Daily Los Angeles herald., 1879-11-15

rious Close.
The recent conviction in Chile OF
Alfred Paraf to FIVE years. exile and
surveillance in penal settlement
Of that country effectually closes to
The world one of the most astonish-
ing careers of modern times. AL
fred Paraf was of a good Alsacian
family, and received a fine educa-
tion. He made speciality OF the
study of chemistry, and became
q great master in that SCI
ence. He made at various times
very large sums by the discovery
OF new colorings for calico. Out of
new and cheap madder he real
ICED very large fortune, and be
was the first to put on foot oleo-
margarine works in this country.
He claimed to be the patantee OF
the process of turning bull fat into
butter, but il seems that the discov-
ery was stolen from French chem
let and improved upon by him. 1t
was oleomargarine which brouht
him to California, where he
carried out his swindle until
1t exploded, when he made
his way to Chile. Although he
made fabulous sums out of his legit-
innate and illegitimate discoveries,
he lived in so lavish and magnifi-
cent style that he always found
tho bottom of his purse. In Chile
he left the practical field of dye
stuffs and bull butter, and
embarked into the trans
mutation of copper into gold.
With the aid of his pretended SER
want, Francisco Rogel, who turns
out to be skillful chemist,
Paraf apparently extracted an inn
mense percentage of gold from cop
per ore. On the 10th of May, 1877,
q mining company, with a capital
Of several millions, was formed.
smelling works, constructed on
Parars plan were erected, and in
them assays were made by the Of
ficers of the company, assisted by
Paraf and his servant, that revealed
q large quantity of gold ia the cop
per. The excitement Occasioned
by this successful piece of trickery
was intense; everybody hastened
to obtain stock in the new compa-
ny, and everybody connected with
it regarded himself as q mill
ionaire. Repeated experiments
revealed increasing richness, and
poor copper ore was apparently
made to yield $3.50 worth of gold
to the ton. The stock of the COM
pany commanded fabulous prices,
and shares, the par value of which
was 81, 900, sold as high as $4,000
apiece, and single shares were di-
vided and redivided into the small
est possible fraction, so that every
body might participate in the
golden harvest. Half of Santiago
was Interested in the enterprise,
and capitalists from all parts OF
Chill, aad even from other South
American States hastened to en-
bark in the enterprise.
OF the rapid and unprecedented
rise in the value of this stock, Pa
raf and Rogel, his assistant, did
not fail to take advantage, but by
cautiously selling their stock at the
fabulous prices reigning, both ac-
cumulated fortunes. In addition ia
this, Paraf received,on one pretense
or another, sums of money from
members Of the company amount
ing in all to 100000. But the gil
gantic swindle was as short-lived ae
It was splendid, and the collapse
was as sudden as the bursting of a
bubble. The discovery of the fraud
was made by Don Aldaricio Prado.
Of MI lA
having had his suspicious aroused
by the bad results of certain of the
smeltings, made some assays for
himself during the absence of Parai
and his servant. These as
says gave completely negative
results, and it was soon discovered
that the gold obtained by Parai
had in every case been previously
placed in the "re-agent," which
Paraf claimed to have been discov-
cred, either by his servant or him.
self. His professed "re-agent"
was found by experiment to be the
hyposulphide of soda and gold,
which resists the most powerful re-
agents known without precipitat-
ing the gold contained, but does SC
readily when attacked by a metal
containing the oxide of lead or
iron. Paraf never assayed except
in crucibles nor extracted more
than 800 worth of gold in a day.
He had first to prepare the hypo-
sulphide, which he could not do in
large quantities, nor did he dare to
purchase it openly.
The rage of his victims when
Paraf's swindle was exposed was so
violent that his life was in danger
and might have been forfeited had
he not been arrested and safely
locked up. His trial was tedious,
and was prolonged by the numer-
Gus delays interposed by the law
yers on both sides; but it was final
ly terminated, and the swindler
was sentenced to five years. exile
from Santiago, which time he
must pass under guard in the
Chilian settlement of Valdivia.
Parafs last great fraud entails
the loss of many thousands of dol
lars upon a number of Santiago
families, many of whom could ill
afford the sums thus squandered.
They have nothing to show for the
money they invested save the great
Paraf smelling works, which re-
main in Santiago to this day.
AN APoLoGY.-A woman in a
Kansas Pacific Railroad car sat