Many difficulties, however, having arisen on the construction of these statutes, as to the jurisdiction of coroner; by the 6 Vic. cap. 12, it was enacted, “That the coroner only within whose jurisdiction the body of any person upon whose death an inquest ought to be holden, shall be lying dead, shall hold the inquest, notwithstanding that the cause of death did not arise within the jurisdiction of such coroner; and in case of any body found dead in the sea, or any creek, river, or navigable canal within the flowing of the sea, where there shall be no deputy coroner for the jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England, the inquest shall be holden only by the coroner having jurisdiction in the place where the body shall be first brought to land.” And by sec. 2, it is further enacted, “That for the purpose of holding coroners’ inquests, every detached part of a county, riding, or division, shall be deemed to be within that county, riding or division, by which it is wholly surrounded, or where it is partly surrounded by two or more counties, ridings, or divisions, within that one with which it has the longest common boundary.” Sec. 3 provides for the trial of parties on verdicts of murder and manslaughter. Sec. 4, provides for the levying of deodands on verdicts.
The enquiry of the coroner must be restricted to the cause of the death of the person upon whom the inquest is taken, and cannot be extended to accessories after the fact. He may, however, inquire of accessories before the fact, for such are instrumental to the death. [17]
And by the statute 7 George the Fourth, c. 64, sec. 9, “the offence of the person counselling, procuring, or commanding, howsoever indicted, may be inquired of, tried, determined, and punished by any court which shall have jurisdiction to try the principal felon, in the same manner as if such offence had been committed at the same place as the principal felony, although such offence may have been committed either on the high seas, or at any place on land, within his majesty’s dominions or without. And in case the principal felony shall have been committed within the body of any county, and the offence of counselling, procuring, or commanding shall have been committed within the body of any other county, the last-mentioned offence may be inquired of, tried, determined and punished in either of such counties.”
This cursory glance of the office, the election, the authority, and the jurisdiction of coroners, show at once the importance of the trust imposed in them. Yet in the present day negligence and laxity prevail to such an extent, that a coroner’s tribunal is considered an inferior instead of a superior court, for some magistrates though differently elected, endeavour to control their labours, on the plea of economy—and this may be considered as one cause why coroners’ inquests appear unsatisfactory tribunals, for surely the doing so, must interfere with the sacred duties imposed and intended to operate on the minds of the many, that an untimely end of a fellow creature with all the awfulness attending it, should be carefully inquired into as the safety valve by which we live and move, and have our being.
The incomparable Dickens has, in one of the numbers of his present novel, “Bleak House,” sketched a lively representation of the manner in which these courts are commonly conducted; and as fiction demonstrates truthfully, truth itself, it may not be considered an unpardonable liberty in introducing the following extract:
The coroner frequents more public houses than any man alive. The smell of sawdust, beer, tobacco smoke and spirits, is inseparable in his vocation from death in its most awful shapes. He is conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting room, where he puts his hat on the piano, and takes a Windsor chair at the head of a long table, formed of several short tables put together, and ornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury as can crowd together at the table sit there. The rest get among the spittoons and pipes, or bear against the piano. Over the coroner’s head is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a bell, which rather gives the Majesty of the Court, the appearance of going to be hanged presently.
Call over and swear the jury!
“Well gentlemen,” the Coroner begins:—
“Silence there will you,” says the beadle—not the coroner, though it might appear so. “Well gentlemen!” resumed the coroner, “you are impanelled here, to enquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given before you, as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will give your verdict according to the evidence and not according to anything else. The first thing to be done is to view the body.
“Make way there!” cries the beadle.
So they go out in loose procession, something after the manner of a straggling funeral, and make inspection, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and precipitately.
The inquiry proceeds. The jury learn how the subject of the inquiry died, and learn no more about him. “A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen,” says the coroner, “who I am informed was accidentally present, when discovery of the death was made; but he could only repeat the evidence you have already heard from the surgeon, the landlord, &c., and it is not necessary to trouble him.” Is any body in attendance who knows anything more?
Mrs. Piper pushed forward by Mrs. Perkins.
Mrs. Piper sworn.
Anastasia Piper, gentlemen, married woman.
Now, Mrs. Piper—what have you got to say about this?
Why Mrs. Piper has got a good deal to say, chiefly in parenthesis and without punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs. Piper lives in the court, (which her husband is a cabinet maker,) and it has long been well be known among the neighbours (counting from the day next but one before the half-baptising of Alexander James Piper, aged eighteen months and four days old, on account of not being expected to live, such was the suffering of that child, gentlemen, in his genus) as the Plaintive—so Mrs. Piper insists calling the deceased—was reported to have sold himself. Thinks it was the Plaintive’s air in which that report originatin. See the Plaintive often, and considered his air was fearinocious, and not being allowed to go about, some children being timid, (and if doubted, hoping Mrs. Perkins may be brought forard, for she is here and will do credit to her husband, and herself and family.) Has seen the Plaintive wexed and worrited by the children, (for children they will ever be, and you cannot expect them, specially if of playful dispositions to be Methoozellers which you was not yourself.) On accounts of this and his dark looks, has often dreamed as she see him take a pickaxe from his pocket and split Johnny’s head, (which the child knows not fear, and has repetually called after him close at his eels). Never however, see the Plaintive take a pickaxe or any wepping far from it. Has seen him hurry away when run or called after, as if not partial to children, and never see him speak to neither child or grown up person at any time, (except the boy that sweeps the crossing down the lane over the way round the corner, which if he was here, would tell you that he has been seen a speaking to him frequent.) Says the coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle no, sir, he is not here. Says the coroner, go and fetch him then.
