The Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, THURSDAY, 4th JANUARY, 1866. “FOUND DROWNED."

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 338, 4 January 1866, Page 2

The Hawke's Bay Times.

NAPIER, THURSDAY, 4th JANUARY, 1866. “FOUND DROWNED."

“SUIiIVS ADDICT US JDEAEE IN VERBA MAGISTEI.”

Open verdicts, such as that above quoted, are, on certain occasions, both proper and laudable. These are when there is no means of arriving at the facts of the case, —when the body cannot be identified, and nothing can be learned as ?o the means by which the death has been brought about; —but if, in cases where these things can be ascertained, —where the body can be identified, —where certain facts regarding the death are already known, and others can be easily ascertained by the simple process of examining witnesses who have been more or less connected with the circumstances leading to the loss of life, —such verdicts must be unhesitatingly condemned, as tending to evade the express intention of the British law in the institution of this, one of the greatest safeguards to life —the Coroner’s luquest—and rendering it neither more nor less than a mockery and a sham. At the time of the melancholy occurrence to which we refer, and which was duly reported in our columns, we purposely refrained from comment, as we believed that there covery of one or more of the bodies of the ill-fated men would lead to the holding of a. Coroner’s enquiry, and we wished this to be done free from the influence that auy re marks of ours might be supposed to have on the matter, and solely in accordance with the facts of the ease, which we presumed would be brought to light as far as possible on that occasion ; —but an inquest having been held, and it resulting in the return of an open verdict, no such considerations can- longer influence us; and we have now uo hesitation in stating our conviction that the lives of the four brave fellows who perished on the 18th uit. were sacrificed in consequence of the

most culpable indifference to their safety on the part of those who had the control of their embarkation. It is mere folly to assert and re-assert that the boats were not? over-filled, and to say there was room for more, as though a boat could not be filled to sinking as long as another person could be squeezed on board. The result itself in every sense proves that they were over-filled, not only in the case of the boat that was swamped, hut also in those that could not even take a drowning man in tow without endangering the safety of their living freight. On the very morning of the occurence the s.s. St. Kilda had arrived from Wairoa, so that there was actually no need whatever for the employment of the boats, for however still the sea was in the early morning it had become evidently unsafe before the commencement of the embarkation of the men, by the rising of the land breeze, and the rapid running out of the tide, and the proper course evidently was to have employed this vessel in the work, —more especially when, as wc have been told, her services were offered, —rather than leave the affair in the hands of boatmen whose interest it was to crowd their boats to the utmost point, they being paid at a certain rate per head, —as it might be in the case of cattle or sheep ; and no one caring sufficiently for their lives to see that they were not over-crowded, or that the boat, which “ would have been better for a steer oar,” was sufficiently manned for its proper management. At the inquest the parties who could have thrown some light on such points as the above—the boatmen—were not at hand to be examined, although they had been informed of the inquest a bout to be held, and, we believe, been requested to attend. Are we to suppose that they feared the possible effect of their testimony, and that their absence was of set purpose ? It has at least this appearance, and we think the inquest ought to have been adjourned, in order that they should be summoned by the Coroner, and their statements beard before a verdict should be found by the jury. But to return to the question of open verdicts being returned by juries in cases where certain facts connected with the case are known, and others may be discovered by investigation, we would add that no Coroner should allow of such a practice, which renders the whole system of Coroners’ inquests practically useless, —an expensive burthen to the public instead of its safeguard (for such of necessity is an inquest that does not seek for nor elicit all that can be ascertained concerning the subject of enquiry);— and if such a practice is to hold sway, the sooner the jury system is swept away the better.