At Asakusa, as indeed all over Yedo, are to be found fortunetellers, who prey upon the folly of the superstitious.  With a treatise on physiognomy laid on a desk before them, they call out to this man that he has an ill-omened forehead, and to that man that the space between his nose and his lips is unlucky.  Their tongues wag like flowing water until the passers-by are attracted to their stalls.  If the seer finds a customer, he closes his eyes, and, lifting the divining-sticks reverently to his forehead, mutters incantations between his teeth.  Then, suddenly parting the sticks in two bundles, he prophesies good or evil, according to the number in each.  With a magnifying-glass he examines his dupe’s face and the palms of his hands.  By the fashion of his clothes and his general manner the prophet sees whether he is a countryman or from the city.  “I am afraid, sir,” says he, “you have not been altogether fortunate in life, but I foresee that great luck awaits you in two or three months;” or, like a clumsy doctor who makes his diagnosis according to his patient’s fancies, if he sees his customer frowning and anxious, he adds, “Alas! in seven or eight months you must beware of great misfortune.  But I cannot tell you all about it for a slight fee:”  with a long sigh he lays down the divining-sticks on the desk, and the frightened boor pays a further fee to hear the sum of the misfortune which threatens him, until, with three feet of bamboo slips and three inches of tongue, the clever rascal has made the poor fool turn his purse inside out.

The class of diviners called Ichiko profess to give tidings of the dead, or of those who have gone to distant countries.  The Ichiko exactly corresponds to the spirit medium of the West.  The trade is followed by women, of from fifteen or sixteen to some fifty years of age, who walk about the streets, carrying on their backs a divining-box about a foot square; they have no shop or stall, but wander about, and are invited into their customers’ houses.  The ceremony of divination is very simple.  A porcelain bowl filled with water is placed upon a tray, and the customer, having written the name of the person with whom he wishes to hold communion on a long slip of paper, rolls it into a spill, which he dips into the water, and thrice sprinkles the Ichiko, or medium.  She, resting her elbow upon her divining-box, and leaning her head upon her hand, mutters prayers and incantations until she has summoned the soul of the dead or absent person, which takes possession of her, and answers questions through her mouth.  The prophecies which the Ichiko utters during her trance are held in high esteem by the superstitious and vulgar.