MEDIUM ALLEGES LIBEL

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1932, Page 2

MEDIUM ALLEGES LIBEL

CLAIM AGAINST NEWSPAPER. REMARKABLE EVIDENCE GIVEN. By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. London, April 14. The hearing is proceeding of a claim for libel by Mrs. Meurg Morris, the wellknown trance medium, against the Daily Mail, which suggested that all her sermons were similar and that her subconscious mind was crammed with spiritualist jargon which she could hang on any text. Remarkable evidence was given for the defence. A charwoman at Mr. Laurence Cowen’s house at Harrow said that Mrs. Morris visited the house in 1929. Every evening she used to go to the library. The charwoman heard Mrs. Morris trying to imitate a man’s powerful voice. She heard Cowen say, “A little bit clearer, my dear.” Cowen later said, “That’s good.” The charwoman thought Cowen and Morris were rehearsing a play. Landstone, business manager of the Fortune Theatre, gave evidence that he heard Mrs. Morris apparently rehearsing Power’s sermon in Cowen’s room. The statement caused Mrs. Morris, who was in Court, to weep bitterly, moaning, “It’s dreadful.” Her friends tried to soothe Mrs. Morris, and finally led her from" the Court, still protesting.

Steel, once Cowen’s secretary, said that Cowen used to take Mrs. Morris to his office in the theatre. For half an hour Power’s voice would be heard delivering sermons. Cowen, who is the dramatist frequently mentioned in the case, had been manager of the seances’at the Fortune Theatre.