SINGULAR CASE OF DEATH.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 228, 24 April 1868, Page 3

SINGULAR CASE OF DEATH.

i(FB011 THE BENDIGO INDEPENDENT,) A very singular death was reported <to the coroner on Saturday by the police at Q-olden-square. A man named James Knight, fifty years old, Tvas found dead in his tent in Sheepshead Gully that morning by a miner named John Crisp, "who at once informed the police The tent or hut of the deceased is situated near the residence of Mr Daniel Moon. Upon Constable Clark's going to the deceased's tent he was sensible of a very bad smell, and the door being locked from tho inside, he had to cut a hole through the upper part of the doorframe to enable him to get in. On a rude stretcher lay the deceased (with his clothes on) in a decomposed state, the right leg and arm extending outwards over the side of the stretcher. Everything in the tent seemed undisturbed. An open book was on a stool nearwhieh the embers of a fire lay. On a rude table close to deceased's head, with a few other things were his pipe, hat, and candlestick, containing a box of matches, but no candle. There was grease in the socket of the candlestick, as if the candle had been burned down. Upon the constable's looking closely at deceased, he noticed that his hands, body, chest, and the left side of his face were very much burned and blackened by fire, yet, singularly, the only marks of fire upon the clothes covering the body, or on the bed clothes on the stretcher, were on his flannel Crimean shirt from the elbows to the wrists and a little over the breast, and also on a small portion of the bed 'clothes. Before anything Avas touched Dr Betham was requested by the coroner to make a careful examination of the body, which he did. On the deceased being lifted from the stretcher •a vapour arose like steam, and an 'opinion was expressedthat the deceased ■who was known to be a great drinker of ardent spirits, had first fallen on the fire, as the embers denoted, and then got on the stretcher and died. In order to have the body interred, a jury was sworn in at the Yorkshire Hotel on Saturday evening; but the inquest was adjourned till Tuesday morning, for the purpose of enabling the police to enquire into all the circumstances of the case, and to get all necessary witnesses to appear and give