MADAME LEANDER LENT, No. 163 MULBERRY STREET.
I have before suggested, in as plain terms as the peculiar nature of the subject will allow, that these fortune-telling women, having most of them been prostitutes in their younger days, in their withered age become professional procuresses, and make a trade of the betrayal of innocence into the power of Lust and Lechery. This assertion is so eminently probable that few will be inclined to dispute it, but I wish to be understood that this is no matter of mere surmise with me—it is a proven fact. And the evidences of its truth have been gathered, not alone from the formal and hurried records of the police courts, but from the lips of certain inmates of various Magdalen Asylums who have been reclaimed from their former homes of shame; and from the mouths of other repentant women, who, under circumstances where there was no object to deceive, and at times when their hearts were full of grateful love for those who had interposed to save them from utter despair, have in all simple truthfulness and honor, related their life-histories. It is impossible to give even a plausible guess at the aggregate number of young women, in this great city, who compromise their honorable reputations in the course of a single year; but of those whose shame becomes publicly known, and especially of those who eventually enter houses of ill-repute, the percentage whose fall was accomplished through the instrumentality, more or less direct, of the professional fortune-tellers, is astounding. And a curious fact connected with this subject is, that of these unfortunates who thus wander astray, not one in ten but has ever after the most superstitious and implicit faith in the supernatural powers of the witch. Each one sees in her own case certain things that have been foretold to her by the fortune-teller with such circumstantiality of time and place, and which have afterwards “come to pass,” so exactly in accordance with the prophecy, that she can only account for it by ascribing supernatural prescience to the prophetess.
The true solution of the matter is, of course, that the wonderful fulfilments are achieved by means of confederacy and collusion with parties with whom the dupe is never brought in contact; a common modus operandi of this sort is elsewhere described.
Nor are the fortune-tellers and the brothel-keepers by any means content with playing into each other’s hands in a general sort of way; there are, in New York, several firms, consisting each of a fortune-teller and a mistress of a bawdy-house, who have entered into a perfectly organized business partnership, and who ply their fearful trade with as much zeal and enthusiasm as is ever exhibited in the active competition between rival commercial houses engaged in legitimate trade.
Although this fact is one that cannot be substantiated by the production of any sworn documents, it is as well proven by the observations of keen-eyed detectives attached to the police department, and to some of the charitable institutions of this city, as though attested articles of co-partnership could be exhibited with the signatures of the contracting parties attached thereto. A gentleman of this city, in whose word I have the most perfect confidence, tells me that he once, by a curious accident, overheard a business consultation between the two members of such a firm; and that such partnerships do exist, and that by their means hundreds of ignorant young women, of the lower classes, are every year betrayed to their moral ruin, I no more doubt than I doubt the rotundity of the earth.
If the illustrious woman who is the subject of the present chapter should ever surmise that the foregoing observations are intended to have a personal application to herself, the author will give her much more credit for sagacity and discernment than he did for supernatural wisdom.
Madame Leander Lent is one of the most shrewd, unscrupulous, and dirty of all the goodly sisterhood of New York witches. She has so great a run of customers that her doors are often besieged by anxious inquirers as early as eight o’clock in the morning, and the servant is frequently puzzled to find room and chairs to accommodate the shame-faced throng, till her ladyship sees fit to get out of bed and begin the labors of the day. She is then impartial in the distribution of her favors; the audiences are governed by barber-shop rules, and the visitors are admitted to the presence in the order of their coming, and any one going out forfeits his or her “turn” and on returning must take position at the tail end of the queue.
The Fates show no favoritism.
The quarter in which Madame Lent has domiciled herself and her familiars, is by no means in the most aristocratic part of the city. “Mulberry,” is the pomological name of the street, and it has never been celebrated for its cleanliness or for its eligibility as a site for princely mansions. In fact it has been, on the whole, rather neglected by that class of society who generally indulge in palatial luxuries.
Hercules, in his capacity of an amateur scavenger, once attempted the cleaning of the Augean stables, or some such trifle, and his success was trumpeted throughout the neighborhood as a triumph of ingenuity and perseverance. If Hercules would come to Gotham and try his hand at the purgation of Mulberry Street, our word for it, he would, in less than a week, knock out his brains with his own club in utter despair.
There never yet were swine with stomachs strong enough to feed upon the garbage of its gutters, or with instincts so perverted as to wallow in its filth. Dogs, lean and wild-eyed, the outcasts of the canine world, sometimes, driven by sore stress of hunger, sneak here with drooping tails and shame-faced looks, to search for bones, and then, wounded in their self-respect by the very act, they drag their osseous provender to a distance, and upon some sunny mud-heap, dine in dainty neatness. The very pavement is broken into countless hillocks and ruts like waves, as if, in utter disgust at the place and its associations, the street was trying to roll itself away in stony billows. The shattered wrecks of worn-out drays and carts stand forsaken in the street, keeping each other dismal company, while an occasional shackly wheelbarrow makes the place look as though, after some monstrous fashion, it were a lying-in hospital for poverty-stricken vehicles, and the wheelbarrows were the new-born children, decrepit even in their babyhood. The houses in this pleasant vale have a disheartened tumble-down look, and give the impression of having been originally built by apprentices out of second-hand material. They lean maliciously over the narrow sidewalks, and keep up a constant threatening of a sudden collapse and a general smash of passers-by. If the houses are not dirtier than the street, it is only because every possible element of filth enters into the latter; if they are not dirtier inside than outside, it is because superlatives have no superlative.
