INQUEST.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1894, 19 March 1880, Page 2

INQUEST.

On March the 17th an inquest was held by F. Guinness, Esq., coroner, on the body of a man named Peter McGuinness, who died suddenly at South Bangilata on the 15th inßt. Mr Hope was chosen foreman of the jury. It appears that the deceased had been ailing for a long time previously, but had not consulted a doctor. Several witnesses deposed that deceased, though in independent circumstances, lived in a very mean way, even depriving himself of the necessaries of life. On returning home on Monday evening the horses of the dray in which deceased was riding started suddenly, throwing deceased to the ground. Though the fall was a slight one, it was found that life was extinct when he was raised almost immediately afterwards. Dr Hayes deposed that he had made a pott mortem examination of the body, and found no marks of violence except a few scratches on the face. The pericardium was full of blood, and a large rent was found in the auricles of the heart. The other organs were comparatively healthy. Death must have been almost instantaneous, and was accelerated by want of proper medical treatment and suitable nourishment. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence, viz. death from rupture of the heart, the result of fatty degeneration. The property of the deceased, amounting to between 300 and 400 acres of freehold land, falls into the hands of the curator of intestate estates, as the deceased had no relatives in New Zealand.