The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-12 00:00:00

CORONERS' INQUESTS.

DEATH FRON STARVATION —On Monday after-
noon a lengthened investigation was entered into be-
fore Mr. Higgs, coroner for the Duchy of Lancaster,
and a jury of thirteen inhabitant householders, at the
Golden Lion, Lower Edmonton, on view of the re-
mains of a man, name unknown, aged fifty-two, whose
death was occasioned by the want of food and expo-
sure to the inclemency of the weather.
Richard Pugh, the keeper of a lodging-house in
Church-street, stated that helitid knewn the deceased
for the last three months. He was a native of Essex,
and was an agricultural labourer. He was in the
employ of Mr. Boards, farmer, of Edmonton, but
had been for some months out of work. He had
during that period obtained a scanty pittance by
vending Congreve matches, balls of cotton, &c. About
Wednesday or Thursday week last the police inter-
fered with him, and threatened to apprehend him as a
vagrant, saying that his offering things for sale was
merely an excuse for begging. Deceased was in con-
sequence very frightened, and did not go out with
his basket again. He stopped at witness's house till
the following Tuesday, when he absented himself,
having till then, from the day the police spoke to him,
lived upon stale crusts, which he got in exchange
for congreves, and the dregs of the tea-pot when others
had done with it. On Saturday night last, about
half-past ten o'clock, witness was returning home,
when he saw the deceased sitting on the ground in
the street, crouched up in a corner. He asked him
why he did not come to his house. He replied, be-
cause he had no money ; adding that he was very cold
and thirsty, and had a pain in his side. Witness as-
sisted him home, when he made him some gruel, put-
ting into it half a pint of ale, which deceased swal-
lowed ravenously. Deceased was then put into a bed,
and witness saw him no more alive.
By the CORONER—Deceased, on getting into bed,
said that since the Tuesday he had slept in hovels
and open sheds, and had had scarcely a particle of
food. IVitness did not believe that deceased had ever
made application at the workhouse, of which he
al ways seemed to have a dread. Witness's opinion
was that he died from want of food and exposure to
the cold.
Mr. Henry Samuel Lane, surgeon, Church-street,
said that on Sunday morning last, about half-past
eight o'clock, he was called to see a man at Mr.
Pugh's who was considered to be in a dying state.
Witness went about an hour afterwards, and then
found the deceased dead. He was in bed, and laid
out, and on inquiry he was informed that he had been
dead above a quarter of an hour. There were no
marks of violence. The body appeared much
emaciated, and he considered that the deceased's death
was accelerated by exposure to the cold.
There being no farther evidence, after a few re-
marks from the Coroner on the distressing circum-
stances of the case, the jury returned a verdict, "That
the deceased died from want of the common necessa-
ries of life and exposure to the cold."
DEATH IN HORS EMONG ER-LANE GAOL.—On Tues-
day an inquest was held before Mr. Carter, the coroner
for Surrey, at the Governor's room, in Horsemonger-
lane prison, on the body of Joseph Simmons, a most
eccentric character, who represented himself to be
Napoleon Buonaparte.
The deceased had for many years swept a crossing
at the end of Penton-place, in the Kennington-road,
leading to the Zoological Gardens. He was half
witted, and always very singular in his conduct,
but the gentry of the neighbourhood were very
kind to him. He was in the habit of proclaiming
himself Napoleon, and hundreds of boys would
congregate around the assumed emperor, and jeer
him in such a manner, that he was continually in the
custody of the police for assaults on one or other of
these urchins. On the 21st of November he was
committed for one of these assaults from Union-
hall, in default of finding bail for three months. On
Sunday week he was taken ill in the chapel, and
removed to the infirmary, where Mr. Meymott, the
surgeon of the prison, immediately attended, and found
he was labouring under paralysis of the right side.
He was at the time almost speechless. He had re-
peatedly been in the same prison for similar offences.
Jr. Meymott stated that the deceased had every at-
tention paid to him, and whatever food he ordered,
but he had no hope of him from the first time he was
called on to see him in the infirmary.—Verdict,
" Natural death."
MORE SUPPOSED INFANTICIDES.—Tuesday Mr.
Baker held two inquests at the Three Cranes,
Church-street, Hackney, on the bodies of newly-
born children, who were found under the follow-
ing suspicious circumstances :—ln the first case
Edward Potter deposed that on Monday morning,
about ten o'clock, he found a deal box, nailed
down, having the name of " Ross" marked on it,
behind a brick stack in Hackney churchyard,
which, on being opened, was found to contain the
body of an infant. A medical gentleman was
sent for, who, upon examination, found the body
in such a dreadful state of decomposition that
it was impossible to state whether it died
from violence or not. The other case was
that of a female child found in the soil of a water-
closet, at the back of a house, No. 30, Ada-street,
Hackney, on Tuesday morning, about nine o'clock.
An inquiry being set on foot by the police,
it was fsund that the deceased was the illegitimate
child of Mary Ann Lucas, twenty-eight years of
age, servant to Mrs. Wix in that street, who said
she had no idea of her servant's pregnancy until the
discovery of the body. The medical gentleman who
was called in said she had no professional attendance
at the birth, but he could not say whether it was born
alive or not. The mother was immediately taken
into custody.
The jury in both cases returned open verdicts of
" Found dead.