night being beaten. He refused. The cousin
sat down to dinner with the wretched pair;
only for the purpose of being between them to
prevent further violence, for she had dined.
She remained until half past three o'clock, and
during that interval the husband frequently
boxed his wife's ears as hard as he could;
and once kicked her with great force. Her
usual remonstrance was, 'Man alive, don't
touch me.' The visitor returned in the evening,
and she, with the journeyman, saw another
brutal attack, some minutes after which the
victim fell as if in a fit. She was assisted into
an inner room, sank down and never rose
again. She lay till the following Sunday
morning in a state of insensibility, and no
attempt had been made to procure surgical
assistance. A practitioner at last was
summoned, gave no hope, and the poor creature
died on Monday morning. The post-mortem
examination, described by the surgeon,
revealed the cause of death in the blows at the
side of the head, which he said was like 'beef-
steaks when beaten by cooks.' No trace of
habitual drunkenness appeared. The
deceased had been, in the course of the inquiry,
charged with that.

A lawyer would have felt especially fidgetty,
while these facts were being elicited. The
questions were put in an undecided rambling
manner, and were so interrupted by half-made
remarks from the jurors and other parties in
the room, that it was a wonder how the
report of the proceedings, which appeared in
the morning newspapers, could have been so
cleverly cleared as it was of the chaff from
which it was winnowed. One or two
circumstances occurred during this time which tended
to throw over the whole affair the air of an
ill-played farce. At an interesting point of
the evidence, the door was opened, and a
scream from a female voice announced ' Please
sir, the beadle's wanted! ' There were four
gentlemen sitting on a horse-hair sofa close
behind some of the jury, with whom more
than once they entered into conversation,
doubtless about the case in hand. The way
in which the coroner took notice of this
breach of every judisprudential rule, was
extremely characteristic: he said, in effect, that
there was, perhaps, no actual harm in it, but
it might be objected to—the parties conversing
might be relatives of the accused. In fact, he
mildly insinuated that such unprivileged
communications might warp the jurymen's
judgments—that's all!

After the coroner had summed up, the jury
returned a verdict of manslaughter against
the husband. The Queen's representative
then retired, and so did the jury and the
beadle; a little extra business was done at the
bar of the ' Two Spies,' and, to use a reporter's
pet phrase, ' the proceedings terminated.'

It is far from our desire, in describing this
particular inquest, in any way to disparage—
supposing anything we have said can be
construed into disparagement—any person or
persons concerned in it directly or remotely.
Our wish is to point out the exceeding looseness,
informality, and difficulty of ensuring
sound judgment, which the system occasions.
Indeed we were told by a competent authority
that the proceedings at the Old Drury and
' Two Spies ' taverns, formed an orderly and
superior specimen of their class.

There is a mischief of some gravity, which
we have yet to notice. The essential check
upon all judicial or private dereliction is
publicity, and publicity gained through the press
in all cases which require it; but the existing
system gives the coroner the power of
excluding reporters. He can, if he pleases, make
a Star-chamber of his court, hold it in a private
house, and conduct it in secret. Instances—
though very rare ones—can be adduced of this
having been actually done. Here opens a
door to another abuse;—it is known that a
certain few among newspaper hangers-on—
persons only connected with the press by the
precarious and slender tenure of 'a penny-
a-line'—find it profitable to attend inquests
—not for legitimate purposes—for their
' copy ' is seldom inserted by editors—but
to obtain money from relatives and
parties interested in the deceased for what
they are pleased to call ' suppressing ' their
reports. This generally happens in cases which
from their having no public interest whatever
would not, under any circumstances, be
admitted into the crowded columns of the
journals; for we can with confidence say that
any case in which the public interests are
likely to be staked, once before the editors of
any London Journal, and supplied by a gentleman
of their own establishment, no power on
earth could suppress it. It has happened
again occasionally that, from the suddenness
with which the coroner is summoned, and
the slovenly manner in which his office is
performed, an inquest that ought to have
been made public has wholly escaped the
knowledge of newspaper conductors and
their accredited reporters, and has thus
passed over in silence.

Let us here put up another guard against
misconception. No imputation can rest upon
any accredited member of the press; the high
state dignities which some men who have been
reporters now so well support, are a guarantee
against that. Neither do we wish to
undervalue the important services sometimes
performed by occasional or 'penny-a-line'
reporters; among whom there are honourable
and clever men. We only point out a small
body of exceptional characters who are no more
than what we have described—'hangers-on'
of the press.

We now proceed to suggest a remedy for
the inherent vices of ' Crowner's quests.'

In the report of the Board of Health on
intramural interments, upon which a bill now
before Parliament is founded, it is proposed
to erect in convenient parts of London eight
reception-houses for the dead, previous to