'SPIRIT'S' PART IN MONEY CLAIM

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12730, 1 May 1939, Page 5

'SPIRIT'S' PART IN MONEY CLAIM

MAN’S LINK WITH TOLSTOY Sydney, April 21. A woman said in the Causes Court to-day that an optician gave as an excuse for not repaying a loan,, that he received a visitation* from her* dead father who advised withholding i the' money for six months, “When you will be in great trouble a’nd need it.” The optician denied owing the money and invoking the spirit of her father. He had said that.her father “would turn in his grave if he knew the way she was going on.” Before Judge Clancy and. a jury, Clara Lind, of Byng Street, Maroubra, claimed three sums totalling £9O, which she alleged that L. A. Coplan, an optician, of Rawson Place, had borrowed from her in September, October and November, 1938. Cpplan denied her allegations. Mrs. Lind said she had known Coplan since June, 1938, when she met »him on business connected with her husband’s glasses. He had stayed at her house for week-ends, and she had been away to the mountains with him. The reference to the vision and the predicted “trouble,’.’...she said* was made when Coplan telephoned her to come to his office and get the money. “It would seem that the trouble has come a little earlier than expected,” Judge Clancy observed. Mrs Lind said she had been with Coplan to a seance at Marrickville when all had sat round in a circle. Apart from Coplan, it was a circle of women. She denied tp Mr Holden (for Coplan) that she had ever,.been inti 1 ' mate with Min tor had 1 shared the; same room with, : ,-him. at. Ma®biibra while her husband,.slept in -spare room. V She had gone To the Mountains with Coplan because her husband had been unable to escort her. They had stayed a night in a cottage. Her husband kiiew |ill about this trip and approved of it. “Asked Me For £300” Leo Arthur Coplan, who claipied to be a Bachelor of Science, said that Avheh; he„%ent -out o to the MaToubra home- for week-ends he took so much vegetables, ‘fruit; wines and other things that he had to have help to carry them in from, the, taxi. “Mrs Lind asked me to take her to the - Mountains,” said Cpplan; “While there she asked rpe for £ 30.0 to square, a man named McDermott. I said I wouldn't give her threepence. She then asked be for £ 20.0 and I said, ‘Do you think I am a* sucker? Don’t you think you have fpoled, me long enough ? ’ and .I - packed and , came home.’’, T V, Coplan said he the;. ?ajne, room with Mrs. .Lin^ ? l .at Marpubra*: “The husbandVnsed,' ipV \us jin morning tea,’? he used to say ihatVas.,lohg- /as. his drink'lhedkas.hap.9y.>j ... f f y -r, , “On one occasion,, she eame to :my office with a Mrs White and asked for £IOO. I said, ‘What do you take me for? I’ll admit I have been an old fool for a long time, but not all the time.’ ” i V ? - Cpplan said, he had bought Mrs Lind a squirrel choker before going to the Mountains. In Tqnch With Tolstoy Mr Roach (for Mrs Lind): You escaped from Siberia *in a barrel didn’t you?—T was..in a lot'of political trouble. . You claimed you escaped with the help of Count Tolstoy?—He was an old man avhen I was young. His spirit appears to you now and assists you?—Yes. It helps me in my outlook and ideals, on life'. Coplan said he lectured on psychology, but had never attended meetings where tables moved and there were knoekings. He denied that he had ever told. Mrs Lind that the spirit pf her father had appeared to him. He had said that - her father would turn in his grave because of the way she was going on. . . . He admitted that he had taken out a summons against Mrs Lind for her expenses of the Katoomba trip. lie t h.ad invited her. there, at _her.request, he : had had no full‘At >ll,’.Vbnly Iw-orry,? becauie -she was askiH’g .him! m'efn’eyV,, VV / , IjfV/v'She was marring a sucker of‘ni,e/’ asserted. ’ iVV.The hpariug was adjourned until .to-morrow. p , s r