CRIMNALS AND SPIRITUAL DOUBLES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8144, 29 June 1906, Page 4

CRIMNALS AND SPIRITUAL DOUBLES.

In crimnal cases it liai lately become quite the fashion for the accused to set up aB a defence the claim that he is the victim of a wicked double, playing the role of Arnauld de Thill to his Martin Guerre. Carlton, lately convicted in New York, claimed that all of his troubles were due to a double, resembling him exictly, even to a crooked finger, and who had committed offences for which L'arlton had been persecuted for many years. George Wood aflcused of the Williams murder, in the Watchung Mountains, declared upon the witness stand that one, Henry Wolff, his dual- self, was responsible for all of his troubles and was the real murderer. An expert called in the case testified that this belief in one's double is a symptom o£ epileptic insanity; that the double is seen before a fit of epilepsy. Ellis Glenn, the mysterious young woman arrested some years ago in West "Virginia after masquerading in male attire for alleged purposes of swindling, and after obtaining a promise of marriage from another young woman, who believed her to bo a man, claimed in her defence that she was the exact double of her twin brother, with whom she had changed clothing after he had committed the offences for which she was held. " Bluebeard " John Hoch, too, had a double in the bailifi of a Chicago police court, side by side with whom he had his picture taken. The double recently died while Hoch was still enjoying his reprieve, and an autopsy showed that his organs were in the same peculiar condition as were those of Hoch's murdered wife. The most remarkable case of doubles in the police annals of New York came to light last winter, when ' two men, remarkably alike in appearance, were together arraigned for the same series of robberies. One of them had already confessed to all of the crimes charged, but the other had been identified by persons claiming to be positive that he was the man who had committed the robberies to which the double had confessed.

Doubles are also figuring quite conspicuously of , late in psychic research problems. The matter lias cone up in connection with some alleged cases of " phantasms of tho living," of recent occurrence. Last May, whilj Major Sir Came Basch waß most certainly in bed ill, he was distinctly seen sitting in the House of Commons —at least, either his "astral body" or his double was. Seyeral fellow-mom-bers commented upon Sir Carnc's presence. One spoke to his apparition or counterpart, but received no reply, and soon that figure vanished, ail of a sudden, lite breath into the wind. The psyschic researchers are speculating as to whether the Duke of Portland, also has a corporeal or a - spiritual double. He is frequently greeted in London when eseonced at his country estate. Some psychic researchers maintain that all of us • carry with us astral

doubles which we may project to a certain place when any circumstance causes us to very intently concentrate our minds thereon. Colonel Albert Boehas, cx-administrator of the Polytechnic School of Paris, and a wellknown physicist, recently announced that while one is in the hypnotic state lus " fluid equivalent " rises and floats above his head. It is alleged that the physicist demonstrates this by hypnotising a subject and then placing his hand over the latter at the point where the " fluid equivalent" is supposed to float. The result is a cry of pain and sometimes a piercing scream from the subject below. Thus we are even troubled by our " spiritual doubles." *