A WELLINGTON TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 398, 16 June 1908, Page 2

A WELLINGTON TRAGEDY.

At the inquest at Wellington last Saturday on the man Albert Freeman, who shot himsc f in the Sydney Street Ceme ery on Fri lay afternoon, he left behind a letter, bearing Friday’s date, for the Coroner, which was read at the inquest on Saturday afternoon. The letter was as fo'lows ;

'‘ Mr Coroner. Dear Sir, — There will soon be a pt st mortem and inquest on my remains, and I desire to inform you th.it lam driven to the desperate act through influences entirely beyond my control, so that suicide whilst temporarily insane would not be the true and accurate verdict. lam ruined from the control of spirits and cannot, try what I will, escape their clutches. I cannot rest or sleep, and consequently cannot work from the resistless hypnotic influences and trances lam thrown into by this invisible source, being the worst thing in the world and most destructive to physical health. lam not the first luckless medium to end in this sad tragic manner, and know of nothing else to do to relieve myself, as it is liable to grow worse and might develop into a stroke of paralysis from the constant strain and loss of sleep I undergo. Trance mediumship is an exceedingly dangerous business and an impossible role to fill unless proper safeguards are placed around the medium by responsible spirits, who do the selecting. It ought to be stopped, for I would have absolutely nothing to do with it from choice, being a matter of selection and arbitrary compulsion on the part of spirits whose power is absolute, constituting a tyranny, with the medium left completely at the mercy of hostile intriguing and evil ones, which simply means martyrdom, ruin, and death. With this explanation I am justified in passing out. —Yours respectfully, Albert Freeman.” The Coroner said the letters left by deceased showed that he was insane when he committed the act.

The jury found that dea’th was due to the effects of a bullet wound from a revolver, and that the wound was self-inflicted while the deceased was temporarily insane.