AN APPEAL TO DOCUMENTS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13005, 6 January 1908, Page 7

AN APPEAL TO DOCUMENTS.

In view of Caldwell's reiteration, and G. H. Druce's belief, that there is a coffin filled with lead under the floor of the vault, the following letter, written to the "Standard" by the Rev. A. A. Drew, is of interest: — As long ago >as 1864, when any person died, a qualified medical man had to give a certificate of death, stating the cause thereof. This certificate would then have to be taken to. the deputy-registrar of births, deaths, and marriages of the district, who would then issue an order for burial. This document would have to be delivered by the undertaker to the clergyman who buried the body, and "to no one elsel" The clergyman was obliged to hand it to the "cemetery authority," who, on the face of the document, was directed to "preserve" it. Consequently, if Mr T. C. Druce died in 1864, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery, all these documents can easily be traced. If the doctor who gave the certificate of death is now dead, his books, which are probably in the hands of his successor, can bo found with the entries of visits made to Mr Druce, and the charge of the death certificate. On the other hand, if no doctor was attending Mr Druce, an inquest must have been held, and the body viewed by a jury. On this the coroner" would issue an order for burial, and I believe that the counterfoils of all orders for burials can be found, and copies obtained, at Somerset House, and th© original at Highgate Cemetery. Jf Mr T. C. Druce did not die in 1864, and a coffin filled with lead was deposited in a grave at Highgate, then it is dear that a doctor's certificate of death must have been forged by someone, in order to obtain the deputy-registrar's order for burial, for I reject the idea that any qualified medical man could have been bribed, knowing the facts, to give a death certificate. That forged certificate of death can now, I believe, be found at Somerset House. The wholo case, therefore, lies in a nutshell.