VAUDEVILLE ARTIST IN TROUBLE.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 May 1920, Page 3

VAUDEVILLE ARTIST IN TROUBLE.

SIDELIGHT ON HYPNOTISM

AUCKLAND,, May 18. “It is an absurd charge,” declared Franklin Jno. Smith, vaudeville artist who was -charged before Mr Wilson S.M., to-day that he attempted to commit Suicide by jabbing into an -irter.v 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 tlie wound, which had bled copiously. As Smith was on bail waiting trial at the Supreme Court, on a serious charge he was arrested.

Tlie evidence of a porter at the Metropolitan Hotel was that, as he was cutting a pipe of tobacco in the lotel, Smith stepped up to him from a group of men and asked for the loan of his knife. He took it- to the mantelpiece, crooked up his. hared left arm on the

mantelpiece, and drove the small , blade of the knife into his 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 off declaring that things were all right. Eventually the licensee came on the scene and sent Smith by a taxi to the hospital. The explanation made was that .Smith and others, in iho course of filling in time between drinks got into a discussion on hypnotism, the subject being introduced by tlie presence of Professor Dalmaine, who protested to an unbeliever that he’had come to discuss a “spot,” not to talk shop. Smith took up tlie cudgels for his showman business and undertook to confound the sceptics by a demonstration of what lie called hypnotism, autosuggestion, will control etc. He proposed to stick pins into his arm, but somone remarked in disgUest, “Show us something new.” He called for a knife and’did the, deed as narrated. Smith in the box ridiculed the charge. He bared, his uninjured arm and gave a demonstration of how blood was forced hack from the veins of the forearm, hv muscular contraction, so that the prisck of a needle or even a knife would not draw blood. With a showman’s instinct lie wared one hypnotic hand over the arm as if to conjure the vital fluid back and forth, whereupon the Magistrate irritably c a Hod, “Enough.' Witness said that when he had miscalculated his stab he declined to have tlie flow of blood stopped too soon there would be a danger of blood poisoning from the tobacco-stained blade, and afterwards, when Dalmaine went to put on a tourniquet, the excite! crowd in tlie bar prevented him from getting it on. Claude, Arthur Dalmaine, hypnotist, stated that, when he wished to avoid a bar discuss 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 theatricalisni, witness explained that certain muscular contractions would force the blood back temporrily from the forearm, when a needle or knife blade could he safely pushed into the flesh provided the arteries were avoided Smith miscalculated and gut an artery, but lie;had two or three times previously seen Smith' successfully pierce tus arm with a knife blade and had quite frequently done it liimsclf. He v a.-> quite certain from Smith’s demeanour that there was nothing else in the m-

cident. ■ The Magistrate remarked that, after hearing Dalmaine’s evidence, he was inclined to give Smith the benefit of the doubt, and‘would dismiss the ease on condition that tlie man paid the costs of the prosecution. His Worship added that lie thought a tag should be put to Smith’s bail bond to keep him out of hotels till he satisfied the law on the other charge.