A PECULIAR CASE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9138, 6 May 1908, Page 5

A PECULIAR CASE.

INQUEST AT DUNEDIN. Per Press Association. Dunedin, Mayo. The adjourned inquest touching the death of;Catherine Cornish, said to have been found dead in the passage of the Stirling Hotel, on Friday afternoon, was resumed before Mr Alexander E. Farquhar (Acting Coroner) and a jury'of six, to-day. Inspector O’Brien conducted the proceedings on behalf of the police, and Mr Irwin watched the case on behalf of R. Cornish, licensee of the hotel. i

Richard Cornish said he found his wife on Friday afternoon lying on her face in the passage. She was dead, and the body was cold. He carried the body to a bed, and then telegraphed to Dr. Burnett (of Balclutha) and awaited his arrival. He had no idea how long deceased had been dead. He had not seen her since he went to bed at 10.15 p.m. on Thursday. The deceased had not been laid up, but had been going about all that day. To the Inspector: His wife was in the sitting-room adjoining the bedroom on Thursday • night. She was lying, fully dressed, on the sofa. “I covered her with a couple of rugs, and went to bed. My wife was the worse for dxiuk when I covered her up. I had asked her earlier in the evening not to take anything. She was half asleep at the time. I was not disturbed during the night, and have no idea what time I woke up on the'jmorning of the Ist inst. I may have been awake two or three times, and have dozed off again. It was between 2.15 and 2.30 in the afternoon when I got up and dressed myself. I was going towards the bathroom when I found my wife lying in the passage. My wife lay partly on her face and partly on her side. She was fully dressed. Lizzie (the cook) and I lifted her body into bod, and we noticed that the face was all bruised and discoloxired, but I noticed no wounds or incisions about the head. I noticed that the coal scuttle was upset at the _ entrance to the sitting room, as if the deceased had fallen over it. There was some small coal and dust at her feet. I did not notice any blood on the floor. The runner in the passage was displaced. After the body had been laid on the bed Lizzie proposed off the clothing, and she did so without any- asisstance, while I stood watching hex-. She removed all the clothing from the body, and put a clean nightdress on the deceased, and when I touched her hair I got blood on my hand. It seemed to come from the crown of the head.”

Inspector O’Brien ; “Was the whole process of undressing done by the cook?”

‘ ‘ Certainly. ’ ’ Continuing, the witness said the suit he was now wearing was the one he wore on the night of April 30th, also on May Ist, when he found his wife’s dead body. The trousers produced were his ; he last wore them last Thursday. Up till about noon that morning he had been engaged in getting stock from -the hack store to the front store and the bar.

The police here handed the garments to the witness. Round the rims of the ankles were blotches of greasy red. Wtness : “If these are blood stains I know nothing about them?” The Inspector: “Were you doing anything that would cause blood to attach itself to your clothes?” “Yes; I was killing a pig”— (here his voice faltered) —“At least, I didn't kill it, but I assisted the barman (Taylor) to do so. I held the pig while he stabbed it—stuck it, I mean.*” Recovering himself, witness went on to reply to the inspector as follows: —He had washedlfhis hands and dried them on a towel between the time of placing the body cu the bed and the time the doctor arrived. A strange man—whose name he did not know—had taken advantage of witness’s absence at the funeral yesterday to clear out without paying. The stranger had occupied No. 4 bedroom. Witness had not seen this man before the night of the 30th of last month (Thursday). He had come in and asked deceased for a bed. Witness had not asked him who he was, or what he wanted. It was not his place to do so, and although he was about the house for 8 or 4 days witness had taken no steps to ascertain particulars or to ask him for payment. As far as he knew this was the only stranger who had slept there that night. He did not remember telling Constable Marshall where he last saw his wife. He did not know if he had told him that he had got up from his bed on Friday at ten minutes to 10 a.m. and found his wife dead, but be found that his watch had stopped. After he had sent the barman off with a wire, he heard the goods train coming in from the South, and knew it was 2.55 p.m. He did not wind np his watch the night before —that was the only esp’anation he had to offer for telling ihe Constable he found his wife dead at 9.50 a.m. Witness and his wife did not live pleasantly together. As long as she was not drinking they were the best of friends. During the last four or five months the deceased was often drinking to excess. He had not chastised deceased in any way. He bad frequently had deceased medically attended owing to her drinking habits. She had been ,in a private hospital twice on that account. Dr. Burnett (Balciutha) said he received a message from Cornish at 8.15 p.m. on Friday. When he arrived at the hotel the body was warm, and witness gathered that the woman had been dead not more than two hours. Deceased’s hair was matted with blood. There was a cut about \y 2 inches long on the right side of the head just above the forehead. Both eyes were black and the face and head were swollen. There was a bruise on the right hip and several more on other parts of the body. On performing a postmortem, he found an enormous quantity of blood on the scalp and skull, accouuting for the swelling on [[the head and the black eyes. The wound on the scalp must have been caused by contact with a substance having a sharp edge. The skull was fractured iu the region of the eye, [[and in a direct line with the wound' on the scalp. The brain was congested. In his opinion death was duo to compression of the brain. Congestion” of brain could be caused by . alcohol. A fall might have caused the injury. If a healthy individual had received the same injury he did not think the same result would be fatal. Witness was under the impression that deceased had fallen on a | coal scuttle, but could not say how 1 the bo his mind.

Elizabeth Bennett, cook at the hotel, said she last saw deceased on the afternoon of Thursday, April 30th. Deceased was not then quite sober. Witness did not see Cornish or deceased on Friday till about 2.15 p.m., when the former said he thought his wife was dead. Witness went into the room and Cornish went into the bathroom with a basin. Witness asked Cornish to help her to put his wife to Led, in case she was alive. Witness took no clothing off the body of deceased, nor had she seen anything put on her. Cornish was sometimes bad with his liver and then remained in bed till late in the day. Witness had not seen a stranger about the lmu.se on Thursday or Friday. Some coal had fallen out of the scuttle, which was on its side at the corner of the passage. Mrs Cornish’s room was not cleared up before tha doctor’s arrival. Cornish was sober on Friday afternoon. Witness did not undress the body and put a clean night dress on it. Cornish and deceased lived on very good terms.

The inquest was proceeding when the latest message came to hand. Dunedin, May 6. Proceedings in the Cornish case lasted till 4 this morning. The verdict was that deceased came by her death by a fall and in the opinion of the jury such fall would not have proved fatal had it not been for the congested state of deceased’s brain, brought on by excessive use of alcohol.