An Auckland Sensation.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 157, 31 December 1897, Page 2

An Auckland Sensation.

Telegraph. Press Association. Copyright Auckland, December o(). At Ilio inquest ov the yruug woman McC'-illiitu to-day, Drs b;.kcwcll and Scott:, u'lio i.'j.vlk t'io po->t ncrtcrn examinntiou, deposed that thej' found evidence of ih»j nso of an instrument which nail ca\i!'>p(l groat, inflammation of tli>> tissL-o-i, :iud peritonitis. Dr Bakei vvc.il s lid that medical raor were coni stautlv heinii pestered by womoato perform illegal operations. Hn bad to turn two women out of iiis bous ) last week I as tlicy porsisted ia worry:ng him for that lurposr:. Insjiuctor Mickson said ie had evidence that Dr Or^eu took passayo by tlit; S.m Francisco mail Rtcumer. Mr Henderson, rjauaf;er oi tho Union | ("oiupauy, deposed that Dr Omen left \>y th ; Alarauda l'oc 'Frisco. He booked an Ar.hur Herbert and took a Hteerage passage. Wituei^ saw liitn leave. An uuderkakcr, named L ttle deposed to tin removal of the body, anil be did not k:iow about any suspicious circumNtaiiC'is nutil Sunday when he sent to Dr ():j)en to yet the death certiiicate, and found that Orpen bad aouo. Coinelins Little, undertaker, deposed that Nurse O»ilvie, of tbo .Mvate Hospital, (ixplained to him that a woman, a piiic.nt of Dr Orpon's bad died, and deceased bad expressed a wiah that bar boiiy should be scut to Diincdiu. The nursi: said the cause of der.th was peri^ tonitis. When ho begat to embalm the body he though t'froiu tLe appearance of it that there was something more than peritonitis to cause deatU. For that reason he did not touch tiie abdomen at all. Dr Blako .veil informed him that the embalming of the body aided him materially in performing the pus/ .uortr in as arresting docomposiiion. Dr Scott bad already given bis opinion on it, and said be thought Dr Purchas' oporatiou bad uothing whatever to do with the girl's dsath. In her dyiu<; depositiot, the young woman Harriet Campbe I McCallum said she was a single wocian and was known there as Mrs Sparks. She saw Dr Orpen about t^o uioutlis ago and he gave her some pills. Witness here stated that she then went to Dr Orpen again, and he performed an operation. ,Ii anything happened to h ;r would they communicate with her fat ler, who was the harbourmaster at Dunedin- She was making this statemou; because she thought she might die booi.