EVER THE SHOWMAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 118, 18 May 1920, Page 5

EVER THE SHOWMAN.

SMITH'S THEATRICAL WAY. LEADS TO SUICIDE CHARGE. "It's an absurd charge,' , declared Franklin Jno. Smith (24), a. vaudeville artist, who was charged, before .Mr. J. X Wilson, S \T _ to-day that lie attempted tc commit suicide by jabbing a knife into an artery of his left arm. The admitted circumstances were that on Saturday afternoon the police got word that Smith was at the Hospital with a punctured wound in his arm, a stitch having to be put in the wound, which had bled copiously. As Smith was on bail awaiting trial at the Supreme Court on a serious charge ho wa3 arrested. The evidence of a porter at the Metropolitan Hotel was that as he was cutting a pipe of tobacco in the hotel Smith stepped up to him from a group of men. asked for the loan of his knife, took it to a mantelpiece, crooked up his bared left arm on the mantel and drove the small blade of the knife into his arm. As the arm was straightened the blxid spurted from it, men surged round excitedly to stop the bleeding, but Smith laughed and fended them oil', declaring that things were all right. Eventually the licensee came on the scene, and =ent Smith by taxi to the Hospital. The explanation made, under the guidance of Mr. A. Moody, was that Smith and others, in the course of filling in the time between drink?, got into a discussion on hypnotism, the subject being introduced by the presence of "Professor" D'Almaine, who protested to an unbeliever that he had come to discuss a "spot, -, not to talk shop. Smith took up the cudgels for his showman business, and undertook to confound the sceptics by a demonstration of what he called hypnotism, auto-suggestion, will control, etc. He proposed to stick pins into his arm, but when someone remarked in disgnst "Show us something new" he called for a knife, and did the deed as narrated. Smith, in the box, ridiculed the ehargc, bared his uninjured arm, and explained by demonstration of how the blood was forced back from the veins of the forearm by muscular contraction so that the prick of a needle, or even a knife, would not draw blood. With the showman's instinct he waved one hypnotic hand over the arm as to conjure the vital fluid back and forth, whereon the magistrate irritably called enough. The witness said tluit when he had miscalculated his sta-b he declined to have the flo-w of blood stopped at first for fear that if it were stopped too soon there would he danger of blood-poisoning from the tobaccostained blade, and afterwards when D'Almaine went to put on a tourniquet the excited crowd in the bar prevented him from getting it on. Claude Arthur D'Almaine. hypnotist, stated that when he wished to avoid bar discussion on the subject, Smith, who almost got annoyed over scepticism on the point, jumped in and did as stated. Without any of Smith".* tlicatricalism, the witness explained that certain muscular contractions would forw the blood ! back temporarily from the forearm, when a needle or a knife-blade could be safelypushed into the flesh, provided the arteries were avoided. Smith miscalculated, and cut an artery, but he had two or three.times previously seen Smith successfully pierce his arm with a knifeblade, and had quite frequently done it himself. He was quite certain, from I Smith's demeanour, that there .was nothing else in the incident.

Another bystander (A. R. Sullivan) detailed the incident similarly.

The magistrate remarked that, after hearing D Alnaaine'e evidence, lie was inclined to give Smitl. the benefit of the doubt, and would dismiss the case on condition that the man paid the costs of the prosecution. His Worship added that he thought a tag should be put to Smith's bail bond to keep him out .of hotels till he has satisfied the law on the other charge.