POWERS OF "ARGUS."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17753, 12 April 1921, Page 6

POWERS OF "ARGUS."

SEQUEL TO CONVICTION.

SUPREME COURT APPEAL.

QUESTION OF INTENT.

An appeal against the conviction recorded! in the Police Court by Mr. J. W. Poynton, S.M., against Charles Louis Copeland, for having undertaken to tell fortunes at a public performance at the Hippodrome Theatre on December 30 last, in conjunction with his eleven-year-old son, Argus, -was heard before Mr. Justice Adama in the Supreme Court yesterday. Mr. Fleming appeared for appellant, and the Grown Prosecutor, Mr. V. R. Meredith, opposed the appeal on behalf of Detective-Sergeant Cummings, ■who was informant in the earlier case.

The magistrate held that while an offence had been committed, Copeland honestly believed his son could actually tell fortunes, and there was no intention of deceiving the public. The tvhole question, said Mr. Fleming, was whether an intention to deceive constituted an ingredient of the offence. Mr. Poynton had decided that it did not. Counsel quoted decisions in England to support his contention that intent to deceive must he proved before it could be held that an offence had been committed. This contention was supported in a New Zealand case, McGrath v. Vine, in which Mr. Justice Edwards had said that if intent to deceive wore not an ingredient of tho offence any person who cut the cards for the amusement of a private circle of friends would have to be regarded as an offender. In tho sections dealing with fortune-telling in the English Witchcraft Act of 1Y36, and the Vagrancy Act of 1804, upon which the corresponding section in the New Zealand Crimes Act was based, an offence was committed by " pretending or professing to tell fortunes with intent to deceive or impose upon any of His Majesty's subjects."

The Magistrate's Opinion. The boy Argus, said counsel, was endowed with telepathic powers, of which a demonstration had been given in the Police Court. The magistrate and police had treated the case most sympathetically. After viewing the demonstration the magistrate had decided against trickery as a cause of the phenomena, and had agreed that the boy possessed wonderful faculties.

His Honor said he was bound to accept the magistrate's opinion on the question of deceit, also defendant's assurance that he believed in the phenomena which had been demonstrated.

Mr. Fleming quoted a decision in the case Davis v. Curry, which was the latest authority procurable, in which, he submitted, hig contention regarding the element of deceit was supported. This decision, said counsel, set aside all previous differences of opinion among judges on the matter. Referring to the nature of the boy's powers he said they were not supernatural, and he would not profess that the lad could tell fortunes. What he could do was to read another's thoughts relating to future events. Counsel echoed the 'magistrate's sentiment that it was a pity the boy's faculties were not properly investigated. Mr. Meredith submitted that there was no necessity to prove intent to deceive. The words of the old English Act were now changed from " pretending " to "undertaking ' to tell fortunes. In the case Ktfgina v. Entwhistle, an English Judge had held that intent to deceive need not be proved because the word " pretend '' connoted " deception." "It is well known," said Mr. Meredith, " that there is a class of impressionable, neurotic people who are weak enough not to exercise their judgment, who believe in fatalism, and who are gullible enough to believe anything a fortune-teller says, thus warping their judgment, causing them to cease their struggles, and resulting in a lowering effect on their moral character." It was to protect such people that tho present law had been framed. Tattler's Belief in Son's Powers.

The magistrate had held that the exhibition of the boy's powers was free from deception and they were bound by that decision, continued counsel, but it might well be that someone else might not have come to that conclusion. The defendant swore he believed in his son's powers and it was impossible to say he did not. " But any charlatan or humbug, '„ said, counsel, " could say the some and it would constitute a defence. It would appear, therefore, that the very objection which the legislation was intended to prevent would flourish." On these grounds counsel contended that the law should be interpreted as an absolute prohibition to tell fortunes.

His Honor said he had little doubt as to what the decision in the case should be, but as the appeal was of some importance he would reserve his decision until this morning.