QUEER DUTIES OF CORONERS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVI, Issue 51, 7 December 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

QUEER DUTIES OF CORONERS.

Many quaint statements concerning oners and their duties are contained ■n the, first report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Home Secretary to inquire into the law relating to coroners' inquests and into the practice of coroners' courts.

Formerly they Jilso held inquests in "ases of serious "bodily injury, prison breach and housebreaking.' They held 'nquiries into all caees of felony, treasure trove and wreck. They also valued felons' goods for forfeihire to the Crown. Forfeiture for felony was only abolished in 1870. Another queer duty was the valuing of deodands. That is l o say, when a person was killed, the ">b.iect bv which he wn« killed was valued and forfeited to the Crown. Mr Little states this held good, for instance, "if a man was killed by a bull or even run down by a ship. The bull was valued and the price forfeited- to the Crown. The bull itself was killed. U was not exactly bv direction of the coroner that the bull was killed, because I think there was a notion that •_t came under the Levitical law. But it was a serious matter when it came to confiscating a jship." Deodands were abolished in 1846, but l>efore that there was a great case in which the jury did assess the value of a steamboat, and the owners only got the forfeiture quashed on a technicality. Another interesting point is the law of treasure trove. The last recorded irosecution iii England was in 1836, when, at Mountfort, near Hastings, a laborer found a lump of gold. It was discovered close to where King Harold was killed at Hastings and was thought to have been his breast-late. The finder sold it for 5s 6d to a man who knew cold. He in turn sold it for more than €SOO to certain refiners, who melted it. A recent case was noar Phillimoro Gardens, London, where workers found a large quantity of snade guineas. Think* ing bits of brass they threw them to small boys. Some of them fetched 2os to 30s each.