In Scotland there is full opportunity for the perpetration of murder and burial without investigation by any responsible officer. There is no coroner and no inquest. I have known cases of the occurrence of deaths from culpable negligence, to say the least of it, which required public proceedings to be taken, but where interment took place without the slightest notice. I had myself a young man of about 20 years of age under treatment who, in my opinion, died from culpable maltreatment whilst in prison. He had in a drunken frolic committed an assault, and was imprisoned in a damp cold cell without a fire. He certainly died of disease which was very likely to be produced by the cold which he then endured, and to which he ascribed it. Before his imprisonment he was a remarkably strong, fine healthy man. No inquiry was made or thought of in the case. I have known several cases, and they were not uncommon. I remember two, within two or three days, of children having been overlaid and killed by their parents when in a state of drunkenness. They were buried without any notice being taken of the circumstance by any party, though if punishment were not inflicted upon them public notice would have been of importance for the sake of the morals of the population.
I have known deaths of grown up people from burning when in a state of intoxication, and deaths from intoxication take place without inquiry; also deaths from accidents, such as falling into coal pits, deaths from machinery, as to which in many cases no public inquiry whatsoever was ever made. I have known cases of children burned to death who were left without any care. It was a common case in Tranent for persons to drink for a wager who would drink most. I know of the case of three tradesmen who drank for a wager; two of them died within a few days, and the widow of one of them committed suicide shortly afterwards; and I was informed that they were all buried without any notice being taken of the fact. There is certainly a facility for the perpetration of murder in Scotland from the absence of securities, and for protection of life against culpable negligence. The visits of an officer of public health would be of very great utility.
Mr. William Chambers observes:—
It seems to me not a little surprising that in Scotland, which is signalized for its general intelligence, love of order, and I may add really beneficent laws, the country should be so far behind in everything connected with vital statistics. I have already noticed that it possesses no coroner’s inquest. This is a positive disgrace. Deaths are continually occurring from violence, but of which not the slightest notice is taken by procurators fiscal, magistrates, or police; indeed, these functionaries seldom interfere except when a positive complaint is lodged. Some time ago, the medical gentleman who attends my family, mentioned to me incidentally that that morning he had been called to look at, and if possible recover, a lady who had been found hanging in her bed-room. His efforts were ineffectual; the lady was stone dead; and it was announced by her relatives that she had died suddenly. In the usual course of things, she was buried. Now, in this case, not the slightest inquiry was made by any public officer, and whether it was a death from suicide or from murder nobody can tell. The procurator fiscal, whose duty it is to take cognizance of such deaths, is, of course, not to blame, for he has not the faculty of omniscience.
The preventive and detective functions of the officer of health would be the more efficient from the exercise of any such functions being incidental to ordinary functions of acknowledged every day importance, which must lead his visits and inspection to be regarded as primâ facie services of beneficence and kindness to all who surround the deceased. The comparative inefficiency of officers whose functions are principally judiciary is well exemplified in some remarks made by Mr. Hill Burton, Advocate, in a communication on the subject of interments in Scotland.
A prominent defect (as he observes) in the means of inquiry into the causes of death in Scotland consists in the circumstance that before any investigation can be entered on there must be ostensible reasons for presuming the existence of violence and crime. On the occasion of a death having occurred in circumstances out of the ordinary course, the only person authorized to make any inquiry as to its cause is the officer whose proper and ostensible duty it is to prosecute to conviction. It hence arises that the simple institution of an inquiry is almost equivalent to a charge of crime, and that the proper officer, knowing the serious position in which he places those concerned, by taking any steps, is very reluctant to move, until the public voice has pretty unequivocally shown him that the matter comes within his province as a public prosecutor. There is no family in Scotland that would not at present feel a demand by a Procurator Fiscal, or by any individual to inspect a body within their house, as very nearly equivalent to a charge of murder; and I should think it is of very rare occurrence, that any such inspection takes place, in a private house, unless when a prosecution has been decided on.
The absence of any machinery, through which an inquiry can be calmly and impartially made into the cause of death, without in itself implying suspicion of crime, is frequently illustrated in the creation of excitement and alarm in the public mind, which the authorities cannot find a suitable means of allaying. I remember some years ago being present at a trial for murder, which, as it involved no point in law, has unfortunately not been reported. It was a trial undertaken by the Crown for the mere purpose of justifying an innocent man. Two butchers were returning tipsy from a fair; some words arose between them, and soon after, one of them was found stabbed to the heart by one of the set of knives which both carried. On investigation, it appeared that the deceased had fallen on his side, from the effects of drunkenness, and that one of the knives which hung at his side, dropping perpendicularly with its heavy handle to the ground, pierced through his ribs to his heart as he fell. It was impossible, however, to satisfy the public that such was the case. The feeling of the neighbourhood ran high, and the Crown was induced, out of humanity, or from a desire to preserve the public peace, to concede the formality of a trial. I know it to be of the most frequent occurrence, especially in the north of Scotland, that suspicions which must be destructive to the peace of mind of those who are the objects of them, take wing through society, and can never be set effectually at rest.
§ 205. Mr. W. Dyce Guthrie, after reciting several cases of strong suspicion which came under his observation whilst acting as a medical practitioner in Scotland concludes by observing—
Whether on an inquest before a coroner the real truth would have been elicited I cannot determine, but I think there can be but one opinion as to the propriety of having all obstacles removed which may presently stand in the way of arriving at the truth of all circumstances connected with sudden and suspicious deaths. Were it necessary, I could cite many instances of sudden deaths attended by circumstances of such a nature as not only rendered an investigation highly proper in a legal point of view, but necessary in charity to those individuals whose characters were tarnished by the cruelly unjust insinuations of some black-hearted enemies. The business not having been thoroughly probed at the time of its occurrence leaves great latitude for the villanous conjectures of parties whose interest it may be to damage others in the estimation of the public.
§ 206. Besides supplying the defect of administrative arrangements in respect to the cases of suspicion which at present escape inquiry, the proposed appointment of officers of health presents as a further incidental advantage the means of abating an evil which has been the subject of much complaint, namely, the grievous pain inflicted on the relations and survivors, and the expense to the public by the holding of inquests, which the subsequent evidence and the terms of the verdicts have shown to have been unnecessary. In the metropolis, and in many extensive districts inquests are chiefly moved on the representations of common parish beadles, or by common parish constables, to whom the inquest is usually a source of emolument. This will be admitted to be one of the least secure and satisfactory agencies in towns that could well be employed for so important a purpose. I have been informed of instances where they have been paid to avoid the annoyance of inquests in cases where from sudden but natural deaths, as from apoplexy, inquests might have been held, and that there is reason to believe that such payments have not been unfrequent. Such agency cannot be said to be a secure one either as to integrity or discretion.