Inquest

Grey River Argus, Volume LVII, Issue 10520, 24 January 1903, Page 2

Inquest

♦ An inquest touching the death of the late Thomas Wyatt, cook of the schooner Lizzie Taylor, was held ab the Courthouse yestarday before R S Hawkins, S M, Coroner, and a jury of six. After the Coroner had explained the purpose of the enquiry and the jury had viewed the body, evidence was given by Captain Tuos Lowry, master of the schooner, Captain Connor, harbor master, Captain M'Pherson, assistant harbor master, John O'Brien, licensee of the Caledonian Hotel, and Constable Poiteous. After the Coroner Lad briefly summed up the jury retired for five minutes and returned the verdict " That deceased met his death by drowning while apparently under the influence of drink, bnt whether by accident or otherwise there was no evidence to show." The Coroner in thanking the jury for their services said that be entirely concurred in the verdict; but as Coroner I ha ve something to say. The evidence i 3 conclusive that this man was drowned because he was drunk. This if ouly one in the long tale of wretched beings who in this colony have met their death from the same cause— some violentty, some in delirium, somo after a lingering illness. And the tale of deaths is but a light one beside the tale of the misery and ruin which abound among us, and of which only a smaller proportion comes before me in my judicial capacity. I say emphatically that "for all this the present Licensing law proper of the Colony, and the maladminis! ration, or ineffectual administration of oha law are largely responsible. The last licensing poll, with its immense vote for prohibition, is at once a warning and a mandate for reform — a warning that the conscience of the people is deeply stirred, and that unless a real, honest and radical reform is made in the law, and administration of the law for the sale of alcoholic liquor, the misses, the men and women who suffer, will extinguish a trade which the Government Legislature fails to reform. In that sense ifc is a direct mandate for reform. I hold it to bo a crime against the Commonwealth if reform is pot effected. In my own opinion, (though I have no wish to dictate on the mutter), the only basis of reform which would be of any value is the reduction of licenses to a population limit, making the Magistrate sole licensing authority, the increase of fees on continued licenses in proportion to those of the reduced licenses, and the direct statutory limitation of hows of sale of liquor. The entire revision of the law with the purpose of effective control and supervision of the trad", and the preventing of evasion of the law, is a matter of dotail, but none the less essential.