FATAL FALL FROM A WINDOW.

Evening Star, Issue 12067, 12 December 1903, Page 11

FATAL FALL FROM A WINDOW.

An inquest was held at Melbourne on December 4 by Dr Cole, P.M. (acting city coroner), concerning the death of Mrs Jane M'Donald, who was killed on the previous Monday night through falling from a fourthstorey window of Menzies' Hotel. The fiist witness. Angus M'Donald, said that he and a friend named Blake were standing talking in the fiotel when they heard a crash, and, turning round, saw a woman lying on the footpath in her nightdress and wrapper. Dr Maudsley, of London, who was in the hotel, was summoned to attend deceased, and pronounced life extinct. Going to the room of the deceased, it was found that the window was open, and a chair in front of it. Several cuffs and collars and a white shirt lately washed were hung up on the mirror and on the Venetian blind at the window, and one cuff was outside on the ledge, a little more than 2ft below the window sill. Apparently deceased was attempting to recover the cuff on the led ire outside the window, when she overbalanced, and fell to the footpath, a distance of about 60ft. Doucald William M'Donald, merchant, of Surrey, England, identified the body as that of his wife, who wan thirtyfour years of age. Witness left his wife at Menzies' Hotel on the Monday evening at about half-past six. and went to the Caledonian dinner. At that time she was in good health and spirits. He had ko doubt that the occurrence was quite accidental. A verdict of accidental death was returned.