A SPIRITUALISTIC SWINDLER.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2295, 14 September 1870, Page 2

A SPIRITUALISTIC SWINDLER.

A M. Valonte, of Naples, has just been condemnrd by the Correctional Court of that city (o six month..’ imprisonment for “spiristic” swindling. This Valeute, formerly an officer in the service of his Bourbonic Majesty, was, says a Naples correspondent, the spiritual medium of a small but select gathering. Valcnte, when in his state of ecstatic coma, was favored by visits from no less a person than the Archangel Gabriel, a dignitary whose celestial functions do not, it seems, afford him the means of making both ends meet, for the burden of his song was still that he wanted money, and the money was always forthcoming and delivered to Valente for transmissipn to tho Archangel, or to be applied as he might direct. In this way Va'ente became by degrees, the cashier of the society, and incredible as it may appear, its richest, softest, and most fervent adept, one A gillo Brago, suffered himself to be stripped by degrees of all bis worldly possessions, being, however, duly rewarded for his self-denial by the re ceipt of an arohangelic diploma, conferring upon him the dignity of Nun tins or Grand Nias'er of the little community. Valeute had the keys of the money-chest, and when poor Brago wanted a pocket comb or twopence to replenish his snuff-hqx he had to prefer his request in writing for presentation - to the Archangel. But while m the heyday of his prosperity, our Valente fell a victim to the passion that rules the court, the cottage, and the camp. In an evil hour for them a widow lady, one Geronimo Merici, in age, in age somewhere upon the confines of gorgeous summer and mellow autumn was admitted among the members of the society. She was a widow of recent date, and all her thoughts were set upon one object, to be put in communication with tho spirit of her departed lord. The Archangel was willing to arrange the matter upon the payment of certain stipulated fees, and at last, thanks to the liberality of the widow and to the intercession of Valente, it was settled that the visitor from the spirit world should appear on a certain night in the lady’s chamber, borrowing for the nonce the

terrestrial semblance of \ aleute himself Enthralled Valente, in this thou reckoncdst without thy host! The widow hesitated, suspected, and finally declined to receive her visitor except in a purely ghostly fluu immaterial shape. Valente, finding her inflexible on this point, dropped upon ins knees, confessed his imposture and the intensity of his passion, and offered his band and his “ rich booty ” to the charming widow, on condition of her helping him to make a clean sweep of what remained in the pockets of the spiritist community. Another and a worse mistake. The lady betrayed him to Brago, who after a severe internal struggle opened his feeble mind to conviction, and applied for a legal remedy. The trial, which occupied some days, was full of amusing incidents. The Court in consideration of the temptation afforded to the swindler by the colossal stupidity of his dupes, took a lenient view of the case, and sent Yalente to prison for six months, with the addition of a fine of 51 francs. —Glavjow Herald.