WHEN IS A CORPSE NOT A CORPSE?

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7383, 8 February 1902, Page 3 (Supplement)

WHEN IS A CORPSE NOT A CORPSE?

Mrs Aitken, a much-travelled lady, had a sun-dried mummy woman of the Royal tribe of the Ineas of Peru given to her Avhilst travelling in that far off country, and thought to present it to a school at Ghent, Belgium. She forwarded .per steamship to Liverpool, and the shipping company handed it over to the London' and NorthWestern Railway fov transit south, en route to Ghent. SomehoAv the box containing the Inca lady's remains got mislaid, but after a while it turned up-in one of the company's London goods offices. As it lacked all outAvard indications^of its contents and bore no address a suspicious official decided to open the case. When the contents came to vieAv (there were a couple of dried Peruvian's heads in the package as Avell as the lady mum-

my) he Avas horror-stricken, and ran off at once to inform Coroner Wynn Westcott of his "ghastly discoA-ery." And the Coroner, scenting murder from afar decided to hold an inquest. So tAA-eh-e good men and true AVere toi'n from their daily toil to "sit" on the corpse. They deliberated Avith becoming solemnity on the evidence tendered, vieAved the body and returned this ponderous verdict: "That the woman Avas found dead at the railway goods station, Sun-street, on April 15, and did die on some date unknown, in some foreign country, probably South xVmerica, from some cause unknoAvn. No proofs of a violent death are found, an*, the body has been dried and buried in some foreign manner, probably sun-dried, and caA-e buried. And the jurors are satisfied that this body does not slioav signs of any recent crime in this country, and that the deceased AA'as unknown and about twenty-five years of age."

The publicity of the inquest brought Mrs Aitken down on the company, but by this time the mummy, in a shockingly dilapidated condition, Avas en route for Belgium. When it arrived the local police decided that as the fragments were Aalueless for exhibition purposes they should be buried. This Avas done. And then came trouble betAveen the L. and N. W. and Mrs A. She claimed damages for the mummy's maltreatment, and they retorted by trying to charge her "dead meat" (i.e., corpse) rates for it, which would mean £25 for carriage 'twixt Liverpool and Ghent. But they did not press this demand. There Avas considerable fun of 'Svhen is a corpse not a corpse?" variety Avhen the case came on for trial at the High Court the other day, but the jury decided that the company must pay Mrs Aitken £75. They determined that the PeruA'ian lady's remains Avere "goods," but did not intimate Avhat period must, in their opinion, elapse after death before a person loses the right to be considered a corpse and becomes goods. It is indeed a very nice legal point, but apart from this Aye can spare a sigh for the fair unknoAvn Avho died at twenty-five, and after the lapse of centuries cannot find her proper status, and whose remains were dubbed "A^ry smelly" by an unehivalrous raihvay official."