The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1885-05-30
DIED At LAST,
Strange Career of Swindling and Ex-
travagance-Thousand of Dollars Paid
For Worthless Secrets.

From the New York Evening Post.l
The death at the age of 40 OF Alfred
Paraf is announced from Lima, Peru,
where he has been living for several
years ii obscurity. During the ten
years in which he figured prominently
in this country his success in obtain
ingmoney from rich dupes was eXtraor-
dinary, and makes any detailed ac-
count of his adventures appear ex-
travagant. He obtained at least half
a million dollars from American vic
tins, and spent most OF 1T IN rlOtOus
living. Paraf came of a good Alsatian
family of Mulhaus, and received an
excellent education as a chemist. He
had a wonderful faculty for dlVining
the practical value of laboratory dis
c0veries long before the inventors re-
allied it themselves. As a young
chemist he frequented several OF the
Paris laboratories and learned a num-
Der of secrets concerning the prepara-
ton of different dyes, the manufact-
urp of OleOmargarine, OF madder, etc.
With his extraordinary gift OF faVOra-
blT impreSSing business men he might
easily have made an honest fortune
by the purchase and sale of such pat
EMS and secrets; he preferred to
steal upon grand scale and
vietimized hundreds OF persons by sell
ing them the right to use patent proc
esses for which the real owners event
ually asked payment. He first APP
peared in this city in 1868, when he
Offered for sale a dye which he called
! l. =
to his representations, the same dye
as that used by the French dyers of
Lyons in dyeing silk plush, and also
that it was superior to any black dye
known for calicOs. Succeeded in sell
ing rights to make and use this dye to
many manufacturers, and received in
all $40, 900 or $4,000. American
manufacturers have long desired to
leam the French secret of so dyeing
silk plush that it will not turn brown
under the hot irons used IN making
hats Many thousands OF dollars
have been spent in experiments look
ing 20 that end, but so far in vain; a
few French houses have a practical
monopoly of the business OF dyeing
silk plush. When Paraf offered to sell
the secret and showed by practical dem
| onsration that goods dyed by his
process did not change their color I'M
| der he hot irons, manufacturers cheer
| fullv paid from 81 900 to $4,000
apiece for the secret. 1t turned out,
| however, that Paraf had discovered
only part of the secret; his dye was
not permanent; the "fiXing" process
was not perfect, and after a few
moths anything dyed according to
his process lost color. With the S5O,-
900 received from Connecticut and
Massachusetts, manufacturers, Paraf
engsged fine rooms at the Everett
| House and introduced as Nine. Paraf
a y1ung woman whom he brought
will him from London. He spent
morey at the rate of $500 or 5000 a
Wee, creating talk by such freaks as
usirg $50 worth of attar-Of-rOse
in his morning bath, keeping
a ab waiting constantly day and
night at his door, etc. After swindling
GOV. Sprague, of Providence, out Of
neatly 100000 in a scheme to make
a cleaper madder dye, Paraf organ
ized a company for the manufacture
of )leOmargarine. In the New York
directories of S73 and 1874 his name
WILDE found with an Office address at
40 Broad Street. He claimed to have
discovered oleomargarine, and as the
process had great value he had no
trouble in getting business men to IN
vest haavily in the new manufacture.
A factory was built and the stuff sold
readilr as butter. 1t cost 10 cents a
poundto make and sold for 30 cents.
Paraf as chemist and manager OF the
comp.ny, received S25 900 year and
lived It the rate of 800, 900. He dis
missed the English blonde who had
share his fortunes for several years,
and married the daughter of a New
Yorkiawyer, giving her S25, 900 as a
wedding present, A house on Fifth
Averne was bought and partly paid
for. Il was not long before the stock
holders of the New York OleOmarga-
rine Company began to ask questions
concerning Paraf's rights to the pat
ents: French claimants for royalties
appeared. Paraf went to San Fran
cisco and endeavored to organize an
Oleonargarine company there. In his
abseace impatient creditors seized the
hous on Fifth Avenue and the car
riag, and horses. Mrs. Paraf followed
her husband to San Francisco. Paraf
found that his New York reputation
was too well known in San Francisco,
andhe disappeared: His next appear
arct was at Santiago, with a, secret
process for getting gold out OF refuse
copper ore. BY adroit manipulation
he deceived the Chilians into believ-
in, that nothing but copper ore had
gone into the crucible out of which
Plraf extracted gold. In 1877 the
scaeme was exposed, and his dupes
succeeded in lodging him in Jail for
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