VICTIMS OF MALAY MAGIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

VICTIMS OF MALAY MAGIC.

GERMAN HUSBAND'S PLEA.

STRANGE DIVORCE CASE.

In the Berlin Divorce Court a husband alleged that his wife tried to murder him by Malay magic. The following dialogue took place between the judge and the parties :— The Husband : We have been married for ten "years. Wilhelmina is 33; but everything went to pieces when she met a crazy woman, a Government Councillor. 'the Judge: How was that? The band : Wilhelmina goes almost every day to meeting and women come to us, and there 13 no end to the table turnings, mediums in trances, and hypnotic exponents. Even our child, who is eight, has been ruined by these hysterical creatures. x The judge asked the wife, a stiff but not bad-looking woman with hysterical eyes and hands which twitched nervously, to comment on her husband's statements. She replied: I refuse. lam responsible only to a ht|ftir tribunal. . . . . But what he says about the Fran Government Councillor is, untrue. She is a good •woman, who has opened my eyes. ... The Husband (intervening) : Yes, and incited you - to murder m«. The Judge (soothingly) : Now, now. You know you cannot justify a statement like • that. The Husband: Yes, I can. Of course it was murder in her own style. I found a photograph of myself with the eyes gouged out in a drawer of her table. It appears that it is a form of ; Malay magic. Then she told me that a medium had seen me in a burning coffin, and she told the child that her father would soon die. Thn wife aroso and pointed a thin hand at the unfortunate man, crying And you will die. You! will come to a bad end. She sank back in her chair and sat with her' thin lips compressed, refusing to answer any of the judge's questions. A divorce was pronounced on the grounds that the wife had ruined the mamagfe, and the father was given the custody of the child.