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Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 107, 28 February 1893, Page 2

Consideuahle comment has been made on the fact that in several instances lately, where sudden deaths have taken place under circumstances which necessitated coroners' inquests, no medical evidence has been produced to assist the jurymen in arriving at a verdict as to the cause or causes of death. We do not mean to imply that in any one of these cases there has been any miscarriage of justice or error made in the finding of the juries, but we contend that circumstances may arise at any time where, from the absence of expert evidence, a crime may be concealed, or a criminal escape, ■ where neither of these contingencies could result of a medical man were called in to make a post mortem examination, and afterwards detail to the coroner's jury the knowledge he had thus gained of the causes of death, it is understood that the reason medical men are not consulted on every such occasion is that of economy. Probably so, but it is a very absurd one, to say the least of it, because, pushing that argument to an extreme, it would be more economical to do away with coroners a»tJ their juries altogether, and give Resident Magistrates authority to act in their stead. The money thus saved might then be well expended in paying for medical evidence.