A CURIOUS CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9665, 2 December 1909, Page 7

A CURIOUS CASE.

By Telegraph—Press Association. NELSON, December 1. A curious case has occupied the attention of the Magistrate's Court during the last three days. William Henry Kingston, a marripcl man, with an ailing wifd and family in receipt of charitable aid, was charged under the Crimes Ac' with indecent assault on a girl aged twenty gaining his ends by fraud in pretending tu possess powers to diagnose caßes by touch and electrically heal by rubbing. It was alleged in evidence that, aided by a woman named Buxton, who believed in his supernatural powerj, Kingston persuaded the girl to permit treatment for supposed appendicitis, which eventually led to her undoing. While the intimacy was proceedi?ig Kingscon proposed to read in tea leaves at the bottom of a cup that her father and brother had criminally assaulted her at an earlier age, and he induced her to sign a written confession to that effect, the woman Buxton being witness. Subsequent! y prisoner took the statement to the police to lay an information against the father of the girl, for whom he had previously obtained five pounds i on a plea of dire poverty. The police were suspicious of the affair, and made an investigation, and laid a charge against Kingston with the result that he was committed for trial, no bail being forthcoming. The case created considerable local stir, as showing the malign influence it was possible to exercise over neurotic girls. | In evidence it transpired that Kingston also endeavoured to bring under his power and treatment a sister of the alleged original victim writing to her that his wife would die in January, and the girl must marry him as his visions had foretola that the girl's father, mother and brother would meet with violent deaths shortly. The family of the alleged victim are viry respectable, and the victim quite free from bodily ailments, as proved on medical examination. The prisoner attempted to treat the second girl for coming bliadness, diagnosing the cases of both by holding the hands.