HYPNOTIC MYSTERY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9386, 4 March 1909, Page 6

HYPNOTIC MYSTERY.

CONCESSION AND SDIODE OF A CLERGYMAN. ” After eluding justice tor four days the Rev. John Haviland Carmichael committed suicide after writing an extraordinary letter to the sheriff of Port Huron, In it he describes how he murdered Gideon Browning, a caruenter, in Rattlerun Church, Columbus, Michigan. Mr Carmichael, who was a man of unblemished character and beloved for his philanthropy, cut the body of his uneducated friend to pieces and£tried to burn it in the church stove. The letter of confession is a remarkable human document. The minister, whose hobby was the writing of melodramatic stories, declares that Browning Exerted an unceasing hypnotic influence over him. Ho ordered him to come to church at midnight, and, meeting him there, exulted coarsely in the control he bad, uncouth and unlettered as he was, over the actions of a man of education. “Browning,” wrote the minister. “ commanded me ’to raise my hand. I could not help myself. I had to do exactly as he bade me. I was horrified at the discovery of my impotenoy and my helpless subjection to this rough man’s wicked will. In frenzied despair I seized & hatchet and struck him. There was a desperate struggle. I used the hatchet till he lay quiet. I cannot tell how it happened. My eyes felt on a knife, and in mortal terror and fear I cut the body In pieces, placed It in the stove, and fled. Now I am tired of hiding. “ '■ The minister before he took big life, wrote a second letter to'his wife accusing himself of the basest cowardice in not going immediately to the police to confess his crime, which, even at the moment of death, he was unable to explain to himself.