GIPSY’S SPELL.

Western Star, 24 April 1936, Page 4

GIPSY’S SPELL.

DARK, HYPNOTIC EYES “Her flittering dark eyes hypnotised me.' 1 In these words, a Devonshire garage owner described to a lady correspondent how h e had been “bewitched” by a gipsy woman into handing her his wallet and money from his pocket. He is Mr Arthur Sidney Jones, of Kingskerswell. At Newton Abbot Police Court a woman named Rose Mitchell was lined £2 for stealing 8s from Mi Jones and was ordered to restore this money. “How it all came about is certainly the queerest thing I ever heard of,” he said. “Last Sunday a gipsy woman got out of a car standing near my gaxage and asked fo r two split pins for the car. I gav e them t 0 her and refused payment. “Then another gipsy woman, very dark and foreign-looking, and talking with a strange broken accent, came in and offered in return to tell my for. tune.

“I agreed, and when she asked for a piece of silver to hold I went into my office for a shilling-.

“She said she must bless it.. She llxed me with her glittering black eves and mumbled some rigmarole about ‘Bless this man, hi s money, and his business,' staring hard at me all the while and making passes over the coin with her hands. “Then she demanded my wallet, saying that she must hold it for good luck, and, fool-like, I gave it to her. If anyone had told me I could be so taken in I would have laughed at them. “When she got hold of my wallet, she said that it had nothing in it, and l must take out the money I had in an other pocket. Sh e was right; I had money in another pocket somp notes and odd silver, and again, like a fool, I handed it over. “I assure you I had harldy any control over my actions, but somehow I was able to resist her further demand* that I should open the cash register. “I managed to throw off what I am convinced was her hypnotic spell while she was covering the money with a handkerchief and making further pass, es. I put back my wallet and money, but when she had gone I discovered that about B.s was missing. “People may laugh at my saying that this woman hypnotised me, but I am willing to challenge anyone that it- is true. I was trembling from head to foot when I at last got rid of her.” Mr Jones added when later he called at the police station that tue'.e were six cars full of gipsies, about ten women, nine men, and several children.

At the police court the woman denied hypnotising Mr Jones, and fi3 id he had given her the money for telling his fortune. Superintendent Martin said that this was not the first ease that had come to the notice of the police. “The practice has becom c a positive ramp among garage proprietors,” he aaid. There have tee n periodic complaints during the last 12 months of “gangs” of gipsy pedlars pestering housewives in door-to-door fortune-telling tours of counties nearer London.