probably, being drunk at the same time, she had attempted to step from the doorway across a low parapet wall on to the parlour window sill, a stride of four feet and a-half; in doing so, she fell into the area, for the blood was first observable at the kitchen door, through which she obtained admission. From this point traces of blood were observable up the kitchen stairs to the front door, which, it is inferred, she opened, to take in the gin bottle and a small basket which she had deposited there previously to attempting to get in at the window; from thence the life-blood of the poor creature doubled back through the passage, and was traceable up to her bed-room. It is not to be wondered at that the poor woman never rallied from the operation of amputating her foot, as, indeed, nearly every drop of blood was previously drained from her body. Since it was pretty evident that the poor creature never would have made an attempt to enter the house in the manner she did unless she had been intoxicated, and as, moreover, her landlady was obliged to confess that she was given to drink, the coroner suggested to the foreman of the jury that they should state in their verdict that the accident was the result of her intoxicated condition at the time; but the jury refused to accede to his wish; and he afterwards informed me, that when he held inquests at public-houses, he always found a disinclination on the part of the jury to notice the fact of intoxication playing any part in the death, even when the fact was but too evident! Having no teetotal tendencies, and believing that to take a pledge of total abstinence from alcohol is simply a piece of puritanical absurdity, which, if carried out in all cases where temptation presents itself, would result in an abnegation of the will itself, I, nevertheless, could not help being struck with the astounding fact, that in the first four inquests held promiscuously in one day, every case of death was clearly caused, either directly or indirectly, by the vice of intoxication. Mr. Gough might have lectured upon the subject for years, yet I will venture to say that he never would have made such an impression on me as did the faces of those four poor creatures, staring up at me from their coffins—not emaciated by disease and long-suffering, but perishing in the prime of life, and leaving behind them long trains of suffering children and helpless widows. There are many sayings that we use glibly enough, and none among them further from the truth than one we often hear, “Providence takes charge of drunkards and little children.”
The next case was that of a little Irish boy who had been killed by a cab running over him. The lad had been following an Irish funeral,—one of those noisy demonstrative affairs which are pretty sure to gather up all the loose Milesian element that lies in the line of procession. The lad was riding behind one of the mourning cabs, and falling off, the next cab in the line ran over him. The cab—according to the only intelligible witness who saw the accident take place—was loaded with six persons inside and six on the roof; it was not wonderful that the wheel passing over his body ruptured the liver, and killed him within two hours. He was the last of three children whom his mother, a poor widow, mourned.
The duties of a metropolitan coroner extend over a very wide district; from Paddington, accordingly, we had to hurry away to Islington, where a new beadle was awaiting his superior, with a fresh jury ready to be sworn in. Coroners’ beadles are characters in their way, and they have all their peculiarities in getting up their cases; but they all agree in one particular—a desire to make as much of each inquest as possible, not from any pecuniary advantage derivable therefrom, as they are paid only 7s. 6d. for each case, but simply for parade sake; thus they invariably put forward their weakest witnesses first, and in this manner often waste the time of the court in parading testimony of no importance whatever, whilst the only material witness is kept until the last. Unless the coroner is up to this little weakness, his time is often taken up in a very unnecessary manner.
The three following inquests were on children, two of which were illegitimate. The first, Ernest H, an infant of two years old, “out quite beautiful with measles,” as his mother said, was seized with a fit, in which it died. As no medical man was present, and no medical certificate of cause of death could be given, the registrar refused a burial order, and hence the inquest. Coroners in the metropolitan district are more than usually critical in cases of illegitimate children, in consequence of the fearful amount of infanticide prevalent in such cases. I remember the late coroner giving it as his opinion that a fearful amount of children were cunningly got rid of at the moment of birth, by simply allowing the new-born babe to fall into a tub of water. The medical test of a child having been born alive is the inflation of the lungs: where this has not taken place, it is held to have been still-born, a fact taken advantage of by some mothers in the way we have mentioned. In the case of this poor child, however, there appeared to have been no foul play. In a second case, a child of two years of age—“a little come-by-chance,” as one of the witnesses phrased it—was allowed to run out into the road uncared-for; and, a cart coming by, ran over and killed it. The verdict might, with justice, have been “Went by chance,” for the little care that was taken of it.
Still another child called for the verdict of the twelve good men and true. It was a sad sight to see the little face placid as though it slept in its mimic coffin of blue, and still sadder to hear the young mother’s agonised recital of its death. It was alive and in her arms at three o’clock in the morning, when she gave it the breast, then she went to sleep with the child “on her arm.” When she awoke she kissed it, “as was her custom,” when she found it was cold. The child evidently had been either overlaid, or smothered with the bed-clothes. Scarcely a week elapsed, the coroner informed me, without his having to hold an inquest on a poor infant, put out of life, in some cases, perhaps, purposely; but in the great majority of instances by the over-fondness of the mother in covering the little one’s face up for warmth sake. The majority of women treat their tender little ones just as if they were so many hot rolls, smothering them in blankets, for-