New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, JULY 25.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4786, 25 July 1876, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, JULY 25.

The Coroners Act Amendment Bill has met with a good deal of opposition. That opposition has come from two classes of people, the class that still believes in “ crowner’s quest law,” and the class that is prepared to set itself against anything or everything proposed by the Ministry. For ourselves, we must confess that whilst wo support the Bill as a step in the right direction, wo should feel much more pleasure in supporting it if it went the proper length, and in a few clauses simply abolished coroners and coroners’ inquests altogether. While it does not do this, however, it endeavors to prevent in future the evils that arise from inquiries conducted before gentlemen quite ignorant of law, and by their medical knowledge, or want of knowledge, frequently prejudiced. During the debate in committee on the Bill some curious stories wore told of the mistakes which have occurred in connection with the holding of coroners’ inquests in this colony, but the committee was assured that these mistakes wore mere trivial matters, and that in England, where coroners’ inquests were hold in high respect as extremely useful judicial inquiries, and where numbers of coroners were medical men, the Legislature was in no hurry to abandon the system, and public opinion was not opposed to it. Now, as a matter of fact,'when medical men are appointed coroners in England, the position is so pecuniarily advantageous that they as a rule give up and make the study of coroners’ law quite as much a matter of course with them as is

a technical knowledge of medicine. But as a further matter of fact, even though this is the case, public opinion at Home has decidedly set in a strong current against tho whole system of coroners’ inquests. We have before us files of leading English papers received by the last mail, and in all of them we find articles pointing out the utter absurdity of coroners’ inquests. Perhaps the most effective articles in this direction are to be found in the Spectator and the Field. ■ In the latter paper there are two or three instances given of proceedings at coroners’ inquests, which in themselves are sufficient to show’ how nonsensical it is to continue a mode of inquiry which simply, as the paper remarks, creates frequent ludicrous specimens of the “Jack in office.” In one instance, a working man at about one o’clock in the morning was walking over a canal bridge, and, seeing bubbles on the water, had suspicions, and at once called the police. The body of a man was soon found in the water, and an inquest was held accordingly. On tho body of the drowned man was found a letter explaining his motive for suicide. When the working man gave his evidence tho coroner disallowed his expenses, on the ground that the witness had been guilty of gross impropriety in being out of his bed at such an hour as 1 a.m. He said that but for the papers found on the body of the deceased a most awkward suspicion would have attached itself to the working man as being the first to give the alarm that someone was drowning, and remarked that he might think himself lucky that his improper conduct in being out at such an hour had not caused him to stand charged with the man’s death. There was no imputation that the witness had beendrunkat the time. This is a splendid specimen of coroners’ jurisdiction. In another case a servant girl drowned herself, and at the inquest an ex parte statement was made to the effect that the girl’s reason for suicide was that she had been discharged from her late situation, and found that her father could not take her in. Thereupon the coroner took upon himself to send for the former mistress of the deceased, not that she had any evidence to give that could throw light upon the case; but simply to enable him to air his own opinions as to the responsibilities of mistresses with regard to servants. He then and there rated the mistress for not having found out where the girl was going before she left her service. The mistress had spirit enough to give the coroner as good as she got, and pertinently asked what sort of answer she or any other mistress would expect to receive from a servant of the period, if she officiously busied herself as to what the servant intended to do after leaving her service.

A further case is given, in which the Grand Jury ignored the charge preferred through the coroner, and the Judge made some strong observations on the folly of the coroner. A causeway in North London lies four feet above the road level—a common circumstance with scores of footways ; an old woman, in liquor, fell down from the pavement into the roadway, and died from the injuries she received. At an inquest held on her the jury blamed the owners of the property —but did not return a direct verdict of manslaughter—on the ground that the causeway should not have been left in an unfenced state. Thereupon the coroner issued a warrant for manslaughter against the gentlemen who received the rents of the property on behalf of the owners. Not content with this, the coroner, who was personally acquainted with the gentleman charged, requested him in the most friendly manner to furnish evidence in support of the charge against himself! The last case quoted is one which has of late excited the most painful interest in London, and which is known as the Balham mystery. In this case a young lawyer, not long married, died of poison. As the Field remarks, the inquiry may literally be said to have been burked. Medical witnesses who had attended Mr. Bravo during the last hours of his life were not called; no adjournment was made for a full and complete chemical analysis of the stomach and its contents ; nor was any attempt made to trace what had become of the remains of the bottle of wine in which it was presumed the poison had been contained. The coroner seems to have formed his own conclusions that the case was one of suicide, and to have ignored the principle that it was for the jury, and not for him, to decide upon facts adduced, and that it was his duty to lay before them every scrap of evidence that could possibly throw light upon the occurrence. With these instances before them, it is to be hoped that in the next debate on the Coroners Act Amendment Bill less may be heard of the excellent administration of “orowner’s quest” law.