MAN WHO MADE GOLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1923, Page 19

MAN WHO MADE GOLD.

THE ETERNAL QUEST. MYSTERY OF A STBANGE PERSONALITY. Liars I, ' TT Ot qUaCkS: tht K *e «* s. feuch was Count Cagliostro, who, feT a c" S « t0 , C ' nl ' le - ™ "» "«»o.t permarked f n h that iD these darker ages has " t ohl V™" , ' 8 hi3tor r-" He claimed covered ""** *° W and t0 haTC dls " covered the elixir of youth. mvstLrt' 8 " fe Caf?llostr ° mw a agure of Mm t „ U<s Ca " le,l his Becre t* With a tone„ f He d,e,l P en »He S s and alone and after a career unparalleled outr,rt« the / eftlms of fiction, in the terrible Tent? °L Leo, wWther be had be en sent by the Inquisition. A PHILANTHROPIC QUACK. whlreT hear ° f Ca S«o«ro in London, Trtved n<l UIS beautlful CountMi rltah m , ■ According to .ome author ties he had not then started his decepd°e?" At f n> ' ratC ' sorae years later 'he idea camo to him that he might make use of h.a knowledge of physics and chemistry manTf m ~ iSn ° rant that he wae » What makes Cagliostro'g career „. extraprofited financially by his deception,, which beem to have been inspired by vanity. Even from the rich he would not take money, while he was the benefactor of the poor, dealing them for nothing and lavishing gold npon them. The latter fact prompts the question, "Where did he get the money?- and lends Interest to his claim to have been able to transmute bane metals into gold. The Cardinal de Rohan, a powerful and wealthy man in Prance, who was taken in by Calgiostro-s trickery, declared that the wizard had made him a diamond out of nothing. He said he was present at the time, and was convinced there was no deception. The ring was examined by a jeweller, who said it was worth 25,000 livres. « "This is not all," added the Cardinal. "He can make gold! He has made it in this very palace, in my presence; five or six thousand livres These are no ; vagaries of the imagination, but poaitWe facts." The Cardinnl ndded that Cagliostro had never asked him for money. Was the Cardinal deceived or die! Cagliostro really perform the apparently impossible? That it was a clever decep tlon seems evident from the story which .tells how Cagliostro was once canght slipping a piece of gold Into the crucible at a semi-public demonstration. As soon as Cagliostro had made bis name famous in one country he wonld suddenly vanish and re-appear some time later In another. The stories of his wizardry and healing powers spread through Europe, and everywhere be went be was hailed as the friend of the poor. In Rnssia be offered to make a rich child well if allowed to remove the baby to hie home. The mother agreed, and three weeks later the child was restored to her in perfect health. But it was not the same child. Cagliostro confessed afterwards that the real child had died, and he had substituted another. Cagliostro also maintained that he had discovered the elixir of youth. It was said that a woman wbo bad taken tbe Ilqnld was made so young that her mistress did not recognise her. Even more startling was the claim that he evoked, at the request of the Cardinal dc Rohan, the shade of a woman he had once loved, and that, on another occasion, he made a troop of soldiers appear at will! This strange man was arrested in connection with the Diamond Necklace Affair. , The trial was instituted to clear Marie ! Antoinette's name. Cagliostro was acquitted, but the enmity of the French Government followed him wherever he went, and his downfall began from that dnte.