[Reprinted from Collier's, Aug. 4, 1906.]
THE MIRACLE WORKERS
Popular credulity moves in waves. Now it takes financial form, and some 620-per-cent. Miller buys himself a suit of striped clothing, government pattern, with his profits. Again, religious fervor is its fuel, and "Francis Truth," fortified with press-agent and advertising man, passes across the field of public notice like a meteor, and, like a meteor, vanishes into the darkness. Just at present the public is much concerned with its individual health, a condition which has bred innumerable parasites of the "healer"' type. Profiting by the general hypochondriacal tendency, for which the profession of medical advertising in the newspapers is largely responsible, and employing a curious pseudo-science of their own devising, these charlatans are conducting a sort of magic saturnalia of healing.
Family Resemblance of the Fakes
What is true of one of this class is true of all the "doctors," "healers," "medical institutes," "homes of science," and various fresh-coined "opathys," which advertise to cure diseases by "special knowledge," "marvelous inventions," "startling discoveries in the realm of science," or "miraculous powers." Their schemes are, essentially, the same. One and all, they are frauds, operating by a shrewd and cunningly developed system, in which the sole essential of success is to bait the hook so as to attract the human gudgeon. Once he has nibbled, he's the charlatan's fish. Lucky, indeed, may he count himself if he come off depleted in purse alone, and not in his chances of cure or of life.
Once on a time—this is a recognized and proper form for beginning a tale of magic—there was born a young wizard named Isham. In the natural course of growth he reached that point in life where he desired to turn his wizardry to financial account. Less ingenious representatives of his ilk take to side-shows on country circuits, and either "eat-'em-alive" or become the Beautiful Mlle. Astralette, Seer and Prophetess, according to sex and inclination. Isham had a soul above canvas. He has yearned for something permanent and high-sounding; so he devised "Humanity Baking Powder," which, by a complicated scheme too long for detail here, was not only to raise the human race to heights hitherto undreamed of, but was even to extend their thoughts to the stars by means of a mighty telescope to be established from the dividends. The "Humanity Baking Powder" advertising was a thing to thrill the soul; but the sodden and materialistic American mind (feminine) declined to respond with that spontaneity which was expected, so Isham dropped the scheme and came East to settle in that spot where, as every bunco man in this country knows, the Permanent Convention of Jays and Come-ons is always in session—New York City. Isham's device for alienating the Innocents of New York from their money was the "California Waters of Life." These waters flow from a spring near San Diego, Cal., having come a long way to reach that spot, since they are, so Isham assures me, the identical waters which gushed from the Scriptural rock when Moses smote it.
"How do you know that they are?" I inquired when this interesting statement was made to me.
"How do you know they aren't?" demanded the Wizard triumphantly, and while I was dazedly feeling for some means wherewith to cope with this resilient brand of Logic, he continued with an argumeent too profound for me to grasp in detail. The gist of it seemed to be, however, that all the waters of the earth, being in constant motion, eventually find their
