CRIME IN DREAM STATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18089, 13 May 1922, Page 2 (Supplement)

CRIME IN DREAM STATE.

GIRL'S INCENDIARY ACTS.

DOCTOR'S REMARKABLE TilttUMXi It was Mary Ellen, tho 15-year-old foster-child of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Ma.cdona.ld, who started the mysterious fires in the " haunted " farmhouse at Calodonia Mills, Nova Scotia. Such is tho conclusion of Dr. Walter Franklin Prince, the New York spook-hunter, as indicated in his report on his investigation thereThe braiding of the cows' tails and the transference of chained horses and cattle from one stanchion to another, which so greatly perturbed the aged farmer, Dr. Prince also ascribes to tho girl. As to the slaps which tho reporter, Whidden, and Carroll, tho detective, claimed were administered to them by ghostly hands, and the noises they heard during their previous sojourn in t"o house, Dr. Prince says: — " The sounds and other impressions shared bv Messrs. Whidden and Carroll were, judging by the signs they bear in common with other and much larger investigated occurrences of a similar kind, supernormal. This does not necessarily mean spiritualistic, as jt may bo that some force, not yet understood by science, of a psycho-physiological character was in operation." Thm is taken to mean that they merely thought they were slapped ! " Wireless" Theory Scouted. Eminent experts, such as Prof. Harris Rogers, the inventor of underground wireless had, in response to inquiries, scouted the' theory that the fires were caused by electrical currents between the radio stations at Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. Dr. Prince found hidden on a beam a bottle containing an odourless inflammable liquid with which the wet paper and clothes that burst into flames had evidently been sprinkled. He found that the burns on the wallpaper were never above the reach of a person sft. tall, which is the height of the girl in the case. " Over the bed, which fills one end of a room." he says, " they were never higher than such a, person, kneeling, could reach, and in muddy or dewy weather one would not wish to stand on the bed." Other slightly-higher places on tho woodwork were always set on fire by pieces of cloth which could easily have been tossed, for " in a recess over the door where a fire occurred were found fragments of a glove undisturbed, and ;n the midst of them a match where it could not have been prior to the fire, nor have been placed there after its extinguishment." .. But Dr. Prince is emphatically of opinion that the girl is not mentally culpable. " She is mentally exceedingly younp for her years." lie says, " and within the past year has had sineular ' dream states,' from which it was difficult to rouse her. It is very probable she was thc_ victim of altered states of consciousness about which psychology has learned so much of late/' In other words, she did not knew what she was doing.