MODERN SORCERER.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 193, 14 August 1909, Page 15

MODERN SORCERER.

Four pounds for "an Infant's stamped with the magic signs ensuring Immortality," £1 for the "magic stone for discovering man's fat," 4/ for a "wolf'a tooth to disarm treasures," £1 4/ for thirty grains of "a hanged slander," £tl for "four nails from a new-born baby's coffin," 7/0 for "the star of love, which attracts irresistibly indifferent or blase persons towards the wearer," are quotations from the price list of the "Rod Wizard," now being prosecuted in Paris. Tha Irresistible "star of! love" seems an especially good bargain. The sorcerer found plenty of customers. A! commission agent of Ageu, the land where plums are dried, bought not the "star o£ love," but n magic corn-curer. An Arab of Biskra bought the "ratal water," but was troubled in his mlud to know whether It could not be used as well on any day as a Friday. This, it seems, is uot so. The proper method is to "pour threo drops of it on the floor every Friday night, and mutter one of the following Incantations, as the ease may be: I wish to marry so-and-so; I wish so-and-so to give mo money; I wish so-and-so to lovo mc very much; I wish so-and-so, my uncle, to make mc his heir; I wish so-and-so to remain faithful; or lastly, I wish my enemy, so-and-so, were very ill." The charm always works if practised on a Friday night. Tho fatal water, costing only 12/6 a bottle, ia dirt cheap at the price, for it can be made only in the following way: "It is obtainedi by plunging Into water a Ted-hot poken withdrawn from a burning altar, upon which expiatory sacrifices have been made, according to rites dating back to Serviua Tulllus, and handed down through tha Mlddlo Ages by tho Knights Templar."

Defendant ploadcd that he bad done no harm to anyono, and us a mutter of fact no complaint has boon recorded against htm from any of hla customers. Tho prosecution orgucrl that "iFools must be pro. toetod nanlnst their own folly." The case was adjourned.