Pawnbrokers’ shops are plentiful, kept always by sharp-featured restless Jews, who watch for unwary passers-by like unclean beasts crouching in noisome, dangerous lairs; while bar-rooms yawn in frequent cellars to devour bodily the victims the Jews only rob.
In this, one of the dirtiest streets in this dirty metropolis, directly opposite the English Lutheran Church of St. James, in one of the dirtiest tenant-houses in the street, abideth Madame Leander Lent, the prophetess. Why the mysterious powers didn’t select an earthly representative with a more reputable dwelling-place is a mystery; but there seems to be an inseparable congeniality between prophetic knowledge and concentrated nastiness, utterly beyond all power of explanation. The Madame advises the public of her business in the terms following:
“Astrology.—Madame Leander Lent can be consulted about love, marriage, and absent friends; she tells all the events of life at No. 169 Mulberry-st., first floor, back room. Ladies 25 cents; gents 50 cents. She causes speedy marriage. Charge extra.”
Her customers are much more addicted to love than marriage, so that the wedlock clause cannot be relied on to bring many fish to the net, but it is supposed to give an air of respectability to the advertisement.
The Cash Customer was, perhaps, an exception to this general rule, and feeling that he would on the whole rather like a “speedy marriage,” and wouldn’t so much mind the “extra charge,” he went, in cold blood, with this matrimonial intent to the street, found the number, and heroically entered the house in the very face of a threatened unclean baptism from the upper windows.
His timid knock at the door of the room was answered by a sturdy “Come in,” from the inside; hat deferentially in hand he modestly entered, and was received by a fat woman with a bust of proportions exceeding those of Mrs. Merdle in “Little Dorrit,” and who was attired in a dress which may have been clean in the earlier years of its history, though the supposition is exceedingly apocryphal. This lady pointed to a chair, and then composedly seated herself and resumed her explorations with a comb, in the hair of a vicious boy of about three years old, the eldest scion of Madame Leander.
Her enthusiasm in the cause of entomological science was too ardent to be quenched by the mere presence of an observer, and she continued to hunt her insect prey with all the ardor of a she-Nimrod, and with a zeal that was rewarded by a brilliant success. The youth, over whose fertile head the game seemed to rove and range in countless numbers, was somewhat restless under the operation, and oftentimes disturbed the eager sportswoman by manifesting a desire to run into the street and carry the hunting-ground with him, and was as often recalled to a sense of the proprieties by a few judicious slaps, which he stoically endured without a whimper, being evidently used to it.
This feminine lover of the chase, this Diana of the fiery scalp, looked up from her occupations long enough to say to her visitor that Madame Lent would soon be disengaged. Meantime, he made a careful survey of the premises.
Two chairs, an old lounge with its dingy red cover fastened on with pins, and a trunk covered with an old bit of carpet, were the accommodations for seating visitors. A cooking-stove, and a suspicious-looking wash-bowl which stood in the corner of the room, without a pitcher, were probably for the accommodation of the Madame and the lady with the comb. On the shabby lounge sat a stolid-looking Irish girl, who was waiting her turn to have her fortune told. Having fully comprehended the room and everything in it, the visitor turned his attention to literary pursuits, and thoroughly perused an odd copy of a newspaper that lay invitingly on the table.
Visitors kept dropping in, mostly servant-appearing girls, though there were three women attired in silk and laces, who would have appeared respectable had their faces been hidden and their conversation been suppressed. The lady with the comb and the boy presently departed to some unknown region, and soon returned with a reinforcement of chairs and stools. The number of visitors increased, until, besides the original stranger, nine were waiting. Among others, there came, in a friendly way, but still with a sharp eye to business, a tall woman, attired in a red dress and a purple bonnet, who is the keeper of a well-known house in Sullivan street, and whose name is not strange to the police. An unrestrained business conversation ensued between her and the heroine of the comb, which must have been interesting to the female listeners.
One hour and eleven minutes did the Cash Customer patiently wait before he was admitted to the mysterious conference with the queen of magic. At last, after the man who was at first closeted with her had concluded his inquiries, and the stolid Irish girl had been disposed of, the woman with the suggestive bust beckoned the long-suffering and patient man to follow, and he fearfully entered the sanctum.
The room of conjuration was a closet, dark and dirty, and was lighted by one tallow candle, stuck in a Scotch ale bottle. A number of shabby dresses, bony petticoats, and other mysterious articles of women’s gear, hung upon the walls; two weak-kneed chairs, a tattered bit of carpet upon about two feet square of the floor, and a little table covered with a greasy oilcloth, composed the furniture of the mystic cell. The cabalistic paraphernalia was limited, there being nothing but a dirty pack of double-headed cards, a small pasteboard box with some scraps of paper in it, and two kinds of powder in little bottles, like hair-oil pots.
