Undercover Reporting

XVI-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Mrs. Pugh. No.102 South First street, Williamsburgh

1857-05-20

The Persians have an old saying to the effect that it is well to aim at the Sun, for, although the arrow will not hit the mark, it will fly higher than if aimed at an object on the plain. There are, however, two sides to this question, and the other view is given and illustrated by the veritable historian Esop, in the fable of...

XV-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Mrs. Grommer. No.34 N. Second street, Williamsburgh

1857-05-09

 It is an old saying, that "the Devil is never so black as he is painted." What may be the precise shade of the complexion of his amiable Majesty our reporter has no means of ascertaining to an exact nicety at this present time of writing; but he makes the positive assertion, that some of the Satanic human employees...

XIV-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Ms. Fleury. No.263 Broome street

1857-04-25

It was a favorite remark of a leaned though mistaken philosopher of the olden time, that "you can't make a whistle of a pig's tail." The philosopher died, but his saying was accepted by the world as as axiom--a bit of incontrovertible truth, eternal, godlike, fully up to par, worth a hundred per cent, with no possibility of discount.

XIII-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Madame Harris. No.80 West Nineteenth street, near Sixth avenue

1857-04-04

The lovely and accomplished princess, who for nearly three years, entertained her illustrious master with take of queens of magic, and enchanters and magicians and other witches of Oriental breed, was actuated by a...desire not to have her head cut off some pleasant morning, by order of that amiable bird of hers. 

XII-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Madame Carzo, the Brazilian Astrologist. No.151 Bowery

1857-04-02

Boa-constrictors, half asked savages, dyewoods. Jesuit's bark, cockatoos, scorpions and ring tailed monkeys are not, as we had hitherto supposed, the only contributions to the happiness of mankind afforded by South American for the Province of Brazil gross fortune-tellers of a very superior quality as to respectability and neatness of appearance.

XI-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Mrs. Hayes Clairvoyant. No.176 Grand street

1857-02-25

The clairvoyant department of modern witchcraft is necessarily carried on by a partnership, and one which is not identical with too legendary league with the devil. Two visible persons constitute the firm, for it takes a double team to do the work, and if the amiable gentleman just referred to makes a third in the concern, he is just a silent partner, furnishing the ospital, while his name is not known in the business 

X-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Madame Clifton. No.185 Orchard street, Near Stanton

1857-02-24

The female professors of the Black Art hitherto visited by our reporter had not impressed him with a proposed belief in their supernatural powers; he was "anxious," and was "awakened to inquiry," but he still had doubts, and there was great danger of his backsliding if there wasn't something immediately done for him. 

IX-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

A Wizard – Dr. Wilson. No.172 Delancey street

1857-02-14

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."

VIII-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Madame Morrow. No.76 Broome street, near Columbia

1857-02-13

Madame Morrow, the Astonisher, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, comes of a prolific family in the north of England. Her advertisement, which is a model of classic English, is a fixture in The Herald, and reads as follows... 

VII-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Mrs. Seymour, Clairvoyant No.110 Spring street, near Mercer

1857-02-06

As the ostensible business of these people is mainly to diagnose and prescribe for different varieties of internal diabase, this particular branch of humbug would not have come within the scope of our reporter's present investigations, were it not that several of these practicioners advertise to "tell the past, present and future, describe the future husband or wife, mark out correctly the exact course of future life, give unerring advice about business, about friends, &c." Our reporter concluded that this had too strong a flavor of fortune-telling and witchcraft to be ignored, and accordingly visited these mysteriously clear-sighted persons, beginning with Mrs. Seymour...

VI-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

The Gipsy Girl No. 207 Third Avenue, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth-sts

1857-01-31

The Gipsy Girl - How romantically suggestive was this feminine phrase to the fancy of our enthusiastic reporter. Was it then indeed permitted that he should know Meg Merrilies in private life! His heart danced at the poetic possibility, and his heels would have extemporized a vigorous hornpipe but that his ardor was quenched by the depressing sturdiness of cow-hide boots.

V-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Madame Prewster No. 343 Bowery, between Fourth and Fifth streets

1857-01-28

Madame Prewster has long been an oily pilgrim in this vale of tears. The oldest inhabitant cannot remember the exact period when this truly great prophetess became a fixture in Gotham, and began to earn her bread and butter by fortune-telling and kindred occupations

IV-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Madame Bruce, the "Mysterious Vailed Lady"

1857-01-27

Our reporter expected much from his visit to this lady, and paid more then ordinary attention to the decoration of the external individual, before he proceeded to search out the fair being referred to in her advertisement, which is subjoined:ASTONISHING TO ALL - Madame Bruce, the Mysterious Vailed Lady, can be consulted on all events of life, at No. 513 Broome Street, one door from Thompson. She is a second sight seer and was born with a natural gift.

III-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Madame Leander Lent

1857-01-24

Hercules, is 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 ans 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.

II-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

Madame Widger - No. 5 First Avenue, near Houston street

1857-01-23

This ancient dame, whose very wrinkles date back into the Eighteenth century, holds her magic court in the delightful locality specified at the head of this article.

I-"The Witches of New-York" - Mortimer Thomson - New York Tribune

1857-01-22

These unsophisticated persons who believe that Witchcraft in American is mere historical reminiscence; that broomstick locomotion is a last art; that Astrology, in its mystic sense, is no longer predicted; that Palmistry, and Geomancy, and Bibliomancy, and the other scientific mysteries of the Black Art, are unknown to now-a-day Yankees, are laboring under a charitable delusion.