Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1904-11-11
PREpIcTIoNs<oF FAKiRs.
Historical Ineidenees Of Their Proving
Correct,

All LOnQOu oldChpooi hoNS oSSA
laughing at the exposure Of palmistry,
its professors and dupes, and 1t needs,
therefore, no little courage to say that
the science" cannot be so transpar-
emily preposterous as the evidence OF
the detectives would suggest. If the
shots made by the palmists were US
ually 80 wide Of the mark as their
predictions to the detectives their busi-
ness would long since have gone out
of itself, like an ill-smelling farthing
dip.
In my own experience I have known
only two people who consulted palm
lists, and in one case the answers as
regards the past, and in the other
those as regards the future, were cir
cumstantially correct in the minutest
details. One Of the hardest-headed
Scotsmen and one Of the most saga
cious and successful editors In all
London told me that a palmist whom
he had consulted that very day for
freak recalled his whole past life to
him mnutely anu correctly.
In the other case the palmist was
circumstantially and minutely correct
about the future Of girl, to whom
she told five years before the events
predicted, when, where and how she
would meet her future husband, when
and where she should become engaged
to him, and the very date to a week
Of her marriage.
Carlyle has justly gibbeted Caglios-
tro as the arch quack Of a century
rich in such rascals; but no one would
infer from his scathing essay on Beppo
Balsamo that his dupes had anything
whatever to say for themselves. But
take Cagliostro's English dupes alone
themselves, by the way, scoundrels,
for, as Carlyle says, and Bacon be-
fore him, quacks and dupes are made
Of the self-made stuff take these
English swindlers, Lord" Scot & Co.,
and see how strange was the justif-
cation Of their belief in the arch i'm
postors supernatural powers.
Lord" Scot asked Cagliostro to
predict for him the winning number Of
the next lottery to be drawn on No
vember 6, and the prophet named No.
20, which won. Encouraged by this
success, Cagliostro predicted 26 as
the winning number Of the next draw
Ing, and 55 and 81 for those Of Mo-
vember IS, all Of which drew prizes.
Cagliostro was so elated by this Sc
ries of successes that he resolved
henceforth to try his own luck at the
lotteries, keeping to himself his fore
knowledge Of the winning numbers.
He resisted accordingly all the en-
treaties Of Lord" Scot and the rest
of the gang to let them know the win
ming number Of the next drawing. A
disreputable member Of the gang, a
Miss Fry, however, prevailed on Gag
liostro's wife to intercede for them
with her husband, who was thus In
duced to name the number 8, which
drew the largest prize-1,500 guineas-
in the very next drawing.
1t never seems to have struck either
Cagliostro himself, or this gang Of
sharpers, that the same apparently
supernatural knowledge which OWNED
those winning numbers ought to have
seen through such swindlers. and to
have foreseen the disasters in which
they were to involve him.
That the prosecuted palmists OF
Blackpool and London were no more
able than Cagliostro to see through the
men who consulted them only to con-
trive their ruin shakes all faith in their
prophetical pretentions. Yet one palm
ist at least is recorded to have fore
told his own fate as truly as that of
his patrons.
According to Les Anecdotes de Flor
ence, ou rHistoire Secrete de Ia Mais-
on di Medicis," Antiochus Tibertus,
long before death, uttered three extra
ordinary prophecies, one concerning
his patron, another concerning his
friend, and the third concerning HIM
self-that his patron, Pandolpho di
Malatesta, Prince of Rimini, should die
beggar, in exile, and in a hospital;
that his friend, Gundo di Bogni, one
Of the greatest captains Of his time,
should be treacherously assassinated
by the order Of this tyrant, Malatesta,
who should also put the prophet HIM
self to death at the same time, and on
the same unjust charge.
When these predictions were deliv-
cred Malatesta was at height OF his
power, Guido Of his fame, and Antio-
chus Tibertus Of his prosperity, yet
within a few years Guido was assassi-
mated, Tibertus executed and Malates-
ia exiled, and doomed to die In exile,
and in a hospital, deserted not by his
friends only, but even by his children.
The Austrian officer, Baron Won
Weigel, who served against the Turks
in the war Of 1888, gives the most
thrilling account I have ever read OF an
escape from the enemy. He was
warned three times In the most solemn
tones by a gypsy palmist to beware
August 20, months before that date,
and the warning 80 impressed him
that he was immeasurably relieved to
find, when the fate day came, that,
though it was the turn Of his regiment
to furnish a picket for the night, two
other officers were down on the roster
to go on duty before him. One OF
them, however, was taken suddenly Ill,
and when the other proceeded to
mount his horse the usually gentle
creature reared and threw him, break
ing his leg.