WOMAN’S DEATH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 September 1938, Page 6

WOMAN’S DEATH

FALSE AND MALICIOUS RUMOURS CONDEMNED CORONER’S STRONG COMMENT (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. False and malicious rumours disseminated by anonymous persons were hotly condemned by the coroner, Mr Gilbertson, at the inquest of the death of Elsie Bell Mace, whose body was recovered from the harbour on August 26, after she had been missing from her nome at Wadestown since July 24. An old English ducking stool, he said, would be a fitting punishment for persons who spread such rumours, which resulted in exhaustive police inquiries among friends and relatives of the deceased. “With regard to the rumours conveyed to the police, which entailed much time and trouble to investigate, and were proved to be utterly- groundless, I wish to state that the author, who, under a shield of anonymity disseminates malicious and sinister rumours and regards the motives and character of the relatives of the subject of the coronial inquiry is a contemptible coward,” said Mr Gilbertson. “He or she stabs in the dark those whose anxiety and trouble should be relieved rather than accentuated bylying innuendo or suggestion of evil intensions. It is regrettable that the old English punishment of the village ducking stool cannot be applied to them as a deterrent to all such irresponsible gossips. Their motto appears to be ‘suppressio veri suggestio falsi, fling enough mud and some of it is bound to stick on. Giving his verdict, Mr Gilbertson said: “The evidence before me, although not absolutely conclusive, indicates that the deceased had arrived at a time of life when mental instability was not unusual, and I find that deceased took her life by drowning herself in Wellington Harbour on July 24 in an excess of mental derangement.”