POISONED OR STARVED?

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 521, 18 May 1880, Page 2

POISONED OR STARVED?

A CORONER'S MISTAKES. A suspicious death occurred nearMarton, Rangitikei, last week. Charles Williams, the deceased man, was found at night lying on the road near the house of a farmer. He was seen both by the farmer and his son, and spoken to,' but they left him without troubling themselves. The deceased had told them he was ill, that a person had given him some meat, and he thought it must have been poisoned. The man seemed to be stupefied, as if going to sleep. He was afterwards heard to exclaim, “ Oh, father ! Oh, father !” and “Christ! Christ!” He was about a chain distant from the farmer’s door, and the farmer and son went close to, and struck a match to look at him. He was lying as if asleep, and was snoring. They did net touch him. Could not say if deceased’s coat was on. Did not think there teas an;/ harm in leaving himwhcrehc teas. Believed they had seen him before, but could not be certain. Next morning the} r found the unhappy man lying dead and cold, his knuckles and nostrils eaten by rats. Such was the evidence given at the inquest. But the coroner made the case more shocking by his official proceedings. The doctor who made the mortem examination, Mr Sydney Skerman, deposed that the deceased had acute inflammation of some of the smaller intestines, which, together with exposure, might cause death. He added :—“ The inflammation might be caused by poison. I think the circumstances are sufficiently suspicious to warrant the contents of the stomach being sent for analysis. I should prefer to withhold my opinion until such analysis had been completed.” The coroner also received some letters found on the deceased. He read them to himself, then said they were entirely of a private nature, and asked the jury to find a verdict. He told them that if they decided upon a verdict that evening, and the analysis afterwards proved them wrong, the case might be reopened before the Resident Magistrate ! The jury woic then told to consider their verdict, and after half an hour they brought in the following, “That deceased died from inflammation of the stomach and intestines, aggravated by the night’s exposure to rain and cold, but how the inflammation was caused there is no evidence fo show.”

The coroner failed in his duty ; and if this report be true, lie failed disgracefully. He was told the cause of death was inflammation, which might have resulted from poison. He was told that the deceased said some one had given him poisoned moat. He made no effort to get the deceased identified through the letters found on him. He asked the jury to find a verdict before the most material evidence was before them —that of an analysis of the stomach and intestines. Can the case rest here?