. Harry Mac had a book with which he
told fortunes, and this book, which was an English translation of a Greek
work on astrology, Joe Hopkinson borrowed for me. I perused the book in
the hope of one day being able to do a little fortune telling. Harry Mac
and Jack Kay had done very well out of the book, and their knowledge of
it; but my object in learning to presage events, was not as a means of
livelihood, but in order to appease my appetite for a bit of fun. It was
while I was "reading, learning, and inwardly digesting" the contents of
the book that Professor Fowler, the well-known phrenologist, came to
Keighley and gave lectures on the science of bumps, or phrenology, in the
old Mechanics' Hall--now the Yorkshire Penny Bank. I attended one of
those lectures in company with Morgan Kennedy, a Keighley man, who
afterwards became a professional phrenologist. When the time came for
practical demonstrations the audience called out for me to go on the
platform. I complied, and the Professor set himself to "feel my bumps."
In the first place he told the audience that "this was one of the few
heads that he had had the opportunity of examining," which, of itself,
was neither very favourable, nor very unfavourable. But there was
suppressed tittering among the audience when he continued, "I have been
on the Continent, and have examined the heads of Louis Napoleon, Victor
Hugo, Garibaldi, and Louis Kossuth. This head, I may venture to say,
rather touches upon those." I felt that the Professor had got out of his
reckoning in making these comparisons; for although I had done a little
soldiering, and was a poet in my own rough way, I knew that I had no
claim whatever to be a governor, seeing that I had never been able to
govern myself. However, I got through the ordeal. The result of my visit
to Professor Fowler was that I combined the study of bumpology with that
of astrology, and I got on very well, and had some nice quiet fun, with
telling people--mostly servant girls in public-houses--their fortunes,
and describing their bumps. Many people, I know, really thought I was a
"nap-hand" in the work. One incident I remember well. A young man of the
name of Tom Smith, a warpdresser, one night came to ask me to rule the
planets and tell him whether he and his wife would ever live together
again. I told my visitor that I could do nothing for him that night, but
if he would call the following evening I should then be prepared to
"invoke the