New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-08-11
CROWNER,s Quest LAW.

ticoke massacre had At least returned 8 verdict
that somebody was to blame for it, in some degree.
II WAS not. indeed, so pointed a Judgment that
oDe expressed By some venerable Dame PartingtOn,
on hearing that man had murdered his wife,
children, and few Deigbbors, that he ought TO be
.'talked TO :" 1t only ventuTed the opinion that
they ougl. to be tGlEcd about Still, this was more
than We had light to expect, IS the verdict ofthe
Coroner Inquest is buttoo often mere brushfu.
of Whitewssh TO mop over the blood-stslns on the
bands Of gentlemen OF the respectable standing OF
Raj way Dire ctors, and TO make things comfortable
to them. Perhaps We should be grateful that this
Albany Jury did not return the verdict OF the lrlsh
one that sat on the body Of the old woman who ran
across a race course just as the start was making
and was killed, and declared that these unfortunate
victims were "sared night" for risking their necks
on such uotorous rottenness this seems to have
been in the neighbofhO0d. Perhaps il was too much
to expect of Any mere mortal Coroner to bring IN
verdict Of loanslaught er against gentlemen OF toe
property and standing Of Messrs. William White,
Erastus Corning, Lewis Pruyn d Co, merely be-
cause thirteen persons Of no particular account had
duties which they had voluntarily assumed. 1t
would have been some satisfaction to the nstural
sense of justice though, of course, nothing would
have come of it. We know too well the IMMUNITY
assured in our criminal practice to offenders with
money in their pockets-of which We shall have
another example next Sessions, when Macdonald
comes to he tried-to expect anything of the kind
L e tbaaa
being held to bail for their homicide might have
made their brother Directors of other railways,
who hold our lives in their hands, condescend to
pay some regard to the responsibility they have
assumed
We know nothing of the Coroner who had it in
hand to trace this bloody business home to its au-
thors and fnsbers aud dare Say that is as intel
gent and competent as most OF his race. But this
We are sorry to say is not saying much for him. 1t
is little odd that this Office even in England until
recent times, should have been in the hands Of men
whose dOings have made the name OF the office
iocose SYNONYM for official incOmpetency. And
vet surely its duties of the very eravest char
acter, which should call for men of the wisest dis
erection and the most practiced skill in the extrlca-
all remember the disgust excited by the antics Of
the Burdell. murder Coroner two years agO-as re-
voting as the grimaces of Mr. Merryman would be
at fuDersl-and yet more by the stupidity and
cumsness which he expended upon the inquiry,
and which very likely helped largely to assist IN
the escape Of the assassin. Now, 1t Is hardly too
much to SOY that the Office of Coroner Is not less
important to the ends of public justice than that of
the Attorney who conducts the prosecution or even
of the Judge who presides over tine final trial. It's
he t, whom is intrusted the delicate duty
of selling on the circumstances which surrounded
the crime at the moment OF it's commission,
before they have fallen into the plastic fingers OF
counsel aud to make smooth the first and most
in portant steps Of avengng justice. His incom-
potency may afford TO the actual culprits the time
necessary to effect their escape, and what is quite
as bad, innocent persons may be subjected through
il to all the bitterness ,of lust and cruel suspicion,
perhaps for life. Thus important and delicate are the
duties of those officials who wait in the ante-cham-
Der of Justice. They are charged TO enter the
chamber Of sudden and violent death, and to erect
there their tribunal and Judge the dead aud the
living. So awful an Office as this whose business
it is to decide whether the ghastly death in whose
presence it acts came Of the guilty &C. of the
desd man, or by the crime of some other, and of
whom, ought to be in the hands Of men of an emf
lent natural fitness for it, REINFORCED By peculiar
and especial preparations.
There is this further prerOgatye which the Cor
oncr possesses over the prosecuting officer, aud
81. 4 IL. l. 81
tecbnicsllties of practice which surround the mag
istrates who succeed him in the Investigation of
ofenses. He may examine the parties whom he
suspects Of being the guilty ones, and is restrained
in his examination by none of the strict rules Of
evidence which hedge in those that come after
him. This preliminary inquisitor is invested with
power which Is permitted TO no Judge however
reverend; to no prosecuting attorney, however
learned and experienced. This is done in the ten
derness of the Common Law for life and liberty
that no person shall be detained on suspicion of
crime without rigid yet liberal investigation Of
the circumstances of its commission This hu-
name care of the common sense of our
ancestors, concentrated into that unwritten
system they have bequeathed to us called
the Common Law, has been defeated in but
too many instances, in this country and in En-
gland b. the degradation into which the Office
of Coroner had been per nIted TO fall and the
consequent incapacity of the persons aspiring and
appointed TO it. The man placed in so responsible
position, and invested with such delicat. and
pleuary powers, should be one possessing the skill
and discretion competent to the unrayeHng of the
tangled skein Of circumstances in which almost
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