“DŌSHA.”
There is, too, something extraordinarily mystical about the eyes, and no great exercise of the imagination is needed to enable one to credit their possessor with occult powers. The directness and fixity of gaze are such as haunt one and render it easy to understand how for centuries gypsies have been regarded as endowed with strange gifts. At the present time, such a belief is to a great extent pooh-poohed,—ostensibly so, at least,—but until we of the West have arrived at a vastly greater knowledge than we now possess, of telepathy, hypnotism and allied sciences, it will be well that we restrain our dogmatism and altogether withhold our sneers in matters occult. It does not necessarily follow that we should place reliance on such gypsy arts as fortune telling, neither can it, on the other hand, be denied that there is in this, and their implied power of clairvoyance, a fundamental something we do not understand.
The practice of fortune telling is condemned as heathenish, and abuse is hurled at both the gypsy who pretends to read the future and the superstitious person who is imposed upon. The lopsidedness of the public in the matter would be amusing were it not for the very different way the gypsy has of looking at these things.
I do not for a moment advocate a return to the old order which allowed swindlers to victimize right and left, but from the gypsy standpoint it appears to be scarcely playing the “game” for an announcement to be allowed to appear on the bills of a church bazaar that “a real gypsy prophetess” or a palmist has been engaged, who will read the future, etc., at sixpence, half a crown, or what not, per person, for the benefit of the fund, which results in the improvised tent or cavern of the gypsy having quite a stream of visitors who “don’t believe in this sort of thing, but it’s for such a good object, you know, dear,” and the fund eventually benefits by a substantial amount, to the gratification of the reverend principal, who may be also a magistrate and dispenser of justice, and it is quite possible that he may on the day following feel it to be his duty to assist in putting down the fortune telling imposture and may send a gypsy to prison for doing—with a better excuse for it—the self-same thing that he countenanced, and he will, moreover, probably deliver a homily to Mary Jane, who had been foolish enough to put silver into the hand of the gypsy with the hope of learning something of a future that is veiled from priest and parlourmaid alike.
“DŌSHA.”
Although fortune telling is now illegal in this country it is still practised sub rosa. Until comparatively recently, however, it was quite a lucrative profession to adepts, and more than one third-rate exponent has mournfully confessed to me that in the good old times “we used to make a tidy bit o’ money dukkerin.”
One of the most celebrated of successful fortune tellers of recent times was perhaps Lucy Lee, who pursued her profession for something over twenty-six years. Her business headquarters were at The Devil’s Dyke, near Brighton. She did not, however, reside there permanently, but—latterly at least—journeyed to and from Brighton daily in a small carriage. She probably amassed a considerable sum of money, for in addition to the numerous people of rank and note she could count among her clientèle, Devil’s Dyke had annually its thousands of visitors, of whom a goodly proportion doubtless left silver in the hand of the soothsayer—in the orthodox manner. Of her oracular pronouncements I have no personal knowledge. If I recollect aright, she was wearing, on the last occasion of my seeing her, a cloak of brilliant red edged with white, a black silk or satin dress, a white apron, and upon her head a red handkerchief. She maintained that past events in one’s life as well as the future are mapped out on the hand; she told fortunes also by means of cards. Gypsies are very keen observers, and those fortune tellers among them who pretend to something beyond pure guesswork, undoubtedly find the searching examination of a face quite as suggestive as a study of the hand; moreover, they do not omit to gaze intently into the tell-tale eyes of the person seeking information and are consequently able to make certain deductions upon which to base their shrewd guesses, and as these may be delivered in ambiguous terms they are frequently near enough to the facts to impress or satisfy the applicant.
Gypsies have ever been prone to make capital out of the artlessness, culpable weaknesses, and avarice of a section of mankind.