A SERIOUS CHARGE.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 11008, 4 July 1901, Page 5

A SERIOUS CHARGE.

AN AUCKLAND DOCTOR ARRESTED. (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAND, July 3. This afternoon Detectives Grace and Herbert arrested Dr. Jno. Wilkins in Shortland street, and charged him that he did on or about the 17th day of May murder Mary O'Dowd, the inquest on whose death terminated yesterday. At the inquest the Coroner, in summing up, after going through all the evidence, quoted Section 201 of the Criminal Code to the effect that a person procuring abortion was liable to imprisonment for life, and concluded his address to the jury as follows:—"Your verdict will be one of two: it will be a verdict of murder if you are satisfied by the evidence, because if a person does an illegal fvet without the slightest intention of causing death, but some person dies a., a, result of that illegal act, the person who committed the act is held by law to be guilty of murder; but if you are not satisfied that there is sufficient evidence as to how the fatal blood-poisoning came about you can so return your verdict, and I may tell you this: that whatever your verdict may be it is quite competent for the Crown to take this matter into another Court." The jury's verdict was "Death was due to bloodpoisoning, the of an external agency, but there was not sufficient evidence before the jury to prove by whom this agency was caused."