Untitled

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 246, 23 July 1872, Page 3

In a police case in New York lately, a boy, being asked if he knew the nature of an oath, gave an affirmative reply. When asked what they do to persons who swear to a lie, he replied, *• They make policemen out them.”

THE.MYSTERIOUS DEATH AT PAPAKURA: CORONER’S INQUEST. ' An inquest was held on Friday at the Papakura Hotel, before R. C. Barstow, Esq., R.M. and Coroner, on view of the body of Thomas Gray, who was found dead at his house the previous evening with marks of violence on his face. Jas. Mellsop, Esq., was chosen Jorum an of the jury.— Robtit Taylor deposed that on the morning of the 18th instant, about seven o’clock, he saw deceased running after his wife with a stick, and she crying “ Murder." They were in the paddock, and had nothin*: but their night-dresses on. It seemed from the witness’s evidence that deceased and his wife were in the habit of quarrelling so he took little notice of them on that occasion. About 7 o’clock in the evening he went over to the house and found deceased lying dead on the bed with a wound on bis faee, nnd a eonsideiable quantity of blood about. —Dunstable Walker deposed, to Mrs Gray coming to him about 9 o’clock iu the evening, and reporting her husband was dead or dying. He immediately accompanied h" r to the house, and found deceased lying on his face on the bed di-ad and cold, and a pool of blood which had flowed from a wound in the face, and also a pillow-case lying beside him saturated with blood. Mrs Gray (who had been away at the Papakura Hotel during the day) denied to the constable that she knew anything about h*.w he had got the wound on the face, and stated that lie was all right when she left him in the morning. From the unsatisfactory way in which she answered the questions put to her by the constable, and knowing they Imd b *-n quarrelling in the morning, be arrested her on suspicion. The constable searched the house minutely, hut could find no instruni'Mit likely to have caused the wound in the face, with blood upon it. A man. named Black bow, stated that about 8 o’clock in the morning lie was passing Gray's house, and Mrs Gray called hi to lift the old man into bed. She add her husband had ie,-n running after her with the pitchfork, mil as Ik- came into tin* house lie slipp' d down at the back-door, and cut his fa'-e. Witness lifted deceased into bed. He thought lie looked bad, and advised Mrs Gray to get some < ne to look at him, but slie said it was only his gammon. He did not speak to witness, although witness knew him well.—Mark E. B. Nicholson, surgeon deposed to h i viug, at request of t Injury, made a posl-moitem examination of boiiv. When he first saw him he had the blood on his face, from two wounds at the side of the nose, the largest of which was two inches long, and down to the bone, l’liey were lacerated and contused wounds, but not serious. On removing the skull he found blood effused all over the sur face of the brain, and that was the cause of death. The wounds in the face were not directly the cause of death. There is nothing more probable than that the excitement of quarrelling would cause the condition of brain from which the deceased died, and lie had no doubt death was the result of apoplexy caused by excitement. —The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical testimony. Before discharging the jury, the coroner called Mrs Gray before him, and told her that had it not been for her conduct and drunken habits her husband might have been alive and well, ami spoke very stmiglv with reference to her remaining away the whole day at the hotel, when she must have known he was so ill ; and admonished her in very feeling terms to give up her evil habits and become sober for the future. Elie was then discharged.