The tender inquirer went away in a desponding mood. The Widger was out of the question as a bride, “for she was old enough,” he said, “to have been grandmother to his father’s uncle.”
CHAPTER V.
Discourses of Mrs. Pugh, of No. 102 South First Street,
Williamsburgh, and tells all that Nursing Sorceress
communicated to her Cash Customer.
CHAPTER V.
MRS. PUGH, No. 102 SOUTH FIRST STREET, WILLIAMSBURGH.
It is travelling a little away from home to go to Williamsburgh in search of a witch, but there are some peculiar circumstances about the present case, that give it more than common interest. Mrs. Pugh is not an advertising sorceress, but practises all her magic slily, and generally under a promise of secresy, which is exacted lest the fame of her fortune-telling should come to the ears of certain respectable families, who employ her as a nurse. She is much resorted to by a number of young persons of both sexes, and has considerable notoriety among the low and ignorant classes as a practiser of the black art. She is by no means the only “nurse” who is given to this reprehensible practice, but very many of the old women who officiate as professional nurses are proficients in telling fortunes with cards, and with the Bible and key, and are always glad of an opportunity to exhibit their pretended skill. Being at times received into families where there are daughters, not grown up, they become most dangerous persons if they are encouraged or permitted to thus practise on the credulity of these young girls.
The mere encouragement of hurtful superstitious notions is a great ill in itself, but is by no means the extent of the evil done by some of these persons. They not unfrequently take an active part in bringing about meetings between unsuspecting girls and evil-disposed men, thus paving the way to the wretchedness and ruin of the former. More than one instance is known, where the going astray of a loved daughter can be traced directly to the mischievous teachings of a fortune-telling nurse.
These are the reasons that give the case of Mrs. Pugh an importance greater than attaches to many others.