The Side-Show 193 



and multiply. To certain minds the psychic powers 

 of the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter born 

 with a caul are incontestable. 



The number of mediums, clairvoyants, astrolo- 

 gers, and palmists in San Francisco alone is most 

 significant. One cannot doubt that curiosity is the 

 besetting sin of the mob, but beyond and above it 

 lies the worship of the visible rather than the in- 

 visible. The mob does wish to put its fingers into 

 the wounds, to see, to hear, and to feel. The curi- 

 osity that drives some sorrow-stricken soul to the 

 *' parlours " of an illiterate stranger to learn news, 

 however small, of the one who has passed into the 

 world unseen may be condemned, but it is at least 

 human and intelligible. And if proof of immor- 

 tality is to be vouchsafed us from one whom we 

 would not deem fit to dine at our table, or even be 

 included in the circle of our casual acquaintances, 

 shall we refuse it on that account ? Here is a ques- 

 tion which each must answer for himself. In the 

 West it would seem that in some wells not Truth 

 is found, but carbonic acid gas. But the motives 

 that drive the mob to the ladies I have mentioned 

 are not always so ingenuous. Many seek them for 

 the most sordid reasons: for advice in regard to 

 investments and speculative enterprises, for love 

 philtres, for, in effect, a special knowledge of the 

 future which they, the seekers after an unknown 

 god, may transmute into dollars and cents. 



The Christian Scientists, however, are cutting the 

 ground from beneath the feet of the Theosophists 

 and Spiritualists. I have carefully read Mrs. Mary 

 Eddy's book, " Health and Science," and was not 



