DEVIL EXTRACTION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2283, 26 February 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEVIL EXTRACTION.

W —~- /■•••• The last census in India revealed the fact that there are more opcupatiops engaged in by the people of the country "than the ordinary public is cognisant vU hut as far ns we remember (writes the Times of India of Depember 3) it has been left to the Madras Smajl Cause Court to bring to light a gentleman who gains his living by devil extracting. This novel, and if we may judge by the fees charged, highly lucrative employment, appears to be recognised as a perfectly legitimate profession. The cause of action, it is true, was put down in the plaint as a refusal to pay the plaintiff for the cure of defendant's brother " of a mental disorder or mania attended by physical distress, insensibility and pains," but there was no disguise in court as to the exact nature of the claim. In fact the judge, a native gentleman, appeared to resent the scepticism of the defendant's pleader as to the possibility of casting out devels, and his jocularity at the expense of the plaintiff's profession. When the defendant's pleader expressed his disbelief in devilextracting, he inconsecjuently observed. " But you believe in l.iaunted houses?"' To this remark the pleader replied, "There may be a spiritual manifestation from which it would appear that he is not altogether free from the superstition which he ridiculed. The plaintiff's cross-examination was very diverting. Diseases, he said, were of three kinds— mental, spiritual, and physical. Some physical sickness he could cure by his art, but not every ease. Asked if he could cure love pains, he replied, "That is a very hard pain to be cured : even my father could not cure that." Later on he stated that he could not cure a person unless he were a negative. What are tho characteristics of a negative he did not precisely explain, but he somewhat oracularly remarked in a reply to a question on the point, "when the blood turns t.o the right hand, it will have one phenomenon, and when it turns to the left it will have another." Other witnesses called described the nature of the plaintiff's treatment and its success. The patient, it appeared, had been thrown into an excited state on the night of his marriage by his wife making a noise in a dream which she had. On a subsequent night he whs again frightened, this time by a dream he himseif had, in which a woman figured. Again, whilst under treatment, he manifested a desire to strike an imaginary woman, who he said was (standing- before him. From all these Mgns it was inferred that, the evil spirit which was troubling him was of the female kind, and as he, poor man, had only just been married, perhaps the presumption was not far from the truth. At the conclusion of the evidence the worthy judge dismissed the suit, not because he was of opinion that there was no cause of action, but because there was no evidence to support the contract sued upon. The " devil extractor " was accorded liberty to file a fresh suit, so that we may yet be favoured with the spectacle of the British judge according a legal status t > the plaintiff's peculitr profession.