THE OLD STORY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1277, 20 August 1886, Page 3

THE OLD STORY.

At Christchurch the other day Coroner Beetham hold an inquiry into the circumstances attending the death of Joseph Brooks, a shoemaker, who was found dead in his house, Victoria street, on Saturday. Dr Prins deposed that at the request of a constable he bad seen the body on Saturn day at mid«day. Dg believed the man had been sick and had ruptured af Blood vessel while vomiting ; he had apparently fainted from loss of blood, add died. Witness expected that drink bad enfeebled the system, and this ought cause the rupture of a blood vessel during vomiting. Charlotte Brooke, widow of deceased, said she had been compelled to leave her husband in consequence of his habitual drunkenness.

Inspector Pender said there was a prohibition order against deceased, but he was afraid it would he difficult to trace whence the liquor he had drunk was obtained. Joseph Brooks, fourteen years of age, commenced to make a statement, wfich the Coroner directed that he sMotHd be sWorrf. He deposed that one niglit about three months ago, when the prohibition order was in force, he saw deceased served with liquor in the Britannia Hotel. He told a constable who came to the hotel, bnt deceased was not there. The person in charge of the hotel denied having served the liquor. The liquor was the color of beer. The constable left witness, who went to the Gladstone Hotel and saw his father standing in the bar with a pint-pot in front of him. The woman in charge there, as soon as she saw witness, told deceased he had better go home to his sick wife. Witness’s mother was lying ill in bed at the time, Robert Anderson, undertaker, living opposite deceased’s house, deposed that on Thursday last he saw a man named Lester leave deceased's shop with a sheet of leather under his arm. He returned in about half an hour, and went to deceased’s house. Next saw Lester go to the Junction Hotel, and go back to deceased’s house with, apparently, a bottle under his coat. Witness did not see the bottle.

M r Beetham remarked that in cases in connection with prohibition orders there were difficulties met with at every step. _lt would never do to convict upon probabilities.

Inspector Pender said the difficulty _ was to prove that a man (other than a publican) who supplied a drunken man with liquor knew that a prohibition order was out against him. The jury returned a verdict to the effect that deceased died from the effects of excessive drinking, and added a rider- "That the police be asked to ascertain, if possible, where the deceased obtained the drink-” ‘ Eyttelton Times.”