CORONER'S INQUEST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 39, 11 March 1909, Page 3

CORONER'S INQUEST.

A LONELY DEATH. Mr. 11. S. Fitzhcrbert, coroner, yesterday resumed the inquiry into tnc circumstances surrounding the death of a woman in Cameron Street last week. A. (,'. Fookes, residing in Cameron Street, Plymouth, deposed that on ; the morning of Wednesday last his attention was drawn to something lying in a hollow in a paddock near his house. : He found that it was a woman lying with her head and shoulders through a wire fence in some fern. Witness asked if she was in pain, but could not get , any intelligent answer. All the words he"could distinguish were "two or three days." Witness then comuiaaicatcd with the police. Dr. H, A. McClelaud stated that lie was called to Mr. Fookea' paddock in I. Cameron Street on the morning of the | 3rd inst. He found on arrival Mr. | Fookes standing beside the body of a woman. Constable Flanagan was also there. The woman's clothes were wet, as if she had stumbled into a drain close by. Witness found that she was dying, and gave instructions to the constable to procure an express to take her to the hospital immediately. She was moved under a tree, and died there before the express arrived. Death occurred about twenty minutes after witness lirst • saw her. On the following day witness made a post lnorleui examination of the body. The body was that of a fairly well nourished woman, between 55 and IK) years of age. There were no marks of violence. The heart, liver, and kidnevs were in a state of fatly degeneration. There were several old adhesions between the lungs and the walls of the chest. The left lung was shrunk. The cavity in which the heart was placed was full of fluid. Death was due to acute pericarditis. The stomach was unite empty. William James Thompson, clerk in the booking-office of the Xew Plymouth railway station, gave evidence of having identified the body as thai of a woman who had left a dress-basket in I lie booking office on February 251 h. giving her name to witness as " Mrs. Van Stein." Witness did not see deceased after the 25th until he saw her in the morgue. She arrived on February 2-itb by the 5.15 pan. train from the south, ami said she came from Midhiist, Constable Flanagan stated thai when, on arrival at Mr. Fookcs' paddock, he asked the deceased what was the matter, she made no answer. She appeared to be dying, so witness telephoned for Dr. Met'ielaiid, who arrived shortly afterwards. She died soon after the doctor arrived, and witness took her to the mor«ue. The following day witness searched the dress-basket left by deceased at the railway booking-oflice. Among the effects in the basket witness found a small dictionary bearing the name '• Mrs. E. Nicholson" written on its lirst page, a memo book containing the address " V. A. Moore, Hope Ctla"e, Wadeslown," and a photograph of a member of the Sth New Zealand Contingent in South Africa. The: two photographs produced were photographs of deceased, taken after death by Constable Jlclvor, Detective Uoddam also gave evidence, showing that, from photographs of deceased, and the photograph ol the trooper referred to by Constable Hanagau forwarded to the Wellington police'deceased had been idcnlilied as the daughter of a Mrs. Moore, of Harper Street, Wellington. She had been first married to a man named Nicholson, and, after his death, to one Van Stein, who was also believed to be dead. The trooper referred to was a -on of deceased, ■ind had "iven the photograph of himself, alr.-adv spoken of, to his grandmother, Mrs. Moore, who had afterwards

■riven it to her daughter. " The Coroner found that the deceased was Mrs. Emma Van Stein, and that her death was due to acute pericarditis.