HYPNOTIC MYSTERY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2448, 12 March 1909, Page 6

HYPNOTIC MYSTERY.

CONFESSION AND SUICIDE OF A CLERGYMAN. After eluding justice for four days tho Rev. John Hawlancl Carmichael committed suic.dc after writing an extraordinary letter to the sheriff of Port Huron. In it lie describes how lie murdered Gideon Browning, a carpouter. in Rattlernn Charsh, Columbus, Michigan. Air 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 tho church stove. The letter or confession is a remarkable human document. The minister, whose hobby was tlie writing of melodramatic stories, declares that Browning exerted an unceasing hypnotic influence over him. He ordered him to come to church ot midnight, and, meeting him there, exulted coarsely in the control lie had, 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 be bade me. J was horrified at the discovery, of my impotcncy and my helpless subjection to this rough man’s wicked will. Tn frenzied despair I seized a 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 fell on a knife, and in mortil terror and fear I cut the body in pieces, placed it in the stove, and fled. Now I am tired of hiding.” The minister lx-fore he took h.Ls life, wrote a second letter to his w*fe aecusinar 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.