Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1885-05-20

DIAD ATLAsT.
a Strange Career Of SWindlinE and Ex-
tFayaE1nce-Thousan Of Dollars Paid
For Worthless secrets.
From the New York Evening Postl
The death at the age of 40 of Alfred
Paraf is announced from Lima, Peru,
where he has been living for several
years il obscurity. During the ten
years in which he figured prominently
in this country his success in obtain
ingmoney from rich dupes was extraor-
binary, and makes any detailed &C.
count of his adventures appear ex-
travagant. He obtained at least half
| a million dollars from American vic
TINS, and spent most of it in riotous
living. Parat came Of a good Alsatian
family of Mulhaus, and received an
excellent education as a chemist. He
had wonderful faculty for divining
the practical value of laboratory dis
coveries long before the inventors re-
allied it themselves. AS a young
chemist he frequented several of the
Paris laboratories and learned g. num-
Der of secrets concerning the prepara-
ton OF different dyes, the manufact-
ure of oleomargarine, of madden, etc.
With his extraordinary gift of favorar
bly, impressing business men he might
easily have made an honest fortune
| by the purchase and sale of such pat
ents and secrets; he preferred to
steal upon a grand scale and
victimized 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 ap-
peared in this city in 1868, when he
offered for sale a dye which he called
the "Paraf black" it was, according
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 $4,000 or $4,000. American
| manufacturers have long desired to
learn 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 to that end, but so far in vain;
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
onstration that goods dyed by his
process did not change their color un-
der the hot irons, manufacturers cheer
fully paid from $1,000 to $4,000
| apiece for the secret. It turned out,
however, that Paraf had discovered
only q part of the secret; his dye was
not permanent; the t'fxing" process
was not perfect, and after a few
months anything dyed according to
his process lost color. With the $780,
900 received from Connecticut and
Massachusetts manufacturers, Paraf
engaged fine rooms at the Everett
House and introduced as Nine. Paraf
a young woman whom he brought
with him from London. He spent
money at the rate of $500 or 5000
week, creating talk by such freaks as
using 500 worth of attar-of-rose
in his morning bath, keeping
a cab waiting constantly day and
night at his door, etc. After swindling
Gov. Sprague, of Providence, out of
nearly 100000 in scheme to make
d cheaper madden dye, Paraf organ
lied a company for the manufacture
of oleomargarine. In the New York
direct tories of 1873 and 1874 his name
will be 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 heavily in the new manufacture:
A factory was built and the stuff sold
readily as butter. It cost Is cents a
pound to make and sold for 80 cents.
Paraf, as chemist and manager of the
company, received 1926, 900 year and
lived at the rate of 100000. He dis
missed the English blonde who had
shared his fortunes for several years,
and married the daughter of g. New
York lawyer, giving her 1926, 900 as a
wedding present, A house on Fifth
Avenue was bought and partly paid
for. It was not long before the stock
holders of the New York Oleomarga-
rine Company began to ask questions
concerning Parafs rights to the pat
ents; French claimants for royalties
appeared. Paraf went to San Fran
cisco and endeavored to organize an
oleomargarine company there. In his
! absence impatient creditors seized the
house on Fifth Avenue and the car
riage and horses. Mrs. Paraf followed
her husband to San Francisco. Paraf
found that his New York reputation
was too we'll known in San Francisco,
and he Disappeared: His next appear
ance was at Santiago, with q secret
process for getting gold out Of refuse
copper ore. By adroit manipulation
he deceived the Chilians into believ-
ing that nothing but copper ore had
gone into the crucible out of which
Paraf extracted gold. In 1877 the
scheme was exposed, and his dupes
succeeded in lodging him in jail for
swindling.
Furnishing All Impostor.
When Grant, in August, 1851, was
sent with a brigade to southern Mis-.
souri, to repel a threatened invasion
OF it by jeff Thompson, an incident
occurred which is thus described by
one of his staff officers. *'The distance
from the starting point of the expedi-
ton to the supposed rendezvous of
the confederates was about ITO miles,
and the greater portion of the route
lay through the bowling wilderness.
The imaginary suffering that our SOL
diers endured during thetirst two days
of their march was enormous. It was
impossible to steal or tconfscate' I'M
roo1 ao% "a MI n l,@1,