GO TO BED LAUGHING

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXI, Issue 16, 27 February 1940, Page 4

GO TO BED LAUGHING

GENIAL CORONER'S RULE

FOR LONG LIFE

Sir Samuel Brighouse—"Our Sammy" to his many friends—who was believed to be Britain's oldest coroner, died last month at Ormskirk, Lancashire, aged 90. He had been a solicitor for over 68 years and had conducted 25,000 inquests as coroner for South-west Lanca-

shire

On his ninetieth birthday last August he declared that he had broken nearly every rule for long living and still smoked" 15 cigars a day. "I enjoy every minute of every day," he said.

His other observations included: "I've never gone out of my way to avoid a pint of beer." "To acquire happiness take an interest in your fellow-crea-tures and they will take an interest in you." "Go to bed laughing and get up laughing."

He was the last coroner in England chosen by the votes of freeholders. The election is said to have cost him £1500.

To all his inquests he went tophatted and monocled—with the inevitable cigar.

In Court he conducted the proceedings with genial originality and humour without sacrificing dignity.

Sir Samuel had a vast store of anecdotes. Once a juryman returned a verdict that "The deceased be found guilty of being found drowned." Another juror inquired of a widow: "To what did your - husband attribute his. death?"

He once fixed an inquest on a chief constable seriously injured in a riding accident—but the policeman recovered and rejoiced in the fact that he was probably the only living man upon whom an inquest had been fixed.

Walking was his hobby. He would say that he had walked "all over England and Germany." True, he once had a motor-cycle, but when it broke down and made him late for an inquest he dubbed it "an invention of the devil" and vowed he would never motor again. He kept his word.

Sir Samuel . often said he wished to "die in harness." The wish was gratified. He died in bed, but with his diary and notebook open before him and with his fountain pen in

his hand