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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 88, 14 April 1874, Page 2

We have received a letter signed " Veritas " commenting upon a fatal accident that recently occurred at Blenheim, and the circumstances attendant upon it. To render his letter intelligible to the Nelson public, we will give a few extracts from the report of the coroner's inquest, a small portion of which has already appeared in our columns. In introducing the report, the Express says : — " From what we have learned, we presume that deceased bad been drinking on his way from the country, for he came into town galloping very fast. In passing down Market-street he fell from his horse twice, and, but for the fatality which befell him later, he would have had to answer a charge at tbe Eesident Magistrate's Court for furious riding." The following was given in evidence : — Mrs Shepherd, wife of Mr John Shepherd, innkeeper, deposed that on Saturday she saw deceased pass down the road. "He called here; he was not sober, and had some drink. He wanted more drink, but we refused to give it him. No one tried to persuade him to remain. He swayed on his horse before he left the door." — Henry Williams, a medical practitioner, deposed that he met deceased on the Opawa Bridge. " He rode up against me, and I had Borne difficulty in passing him as he was unable to guide his horse. I looked hard at him, but he did not recognise me; noticed that his face was very pale; afterwards heard that he had fallen from his horse in Blenheim, and came to the conclusion that he was suffering from the shock. * * He was drunk when I met him on the bridge, but he did not fall from his horse. I watched, but he seemed to be able to manage his horse." ■ — The coroner, in addressing the jury, "expressed his disapproval of publicans supplying a drunken man with drink when it was so evident that he could not control himself or his horse, and in letting him go away in that state without trying to detain him." Nothing is said in the evidence, as reported, by eye witnesses of his having fallen off bis horse in the street, but from the Doctor's statement it is quite clear that he must have been seen to do so. Our correspondent appears to be in possession of more information than was elicited at the inquest, and, if his account be correct, the strictures he passes upon the police and those who witnessed the utter inability of the deceased to take care of himself are none too severe. He refers, too, in justifiably strong terms to the reprehensible conduct of the publican who, seeing that he was drunk and unable to sit steadily on his horse, supplied him with still more drink, and allowed him to go his way without making the slightest effort to induce him to remain where he would, at least, have been out of harm's way. If the police, as stated by " Veritas," really did see deceased fall from his horse in the town two or three times, their evidence should have been given at the inquest, and that it was not taken is utterly inexcusable in the head of the department, whose business it was to place the jury in possession of all the facts. Living at tbis distance from the scene of the accident, it is impossible for us to learn the whole truth, but the editor of our contemporary the Express, who is not usually slow in exposing an abuse,

will probably feel it his duty to ascertain the whole of the facts on beiug thus challenged, and either to defend the police, if defence there can be, or fo condemn them in terms, that, if the statements made by our correspondent be correct, cannot be too strong or too severe. Wo have felt no hesitation in affording space for tbe letter of " Veri tas," or in commenting upon it ourselves, because what has happened in Blenheim may occur in Nelson, and all will agree with us when we say that such things should not be.