Madame Lent is a woman of medium height, about thirty-five years of age, with light-grey eyes, false teeth, a head nearly bald, and hair, what there is of it, of a bright red. Her manner is hurried and confused, and she has a trick of drawing her upper lip disagreeably up under the end of her nose, which labial distortion she doubtless intends for a smile.
She was robed in a bright-colored plaid dress, a dirty lace collar, and a coarse woollen shawl over her shoulders. Motioning her visitor to one chair, she instantly seated herself in the other, and, without demanding pay in advance, commenced operations. She handed the cards to be cut, and then laying them out in their piles, uttered the following sentences:
“I see that your fortune has been and is quite a curious one. Your cards run rather mixed up, you have been very much worried in your head, you were born under two planets, which means that you have seen a great deal of trouble in your younger days, but you are now getting over it and your cards run to better luck, but it is rather mixed up, your cards run to a lady, she is light-haired and blue-eyed, but she is jealous of you, for sometimes you treat her more kinder and sometimes more harsher, and just now she is in trouble and very much mixed up about you. There is a man of black hair and eyes, a dark-complected man who pretends to be your friend and is very fair to your face, but you must beware of him, for he is your secret enemy and will do you an injury if he can; he is trying to get the lady, but I don’t think he’ll do it, though I don’t know, for the thing is so much mixed up—he has deceived you, and the lady has deceived you, they have both deceived you, but now they have got mixed up, and she turns from him with scorn, and seems to like you the best—I don’t exactly see how it all is, for it seems rather mixed up like—you must persevere, you must coax her more; you can coax her to do anything, but you can’t drive her any more than you can drive that wall—always treat her more kinder and never more harsher, and she will soon be yours entirely—beware of the dark-complected man; you must not talk so much and be so open in your mind, and above all don’t talk so much to the dark-complected man, for he seems to worry you, and your affairs and his are all mixed up like.”
Here her auditor expressed a desire to know something definite and certain about his future wife, whereupon the red-haired prophetess shuffled the cards again with the following result:
“You will have but one more wife. She will be good and true, and will not be mixed up with any dark-complected man. She will be rich and you will be rich, for your business cards run very smooth, but your marriage cards do not run very close to you, and you will not be married for six or eight months; you will have three children; you will see your future wife within nine hours, nine days, or nine weeks; do not blame me if it runs into the tens, but I tell you it will fall within the nines. Another man is trying to get her away from you, he is a light-complected man, he has had some influence over her, but she now turns from him with disdain, and she will be yours and yours only—things are a little worried and mixed up now, but she will be yours and yours only, the light-complected man can’t hurt you. I have something that I can give you that will make her love you tender and true; it will force her to do it and she won’t have no power to help herself, but you can do with her just what you please; I charge extra for that.”
Here was a chance to procure a love-philtre at a reasonable rate, and unless the dark woman kept that article ready made and done up in packages to suit customers, he could observe the terrible ceremonies with which it was prepared, listen to the spells and incantations with an attent eye, and take mental notes of all the mighty magic. The opportunity was too good to be lost, and he at once signified his desire to try a little of the extra witchcraft, and his willingness to draw on his purse for the requisite amount of ready cash to purchase this gratification of a laudable curiosity.
Madame Lent now assumed an air of the most intense gravity, and shook into a very dirty bit of paper a little white powder from one of the pomatum pots, and a corresponding quantity of grayish powder from pot No. 2, and stirred them carefully together with the tip of her finger. When she had mixed them to her liking she folded the diabolical compound in a small paper. Then she prepared another mixture in the same manner, and made a pretence of adding another ingredient from a little pasteboard box, which probably hadn’t had anything in it for a month. Folding this also in a paper she presented them both to her interested guest, with these directions:
“You must shake some of the first powder on your true-love’s head, or neck, or arms, if you can, but if you can’t manage this, put it on her dress—the other powder you must sprinkle about your room when you go to bed to-night—this will draw her to you, and she will love you and you alone and can’t help herself; this will surely operate, if it don’t, come and tell me.”
One more cabalistic performance and the hocus-pocus was ended. She desired her customer to give her the first letter of his true love’s name. He, unabashed by the unexpected demand, with great presence of mind promptly invented a sweetheart on the spot, and extemporized a name for her before the question was repeated. Then the mysterious Madame required his own initial, which, being obtained, she wrote the two on slips of paper with some mystic figures appended, in manner following. E., 17; M., 24. Then she shiveringly whispered:
“You must do as I told you with the powders before eleven o’clock to-night, for between the hours of eleven and twelve I shall boil your name and hers in herbs which will draw her to you, and she can’t help herself but will be tender and true, and will be yours and yours only. When she is drawed to you then you must marry her.”
The anxious inquirer promised obedience, and agreed to give the powders as per prescription, before the midnight cookery should commence, paid his dollar (fifty cents for the consultation and a like sum for the love-powders), and made his exit with a comprehensive bow, which included the Madame, the bony petticoats, the beer-bottle, and the fast-vanishing remains of the single tallow-candle in one reverential farewell.