THE HYPNOTIC ART.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 May 1920, Page 5

THE HYPNOTIC ART.

CAUSES SCENE IN A HOTEL MAN STABS HIS ARM. A REMARKABLE STORY. ' By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. "It's an absurd charge," .declared Franklin Jno. Smith, a vaudeville artist, who was charged, before Mr. J. E. Wilson, S.M., to-day, that he attempted to commit suicide by jalibing a knife into an artery of his "left anil. He admitted the circumstances wero that on Saturday afternoon tire police got word that Smith was at the hospital with a punctured wound in his arm, a stitch having to be put in the wound, which had bled copiously. As Smith was 011 bail awaiting trial at the Supreme Court on a serious charge he was arrested.

The evidence of a porter at the Metropolitan Hotel was that, as he was cutting a pipe of tobacco in the hotel, Smith stepped up to him from a group of men, and asked for the loan of his knife. He took it to a mantelpiece, crooked up his bared left arm on the mantle, and drove the small 'blade of the knife into his arm. As the arm was straightened, blood spurted out. 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 the course of filling in time between drinks, got into a discussion on hypnotism, the subject being introduced by the presence of Professor Dalmaine,.who protested to an unbeliever that he hud come to discuss a "spot" 'and not to talk shop.

Smitn took up the cudgels, for his showman business, and undertook to confound sceptics by a demonstration of what ho called hypnotism, auto-sugges-tion, will control, etc. He proposed to stick pins into his arm, but someone remarked in disgust, "Show us something new." M-Ic called for a knife, and did the deed as narrated.

fcmith, in the box, ridiculed the charge. He bared his uninjured arm, and explined by a demonstration of how the blood was forced back from the veins oi the forearm by muscular contraction, so that the prick of a needle or even a knife would not J raw olood. With a showman's instinct he waved one hypnotic hand over the arm, as to conjure the utal fluid back and forth, whereon the Magistrate irritably called enough. Witness said that when he had miscalculated his stab he declined to have the flow of blood stopped at first, for fear that if it were stopped too soon there would be a danger of blood-poisoning rum the tobacco-stained blade, and afterwards, when Dnlinaine went to put on a tourniquet, the excited crowd in the bar prevented him from getting it Claude Arthur Diilniaine, hypnotist, stated that when he wished to' avoid a bar discussion on the subject, Smith, who almost got annoyed vver the seeptisni on the point, bumped in and did as stated. \\ithout any of Smith's then, tricalism, witness explained that certain muscular contractions would force blood back temporarily from the forearm when a needle or a knife blade eould be safely pushed into the flesh, provided the arteries were' avoided. .Smith miscalculate. and cut an artery, but he had two or three times previously seen Smith successfully pierce his arm with p knife Wade and had quite frequently done it himself. He was quite certain from ■Smiths demeanour that there was 110thing else in the incident.

Jhe Magistrate remarked that, after hearing Dalmaine's evidence, lie was inclined to give Smith the benefit of the (ioiiUt. and would dismiiss the case on condition that the man paid the costs oi ;l:e prosecution. His Worship added that t hong-Jit a tag should be put to Smith's bail bond to keep him out of lu-tels till he satisfied the Jaw on the otfjer charge.

GIRL AND STAGE ARTIST. ACCUSED SENT FOR VRIAL. The case in which Franklin .Tolm n| t' l (24), vaudeville artist, was charged with the rape of a girl jf 17 y( » nrs was continued before Mr. J, 15. Wilson' S.M., last week. ' The girl, in conclusion of the story ot having been induced by accused to "o to a house in Vincent Street, where she alleged tile offence occurred, stated that after her treatment by accused and two companions she was allowed to leave and went away about !) p.m. She aiid accused accompanied her as far as Hobson Street, and then left her. She went to the dining-rooms where a girl friend worked and told her wj.at had happenV ' 1111(1 t,lel ' e after went to her aunt's House, and complained to her. Under cross-examination by Mr A Moody (for accused) the girl admitted that she smoked cigarettes occasionally, mi'iV i n 0 "? the hOURC ' She also admitted that there had been a certain tHu 1 "ye-makmg by accused, to Inch she did not object, prior to the At ,the that si, 6 as sl'iuggling and afterwards she heard people talking and singing iu the «d----joining room, she said, but she added help 8 WllS ri ghtened to call for After corroborative evidence of the complaint and of circumstances that supported the girl's statement had been given, accused pleaded not guilty, an d y as committed to the Supreme Courf-