Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A law-abiding citizen


A follow-up to the death-during-hypnotism story from 100 years ago reported here yesterday. The November 11, 1909 NYT reports that “Professor” Arthur Everton, in his cell awaiting a bail hearing, “fears that the catastrophe will ruin his reputation, and that he will have to support his family in some other way.” Presumably he was never tried, but he next came to the attention of the paper in July of 1920, evidently trying to support his family in some other way, when Prohibition agents found $6,000 worth of liquor in his apartment, located over a saloon. Everton said that he could have stopped the agents with hypnotism but “I wouldn’t do that. I am a law-abiding citizen.”