AN INQUEST UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2382, 4 November 1880, Page 4

AN INQUEST UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

A somewhat singular inquest (says the “ Wanganui Chronicle ” was held before Dr Spratt, the Greytown Coroner, on Thursday. It appears that on Monday last, Messrs R. G. W r elch and Zilwood when searching for cattle in the Tararua ranges, came upon the skeleton of a man at the foot of an upturned tree, on a very inaccessible part of the mountains. The coroner was duly communicated with, and a jury was empannelled to view the remains, and find “ how, when, and by what means ” the deceased man came by his death. The journey up into the ranges seems to hare been —if not a very perilous undertaking, at any rate a very toilsome one. At one part of the journey, we arc told, came a climb not to be adequately described—hands, knees, toes, and almost eyelashes being required for its successful accomplishment. During this climb the constable accompanying the party several times called for a halt, for which sign of weakness he got a good deal chaffed. The jury further diversified their lugubrious proceedings by a pig-hunt en route, carrying off with them one sucking pig and the tail and shield of a boar. On arriving, by dint of great labour, at their destination the jury made a thorough examination of the spot and bones. Putting the bones of the legs together, under the coroner’s direction, they formed a very good estimate of the man’s height, which they found to be fully six feet. The remains were then buried, and the party returned to Woodside where they were invited to dinner by a hospitable settler. The evidence at the inquest showed that the remains were those of a man named James O’Donnell, who strayed away from the house of a Mrs Dalton, where he was lodging, in December, 1879. He was suffering from the effects of drink at the time, and left in his trowsers, shirt and boots, without any hat. He was supposed to have been at one time an inmate of the Canterbury Lunatic Asylum. A verdict was returned in accordance with the evidence, that death was caused by exhaustion and exposure,and that the skeleton was that of James O’Donnell, who left Woodside iu December last year.