.”

Thus moralized the “Individual,” the morning after his experiment with the women’s gear, and his failure to learn, at a single lesson, the whole art of catching a wife. Then he bethought him that perhaps the art could not be learned without a master; and then came the other thought that no one could tell so well how to win a witch-wife as one who had himself been successful in that risky experiment.

To find a man with a fortune-telling wife is no easy matter, for most of the marriages contracted by these ladies are by no means of a permanent character, and the male parties to the temporary partnerships are always kept in the background. But if he could discover up a wizard, a masculine master of the Black Art, there were strong probabilities that such an individual could put him in the way of winning a miracle-working spouse, at the very least possible trouble and expense. He would seek that man as a preliminary to winning that woman. The daily newspapers showed him that in the person of a learned doctor, surnamed Wilson, he would probably find the man he wanted. He searched out that wonderful man, and the results of his visit are given in this identical chapter.

Old dreamy Sol Gills, of coffee-colored memory, has been admiringly recommended to the good opinion of the world by his friend, Capt. Ed’ard Cuttle, mariner of England, as a man “chock full of science.” From the same eminent authority we also learn that Jack Bunsby was an individual of learning so vast, and experience so varied and comprehensive, that he never opened his oracular mouth but out fell “solid chunks of wisdom.” That the person now dwells in our city who combines the scientific attainments of Gills with the intuitive wisdom of Bunsby, we have the solemn word of Johannes. The science is a trifle more dreamy and misty even than of old, and the wisdom is solider and chunkier, but both are as undeniable, as convincing, as “stunning,” as in the best days of the Little Wooden Midshipman. The fortunate possessor of this inestimable wealth of knowledge secludes himself from the curious public in the basement of the house No. 172 Delancey street, like an underground hermit. However, this unselfish and generous sage, not wishing to hide entirely the light of his great learning from a benighted world, kindly condescends, in the advertisement herewith given, to retail his wisdom to anxious inquirers at a dollar a chunk:

“Astrology. – Dr. Wilson, 172 Delancey street, gives the most scientific and reliable information to be found on all concerns of life, past, present, and future. Terms – ladies, 50 cents; gentlemen, $1. Birth required.”

The last sentence is slightly obscure, and it was not quite clear to Johannes that he would not have to be “born again” on the premises. But at all events there was something refreshing in the novelty of consulting a “learned pundit” in pantaloons, after all the tough conjurers of the other sex that he had undergone of late.

So he repaired to Delancey street in a joyous mood, nothing daunted by the requirements of the advertisement.

Delancey street is not Paradise, quite the contrary. In fact it may be set down as unsavory, not to say dirty in the extreme. The man that can walk through the east end of this delicious thoroughfare without a constant sensation of sea-sickness, has a stomach that would be true to him in a dissecting-room. The individual that can explore with his unwilling boots its slimy depths without a feeling of the most intense disgust for everything in the city and of the city, ought to live in Delancey street and buy his provisions at the corner grocery. He never ought to see the country, or even to smell the breath of a country cow. He should be exiled to the city; be banished to perpetual bricks and mortar; be condemned to a never-ending series of omnibus rides, and to innumerable varieties of short change.

The delegate picked his way gingerly enough, thinking all the while that if Leander had been compelled to wade through Delancey street, instead of taking a clean swim across the sea, Hero might have died a respectable old maid for all Leander. And yet Johannes says he doesn’t believe that History will give him any credit for his valorous navigation of the said street.

He at last reached the designated spot, sound as to body, though wofully soiled as to garments, and approached the semi-subterranean abode of the great prophet, and immediately after his modest rap at the basement door, was met by the venerable sage in person. He walked in, and then proceeded to take an observation of the cabalistic instruments and mysterious surroundings of the great philosopher.

The room was a small, low apartment, about ten feet by twelve, the floor uncarpeted and uneven; the walls were damp, and the whole place was like a vault. The furniture was very scanty, and all had an unwholesome moisture about it, and a curious odor, as if it gathered unhealthy dews by being kept underground. Three feeble chairs were all the seats, and a table which leaned against the wall was too ill and rickety to do its intended duty; many of the books which had once probably covered it, were now thrown in a promiscuous heap on the floor, where they slowly mildewed and gave out a graveyard smell. A miniature stove in the middle of the room, sweated and sweltered, and in its struggles to warm the unhealthy atmosphere had succeeded in suffusing itself with a clammy perspiration; it was in the last stages of debility; old age and abuse had used it sadly, and it now stood helplessly upon its crippled legs, and supported its nerveless elbow upon a sturdy whitewash brush. There were a few symptoms of medical pretensions in the shape of some vials, and bottles of drugs, and colored liquids on the mantelpiece; a great attempt at a display of scientific apparatus began and ended with an insulating stool, and an old-fashioned “cylinder and cushion” electrical machine; a number of highly-colored prints of animals pasted on the wall, having evidently been scissored from the show-bill of a menagerie, had a look towards natural history, and a jar or two of acids suggested chemical researches. The books that still remained on the enervated table were an odd volume of Braithwaite’s Retrospect, a treatise on Human Physiology, and another on Materia Medica; a number of bound volumes of Zadkiel’s Astronomical Ephemeris, Raphael’s Prophetic Almanac, Raphael’s Prophetic Messenger, and a file of Robert White’s Celestial Atlas, running back to 1808.