Oh! Here’s the boy, gentlemen!
Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now boy!
But stop a minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few preliminary paces.
Name, Jo. Nothing else that be knows on. Don’t know that everybody has two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don’t know that Jo is short for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for him. He don’t find no fault with it. No lather, no mother, no friends. Never been to school. What’s home? Knows a broom’s a broom, and knows its wicked to tell a lie. Don’t recollect who told him about the broom, or about the lie, but he knows both. Can’t exactly say what’ll be done to him arter he’s dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it’ll be something wery bad to punish him, and serve him right—and so he’ll tell the truth.
“This won’t do, gentlemen” says the coroner, with a melancholy shake of the head.
“Don’t you think you can receive his evidence, sir,” asks an attentive juryman.
“Out of the question,” says the coroner, “you have heard the boy.” ‘Can’t exactly say’ won’t do you know. We can’t take that in a Court of Justice, gentlemen. It’s terrible depravity. Put the boy aside.
Now. Is there any other witness? No other witness.
Very well, gentlemen! Here a man unknown proved to have been in the habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half, found dead of two much opium. If you think you have any evidence to lead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide, you will come to that conclusion. If you think it is a case of accidental death, you will find a verdict accordingly.
Verdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen, you are discharged. Good afternoon.
While the coroner buttons his great coat, the eminent solicitor, and himself, give private audience to the rejected witness in a corner.
That graceless creature only knows, that the dead man (whom he recognised just now by his yellow face and black hair) was sometimes hooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter night, when he, the boy, was shivering in a door-way near his crossing, the man turned to look at him, and came back, and, having questioned and found that he had not a friend in the world, said, “Neither have I—not one!” and gave him the price of a supper and night’s lodging. That the man had often spoken to him since; and asked him whether he slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he ever wished to die, and similar strange questions. That when the man had no money, he would say in passing, “I’m am as poor as you to-day, Jo,” but that when he had any, he had always (as the boy most heartily believes) been glad to give him some.
“He was very good to me,” says the boy, wiping his eyes with his wretched sleeve. “Wen I see him a layin so stritched out just now, I wished he could have heard me tell him so. He was very good to me, he was!”
It may be asked, is the above an over-drawn picture of what is frequently observable in coroners’ courts? If answered in the negative! surely the time has come for the reception of additional evidence, with the view, not only to improvement in accordance with the age in which we live, but for the maintenance of the legitimate object for which coroners’ courts were first established, and which they profess to uphold in all the integrity of seeking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Under these circumstances it becomes an imperative duty to record cases where discrepancies exist or have existed.
Case 1.—In the village of R—, a few years since, a young woman denying her guilt to the latest moment, was one morning discovered by her relatives entering her bed room, apparently in a dying state. Observing the clothes saturated with blood, they sent for a medical gentlemen, who immediately attended, and soon ascertained that the cause of the hemorrhage arose from her having been recently confined. On accusing her of the fact and enquiring where she had put the child—with quivering lip and trembling hand, she pointed to the opposite side of the bed, beneath which, was a box, containing the body of a full-grown infant. Externally it appeared perfectly healthy, but the face was dark and tumid, especially the lower part and around the neck, a mark, as if a cord had been tightly held or fastened, was distinctly visible. At the coroner’s inquest held shortly after, the medical attendant deposed, that collateral evidence proved the child was born alive, and the mark alluded to, corroborated his opinion that the child had been strangled. On this evidence, and this evidence alone, as no cord, tape or missile could be found, the jury, at the coroner’s suggestion, returned a verdict of “wilful murder.” At the following Assizes, in Norwich, the judge who tried the culprit, elicited from the medical gentleman, that it was possible for the child to be strangled in its birth from natural causes—that the cord or funis belonging to the child, itself might surround the neck, and by impeding its birth, produce strangulation and death. Under the direction of the judge, the jury immediately returned a verdict of “not guilty,” and the prisoner returned home to her friends, who rejoiced in her acquittal, and believed her an injured person.
Had the coroner at the inquest ascertained the above fact, she would not have been committed to be tried for murder under his warrant, but for misdemeanour, concealing the birth of her child. Thus she narrowly and properly escaped the punishment for the capital offence, but improperly escaped the punishment which would have been awarded her by the offended laws of her country, for conduct she richly merited and deserved.
Case 2. The wife of an agricultural labourer, in the parish of I— was in the habit of going to work in the fields, and leaving her children without fire or food from morning till night, and if on her return she found them crying or murmuring, she would flog and send them to bed supperless. One of the poor children was attacked by the measles, and although the eruption had partially made its appearance, she carried it to the field where she worked, laid the child under a fence, as it was too ill to sit up, and there it continued the whole day, part of the time exposed to a fog off the German ocean, which rendered the surrounding atmosphere cold, moist and insalubrious. Returning homewards in the evening with her child, she observed it was getting worse, and two or three hours after, she asked a neighbour to come and see it, which she did, and advised the mother to send immediately for the parish surgeon. He promptly attended, but gave no hopes for its long surviving, as it was labouring under acute inflammation of the lungs, and in a few hours after his opinion was verified, for the child expired. Some days elapsed before an inquest was held over the deceased. The parish surgeon deposed the child died from inflammation of the lungs, following the measles. On being asked whether he did not think death was accelerated, owing to the child being exposed to cold, he said “No! on the contrary, I consider it beneficial.” In this instance, the medical gentleman was requested by the coroner to re-consider his statement, as he had always understood by checking such eruptions, they were liable to be fatal—but the parish surgeon would not retract, and the coroner rested satisfied, by merely reprimanding and cautioning the woman to take better care of her children.