A CURIOUS CASE

Southland Times, Issue 18825, 19 May 1920, Page 6

A CURIOUS CASE

ATPEMPTED SUICIDE ALLEGED. SEQUEL TO “HYPNOTIC” DEMONSTRATION. (Per United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, May 18. “It is an absurd charge,” declared Franklin John Smith, a vaudeville artist, who was charged before Mr J. E. Wilson, S.M., today, that he attempted to commit suicide by jabbing a knife into an artery’ of his left arm. The admitted circumstances were that on Saturday afternoon the police got word that Smith was at the hospital with a punctured wound in his arm, a stitch having to be put in the wound, which had bled copiously. As Smith was on bail awaiting trial at the Supreme Court on a serious charge, he was arrested. The evidence of the porter at the Metropolitan Hotel was that as he was cutting a pipe of tobacco in the hotel Smith stepped up to him from a group of men and asked for the loan of hia knife. He took it to a mantelpiece, crooked up his bared left arm on the mantel, and drove the small blade of the knife into hi.s arm. As the arm was straightened the blood spurted out. The men surged round excitedly to stop the bleeding, but Smith laughed and fended them oil, declaring that things were all right. Eventually’ the licensee came on the scene and .sent Smith by taxi to the hospital. The explanation made was that Smith ami others in the course of filling in time between drinks, got into a discussion on hypnotism, the subject being introduced by’ the presence of “Professor” Dalmaine, who protested to an unbeliever that he had come to discuss a “spot,” not to talk shop. Smith took up tho cudgels for his showman business, and undertook to confound the sceptics by a demonstration of what he called hypnotism, auto-suggestion, will control, etc. He proposed to stick pins into his arm, but someone remarked in disgust, “Show us something new.” He called for a knife and did the deed as narrated. Smith, in tho box, ridiculed ...the charge. He bared his uninjured arm and explained by’ demonstration how’ the blood was forced back from the veins of the forearm by muscular contraction, so that the prick of a needle or even a knife would not draw blood. With the showman’s instinct he waved one. hypnotic hand over his arm as if to conjure the vital fluid back and forth, whereon tho Magistrate irritably called “enough.” ! Witness said that when he had miscal- | culated his stab he declined to have the , flow of blood stopped at first, for fear that if it were stopped too soon there would be danger of blood |>oisoning from the tobaccostained blade, and afterwards, when Dalmaine went to put on a tourniquet, the excited crowd in the bur prevented him from getting it on. Claude Arthur Dalmaine, hypnotist, stated that when he wished to avoid the bar discussion on the subject, Smith, who almost got annoyed over the scepticism on the point, jumped in and did as stated. Without any of Smith’s theatricalism, witness explained that certain muscular contractions would force the blood back temporarily from tho forearm, when a needle or knife blade could be safely pushed into the flesh provided tho arteries were avoided. Smith miscalculated and cut an artery, but ho had two or three times previously seen Smith successfully’ pierce his ami with a knife blade, and had quite frequently done it himself. He was quite certain from Smith’s demeanor that there was nothing else in the incident. The Magistrate remarked that after hearing Dalmaine’s evidence he was inclined “to give Smith the benefit of the doubt, and would dismiss tho case on condition that tho man paid the costs of the prosecution. His Worship added that he thought a tag should he put to Smith’s bail bond to keep him out of hotels till he satisfied the law on the other charge.