FATAL ACCIDENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6829, 6 October 1883, Page 5

FATAL ACCIDENT.

Yesterday morning, a little before six o'clock, the cook at the Blue Post Dining Rooms, Leon de Perrit, discovered a man lying on his face dead in the right-of-way at the rear of the building, whom he at once identified as Mr. Thomas Miller, one of the lodgers at the establishment for the past month. He informed the landlord, Mr. Johnston, who acquainted the police of the occurrence. Sergeant Martin was speedily on the spot, and took charge of the body. Miller, who arrived in Port Chalmers by the British King on her last trip, came on to Auckland, where he has relatives, bringing with him his two children, his wife having died during the passage out. He has been drinking hard daring the past three days. At the end of the corridor, on the upper floor of the Blue Post Dining Rooms, is a door over the right-of-way which is only used for purposes of ventilation. Miller was seen to go upstairs to his room on the previous evening by the landlord, and that was the last time he was seen alive. It is conjectured that he got up in the night, mistook the tarn in the corridor, nnlocked this door, and fell over into the right-of-way, a drop of about nine feet, there being a bruise over the left eye and the nose flattened. An inquest was held on the body of deceased yesterday before Dr. Philson, Coroner, aud a jury (of whom Mr. Hugh Mcllhone was chosen foreman). Messrs. de Perrit and Johnstone deposed to the circumstances already stated, and Dr. Honeyman, who made the post mortem examination, deposed that death was caused by rupture of a blood vessel on the brain, probably caused by a fall. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the.medical testimony, coupled with a rider as to the dangerous character of the window in question, and that the landlord's attention should be drawn to the matter.