South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2158, 18 February 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18, 1880.

PiOJtiiAi’.s if there is one institution which more than another deserves wide-spread sympathy it is the coroner’s jury. It is moth eaten, antiquated, and poverty stricken. Yet, although seedy and very imperfect, the coroner’s jury is far more sinned against than sinning. It is a frequent target for general ridicule, and its eccentricities and blunders often beget contempt, but with all its faults—and they are grave and numerous —it is less corrupt than many far more pretentious tribunals. In the method of its composition, the coroner’s jury is associated with that old fashioned British institution called the press-gang. Occasionally a sly-looking policeman, with a merry twinkle lurking in the corner of his left eye, and his hands buried beneath the folds of his uniform, may be seen sailing at a respectul distance from the bar of a public house where loungers arc wont to assemble. After a few minutes sailing round and round, like a hawk surveying its prey, he notices two or three toper-looking individuals collecting, and then there is a march to the front, the devotees arc bailed up, a piece of foolscap is unfolded from the official coat-tails, and the victims arc warned, under the usual pains and penalties, to appear before the the coroner at a certain time and place. Such is the hap-hazard process by which coi oner’s juries are enrolled. If, under the circumstances, the tribunal has sometimes a very strong flavor of beer and skittles, and if it sometimes indulges in singular freaks, there is, we submit, some excuse for it. Like many

venerable institutions, the coroners jmy is somewhat disreputable ; and it almost seems a pity, in this pg'e of reason and enlightenment, that it should still he retained in all its original barbarity. For it does seem a mockery to hiing a dozen kidnapped and perhaps only partially sober mortals together to sit tn judgment on the remains of some unfortunate who has met his or her death by a violent or unknown cause. Tradesmen are hurried from their shops, men looking for employment arc swept from the street corners, topers are gleaned from the tap-room, and, in a state of mind which is far from enviable, the Bible is put to their lips, and they are solemnly sworn to perform one of the must important duties that can be delegated to a body of intelligent beings. Is this not bringing the ridiculous into contact with the sublime i Is it not converting an important operation into a solemn mockery ?

Not only are coroners’ juries, as they arc conducted, useless, but they arc positively mischievous. We say nothing of the injustice of kidnapping working men on behalf of her Majesty to sit in judgement on the dead and the living without Fee or reward, al though we have a strong impression that to forcibly take possession of a workman’s time is no more justifiable than to take his watch or his money. The deprivation of freedom and loss of time which a coroner’s juryman undergoes may have the sanction of law, but that does not alter the offence against morality—it is an act of high-handed robbery. This, however, is a small wrong alongside of the aggravated affront offered to humanity by the verdicts of incompetent tribunals. We say incompetent, because no care is taken in reference to the construction of coroner’s juries. The members of the tribunal arc neither sifted, selected, nor have they, like the common jurymen of our law courts, the benefit of a toss up in a lottery box. Any individual who resides outside of a lunacy ward is considered competent to hold a scat on a coroner’s jury. Hence the extraordinary verdicts that arc frequently rendered, and the still mure extraordinary riders that accompany them. Then, again, the fact that coroners’ juries arc so poorly constituted destroys their efficiency. Their verdicts and riders figure in the newspapers, and may be the gossip of an hour, but they arc quickly forgotten. Fatal accidents, from avoidable causes, may be multiplied, and so may the riders and verdicts of coroners’ juries, but no pains arc taken to apply a remedy. This is neither encouraging to the cheap and nasty tribunal, whose recommendations arc treated as mere vapour, nor is it satisfactory to the public. It means that the art ot killing may be pursued by contractors to any extent with the utmost security, and that, so far as the coroner’s jury is concerned, they have nothing to fear.

A few weeks ago a coroner’s jury at Invercargill sat on the body of a workman who had his neck broken through the breaking down of some scaffolding. It was proved that the timber which gave way was old and rotted, and that this was the cause of the accident. The jury apparently held the sapling blameable, for they returned a verdict exonerating everybody, and merely suggesting greater caution for the future in the employment of weak and rotten timber on which the lives of laborers may depend. A verdict of this kind affords but poor consolation to bereaved relatives, and it will hardly tend to diminish the number of accidents from similar causes. More recently a jury sat on the body of a laborer who was killecHn this immediate neighborhood. The evidence showed that the deceased had been somewhat incautious, but it was also shown that hail proper precautions been employed by others his life would probably not have been sacrificed. The coroner’s jury returned a verdict with a rider attached, conveying a strong opinion regarding the duties of contractors. By this time, however, the rider is most probably forgotten by all but the wife and family of the deceased, who have suddenly lost their chief means of support It is plain, we think, that coroner’s riders have little or no efficacy. They are rapidly forgotten or treated with contempt. The results of all the inquests held in New Zealand, and of all the verdicts that Coroners and their juries have concocted, have been next to unavailing, so far as contractors are concerned. Until the employers of labour arc taught that they will be held responsible for the lives and limbs that are sacriliced through want of proper care and precaution on their part, it is needless to expect that the number of fatal accidents in connection with contracts will diminish. No riders nor verdicts of coroners juries will interfere with the system which has obtained so Jirm a footing among contractors in Now Zealand, of risking the lives of their workmen for the sake of a little cconomv. If life and limb arc to bo proirerly protected a material extension of the civil and criminal law Avill bo necessary, and the enquiries usually delegated to Coroner’s Courts will have to be entrusted to superior tribunals.