SENT FROM THE DEAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20222, 7 October 1927, Page 7

SENT FROM THE DEAD

STRANGE MASONIC "SIGNS.” STORY OF A SUICIDE. REMARKABLE EVIDENCE. Remarkable evidence was given by a medical man concerning a patient who, in his opinion, was wrongly certified as a lunatic, at an inquest at Hampstead recently on Gilbert S»uthwood Meiklejohn, aged 45, of Westminster, who was found shot near the Viaduct Pond on Hampstead Heath. Dr Oscar Parkes said he had known Meiklejohn for about four years, first as an acquaintance and then as a patient. “ The man was not certifiable, in my opinion,” said Dr Parkes. “ I saw him at the asylum, and X also saw the Lunacy Commissioners. I was prepared to help to get him out when he escaped. From that time his nerves’went steadily downhill, and in June of this year I received a letter from him telling me that he was in a bad way.” Mr Danford-Thomas: Do you know the circumstances under which he was certified? Dr Parkes; Well, he was a temperamental man, and he had just decided completely to alter his ways in many respects. He was going “on the water wagon,” and he had taken a step which I hope all bachelors take at some time in their- life, and resolved to turn over a new leaf. In order to make some sort of definite binding contract with himself he had taken a knife and cut a small cross on his chest. “ He said to me, ‘ It’s just like the Crusaders, Parkes. I made a cross in my own body to register this vow.’ It was partly on the strength of that that he certified for self-mutilation.” • Dr Parkes said that Meiklejohn had an extensive knowledge of Masonic matters and signs, although he was not a Mason. “He told me,” added the doctor, “ that this knowledge came to him from people on the ‘ other side.’ He gave me a number of signs, and a friend of mine who is a Mason assured me that they have a direct bearing on Masonry.” Mr Danford-Thomas: You say that this man was certified without your knowledge?—Yes. Did he not ask for you?—He was not given an opportunity. He was taken away from his diggings in Hampstead in his nightdress—a most extraordinary state of things. Dr Partes, asked if Meiklejohn was quite normal before the certification, said he was undoubtedly temperamental. He was strongly built, and rather than argue with a man he would always knock him down. After Meiklejohn escaped no effort was made to get him back to the asylum. Mr Danford-Thomas said he would like to hear from the police some details of the circumstances in which Meiklejohn was certified. A police constable produced a copy of the official record, which stated that an June 24, 1924, the police were called to a house at Hampstead. They there saw Meiklejohn, who was in an excited condition, and suffering from flesh wounds on the chest. Police Constable Sergeant, who found Meiklejohn’s body in a plot of firs, with a bullet wound in the temple, said that in the man’s pockets were 12 pamphlets on lunacy reform, three £5 notes, 37 £1 Treasury notes, 38 shillings in silver, and a number of bottles of medicine.