Show KING OF I 1 WONDERFUL CAREER OF ITALIAN IMPOSTOR who feied ai Phyl clan t aid teacher and who upped all europe other fair teach n superstition thrives and fattens in the opening days of the century in tact it seems as though there has never been a time not even in the mystic age when more strange beliefs flourished than now and this in spite of the adm eted progress made by science and popular education all over the united states strange cults are springing up each with its follow ing of dupes and one becomes lost in speculation to w hat Is to be the out come of this remarkable activity but perhaps the prince of the whole list of charlatans who have flashed across history s pages was cagliostro Cagl lostro who operated in the stormy days pre ceding the french revolution A prince 0 when cagliostro appeared the time was ripe tor 1 is gigantic swindle of intelligence the old regime was tot bering to its fall the old ideas which had held society together tor a thou sand years were in semie decay the new world of science and intellectual liberty was just beginning and to its disciples the word impossible was not known the wildest dreams appeared as the realities into this cur rent swept cagliostro Cagl lostro the king of liars the aunce of impostors and the most splendid rascal the world ever saw god of the earth was one of the titles his followers gave him and he had a hundred others almost equally ambitious like all other impostors he gained his first step on the ladder of tame 01 infamy by alleged mar cures which soon made bis cagliostro name a household word throughout europe to bring the dead to life and call spirits from the other world were every day occurrences hd the F ix r of lite he posed as a physician pher alchemist free mason and mancer he claimed the power of abolishing original sin of cobrae its penalties and even hinted at late conception but it was his pos session of the secret of eternal youth and life that gave him his prestige this was a drawing card among the ladies but it should not be assumed that women were his only dupes the wily charlatan had an oily tongue and even clerics were impressed by him the upper classes then were at onca sensual infidel superstitious and naturally were impressed by the claims of the man who said he could make gold and diamonds at will no secret t the heaven or earth was withheld rom him the people believed him and tor years the fad ran its course in europe cagliostro Cagl lostro was accompanied by his wife a beautiful woman and she operated in his astounding impositions though young she claimed a great age and spoke of her son aa a corn mander in the dutch navy carllos tro himself was anywhere from loo to old his vitality of course being preserved by that wonderful elixir of perpetual youth for years cagliostro reveled in lux ury and wealth his dupes were many and rich and they insisted in keeping his pockets well filled but the enl gradually came he found it con to leave france he had al ready visited every european coun try and he wandered to rome in 1789 there he was thrown into prison and in 1795 he died in spite of his life pre serving elixir the correct name ol 01 cagliostro waa gluseppe balsamo he was a native of palermo italy and at an early age became the assistant to an apothecary in a monastery here he picked up a scanty knowledge of chemistry and medicine but scanty as it was it en abbed him to impose upon thousands of persons bome other charlatans Charla tani in english history there is hardly a century without its crop of religious fanatics but they had a strenuous way of suppressing them in those days during cromwell s administration james nay lor personated the savior he was arrested convicted of bias phemy scourged and his tongue burned through with a red hot iron in elizabeth s reign tor a similar of tense william hackett was executed the holy maid of kent in the reign of henry VIII pretended to haya inspirations from heaven bearing on the kings multitudinous domestic re lations she and some of her follow ers were gaugel at tyburn in 1221 under henry HI two men who posed as christ and two women one of whom pretended to be the vir gin mary and the other mary mag dalen were snuffed out in the usual way other parts of europe have also baal their impostors in the eighth cen tury adelbert pretending that he had received a message from the er in a letter which fell from heaven seduced multitudes to follow him into the desert and live as did john the baptist thousands of his followers perished |