HYPNOTISM AND CRIME

Shannon News, 10 November 1925, Page 3

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME

INNOCENT 'GIRL SAVED. I THE MEMORY SEARCH. A remarkable instance of a missing niece of valuable evidence being “'discovered" by a hypnotist from a mind in a trance is reported from Frank-fort-on. Main. The case shows that a statement may make such a very slight impress sion on the mind as to be .forgotten, but that a hypnotist may ‘“develop" tire impression and release the statement, as it Were, from imprisonment in a remote recess of memory. Some little time ago one of the bestknown lawyers of Frankfort-on. Main had just reached home from his office when the telephone bell rang. He lifted the receiver to hear his secretary tell him that two ■ men had entered the office, attacked her, opened the safe from which they took M6OO and made off. The lawyer immediately returned to his office and fohnd his secretary showed every sign of having undergone a nerve-racking experience. The M6OO had certainly disappeared from the safe, but there were no signs of struggle or disorder as might be expected in such a case.

Two Young Men. / The young woman was able to give a very precise account of w,hat had happened and- to furnish a minute description of the two young' men who had attacked her. The police were called in mid decided to arrest the secretary; it was obvious to them, they said, that she had invented the tale in order to cover up the theft of the M6OO. But the lawyer refused to believe his secretary was guilty and he managed to persuade tl\e police not to arrest her, but wait for a while. They did, but nothing transpired to throw light on the case and at last the polibe insisted on bringing a charge against the young woman. A few days before she had to appear in court —before, as was obvious, she would be sent to prison and her career ruined —she was reading a novel in order toAkeep her mind off the coming ordeal. In the book she read a story of how a young- man had been * hynctised so that certain information might be obtained from him. An idea struck the young woman. If she were hypnotised and told the same story, the story she had repeated a dozen times only to be disbelieved by all save her chief, would she then be believed? She put the suggestion before the lawyer, who agreed on the plan being

tried. He secured the sendees of ah I eminent hypnotist: the police were in- I vited tc the “seance;" the lawyer and 1 i several of his secretary’s friends were ■ present. i The young woman was pat Into a trance and closely questioned by the hypnotist on every point connected | with the mystery. Her story was as clear and definite as that which she had always insisted on. When She came out of her trance, she asked what She had said. “Your story," said one of the officers, “is precisely that account which you have given us—save in on e particular. You stated in the trance that while the two young men were opening the safe you heard them mention someone’s name?” 1 “What was the name?” the secretary asked, and it was told her. “Yes,” she said, “1 had quite forgotten that. Perhaps it was because I do not know anybody of that

name.” “But I do,” said the lawyer. “A young woman of that name was my secretary’s predecessor.’’ The police saw their opening'. They discovered the address of the former secretary, followed her to the seaside where she had gone “ l on holiday,” and brought hr back to Frankfort. I There, after a little persuasion, she ; confessed, and within an hour the two young men were there too. Her story was that she fallen on evil days, and that she had in consequence, taken t(o i crime. One of her little coups was a raid on the lawyer’s office. She had persuaded her "friends” to carry out the business, and, as she knew the “geography” ot the office, she could give them definite instructions what to do and where to look for the moriey. During the carrying out of the raid one of the men had recalled to the other some part of their instructions, using the young woman’s name. •/ The terrified secretary had heard It, but the ordeal through which she was passed was such that the name was, by other impressions, driven into tiie very remotest part of her brain. There the hypnotist found It, and out, saved an innocent person \fron, prison and ruin.