Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-28
A NOVEL CASE.
A Young Man Arrested for Hyppotiz-
ing Shopkeepers.

LONDON, June 2s.-The crown prosecutor OF
the city of Wolverhampton, in the county of
Stafford, is in a quandary. The police there
have In custody young man who is undoubt-
edly worthy Of severe punishment and vet his
crime is SO entirely novel that he probably can
not be punished at all unless the old statutes
against witchcraft are revived. in which case
he might be comfortably roasted before a slow
hre. This young man, whose name is Lewis
Albert, is a graduate of Oxford university
Soon after he left college he became interested
In mesmerism, mind-resding and hypnotism.
and as result of natural gifts or close study,
soon became so expert that for a time he trav-
eled about giving exhibitions Of his powers
He acquired a wonderful influence over the
wlll-power of certain classes of people and es-
tablished sueh a reputation that he might have
made his exhibitions very profitable but for an
unfortunate penchant for the flowing bowl
This brought him so low that three months
ago he turned up in Wolverhampton in rags
and
WITHOUT MONEY OR FRIENDS.
Then he began to hypnotize with a ven-
geance. Small shopkeepers, usually women,
began to discover that the contents of their
tills very mysteriously dwindled after a visit
from the urbane stranger. Just what his
method of procedure was none could tell. but
when they found on comparing notes that
their losses invariably followed the visits of the
polite Albert they set the police TO watch him.
Then some startling discoveries were made.
His custom was to enter a shop, make a pur-
chase of some trife and put down a copper in
payment. Then the hypnotizing or mesmeriz-
ing process must have been brought into re-
QUESTION, for the shopkeeper in every case
took up the copper and handed out the change
Tor sovereign, which the young man
promptly pocketed. In only one case while
the police were on his track was there fall
ure to befog his victim in this way. The
detective who followed him about was mysti-
ned for long time, being utterly unable TO
count for the hallucination which invariably
seized Albert's victims and led them to mis-
take copper coin for a gold sovereign. and it
was only after discovering his professional
record that he began to understand it.
ALBERT's LAST VICTIM
was young man aged nineteen, the attendant
at the box Office of theater in Wolverhampton.
He stepped to the window, boldly asked for
shilling ticket, handed the boy a dir ty scrap OF
newspaper, and received as change without
the slightest hesitation on the part of the boy
four sovereigns anc nineteen shIliings. While
walking off with this he was arrested by the Off
Ger, who had been shadowing him for two
weeks. The boy in the box Office was dumb
founded when his attention was called TO the
scrap of newspaper in his cash-box, and still
stoutly insisted that the gentleman had handed
him a five-pomd note. He remembers, how
ever, that peculiar sensation came over him,
which he describes as a sort Of numbness, when
the man first approached the window Of the
office. The legal status of Albert's offence is
very difficult to determine, as 1t is without
precedent, and good lawyers say there is now
no law in England to punish him. The case is
exciting great interest.