The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26. CORONERS' JURIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81851, 26 September 1906, Page 2

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26. CORONERS' JURIES.

An attempt was made in the House of Representatives on a recent evening towards the abolition of Coroners' Juries, without effect. I; is noi a universal system and if it has any good points, they are hard to find. Coroners' juiors don't have to know any thing. Tlie Coroner himself need not know much. All depends on the medical evidence. The Cor oner being the best trained of the m-n handling the case, listens to the medical evidence, and in a 1 cases tels I the jury what to "find". It is quite a farce, for neither Coroner nor ju!y have any power of final decision

and they are merely intermediaries between the Coroner's Court and the Magistrate's or Supreme Courts. Corcnors' juries are nearly always chosen from the unemployed. At the lime of the inquest most men are earning then liivng. Anybody is believed to be good enough to do work that does not matter in the

least. They view the body, and having viewed it, come to the conclusion that the corpse is dead. The Coroner's jury docs not find out anything that any one did not previously know, they arc not necessary to justice, see

ing that they are entirely guided in cases of suicide or murder by doctors and the coroner, and altogether they seem to be the merest excresence. The "professional" juror is a morbid horror, and as he has become a class he is also a menace. He gets paid

for his morbid craving- and he docs nothing for the money except enjoy himself in a gruesome way. Scot-

land, which has rather a good commonsense method of procedure in all Court work, is able to get along without the professional corpse jurer,

The abolition of Coroners' juries in New Zealand would at least have the effect of breaking up a class of morgue loungeis who are by no means pleasant spots on the scenery.