And that warning wasn't original when Mme. S——h W——d called at Duncan Campbell's lodging in London to learn what was what. No doubt it could be traced beyond Delphi. That's almost as safe a guess as to assume that Mme. S——h W——d was a Sarah Wood. She might have been a Wedd or a Weld, but that is doubtful.

Predictions Change Little.

So, although the seer of Randolph street and all the rest probably never heard of Duncan Campbell or Nostradamus, or of their predecessors at Delphi, they have kept the profession of forecasting remarkably free of innovations.

"This art of prediction," reads Defoe's Life and Adventures of Duncan Campbell, "is not attainable any otherwise than by these three ways. 1. It is done by the company of familiar spirits and genii, which are of two sorts (some good and some bad), who tell the gifted person the things, of which he informs other people. 2. It is performed by the second sight, which is very various and differs in most of the possessors, it being only a very little in some, very extensive and constant in others; beginning with some in their infancy and leaving them before they come to years, happening to others in a middle age, to others again in an old age that never had it before, and lasting only for a term of years, and now and then for a very short period of time; and in some intermitting, like fits, as it were, of vision that leave them for a time, and then return to be strong in them as ever; and it being in a manner hereditary in some families, whose children have it from their infancy (without intermission) to a great old age, and even to the time of their death, which they even foretell before it comes to pass, to a day—nay, even to an hour. 3. It is attained by the diligent study of the lawful part of the art of magic."

Make Enough to Retire.

Nowadays the prophets see to it that their miraculous power does not depart from them for any cause whatsoever until their own palms have been crossed with enough silver to enable them to retire in comfort. A certain Fatima who told fortunes on Madison street for years removed her card from the front window and disappeared altogether. She had bought a farm up the state, where she is now living and raising fancy breeds of poultry. There is no mortgage on the farm, and the hens have grain three times a day.

Just which one of Duncan Campbell's three methods a certain practitioner uses is not apparent, but he was one of the most noted and successful fortune tellers, and his men patrons set more store by what he said than in the promises of the district leaders.

Answers Questions for a Dollar.

He has reduced his business to a fine system, and all the questions that anybody could possibly think of are set down in a book with numbers opposite them. And these books, printed in Yiddish, English and German, anticipate all the hopes and fears of the tenements. The questions, all of a strong local flavor, are all answered by the fortune teller off-hand for $1, notwithstanding the fact that they present some of the toughest problems that the philanthropists who support the Educational Alliance and the settlement houses have been trying for years to solve. To illustrate, take this group of questions under the general classifications "Home and Children":