The Sun. — 1847-05-14 (London, England)

THE.EAST. On Wednesday afternoon an intro st was commenced before Mr. W. Baker, coroner, at the Grave Maurice public house, Whitechapel road, on the body of Agnes Macdonald, the wife of Gilbert Macdonald, a shipjoiner, whose death is alleged to have been caused from the effects of blows and kicks she received from her husband on Saturday evening last. The woman died thirty-six hours after the quarrel with her husband, who has been remanded on a charge of ;viral murder, by Mr. Yardley, t Thames police magistrate. The particulars have been fully detailed. The jury, after being sworn, proceeded to view the body, which presented a most ?rightful appearance. The head was etnered with bruises, and the deceased had evidently been moat severely ill used. The state of the body and the degree of violence used will be best understood by the evidence of the surgeon, who was examined for the first time. •-• Mr. Joseph Nash, the house-surgeon of the London Hospital, stated that the deceased was admitted into the institution on Saturday evening last, at seven o'clock She was brought in by four policemen on a stretcher. He examined her body externally. She had a wound or cut down the nose, dividing the cartilage, two fractured ribs on the left side, and a great many contusions on different parts of her body, the most particular of which were on the abdomen, chest, and head. Her hands, on the wrist and parts:above the knuckles, were also very much bruised, which appeared more to have been incurred by warding off blows than by giving them, the fingers not being much bruised, and the whole of the injuries appeared to have been of r.cent date, within a few hours. She gradually sunk, and died a little after seven o'clock. He had since opened the body, to ascertain more minutely the cause of death. The vessels of the brain on opening the head were found to bo much congested, OW se&by severe blows on the right sideond immediately over the temporal muscle and the forehead. Two of the ribs on tho left side were fractured, and the intestines were ruptured, and there was a great deal of mischief in the chest and abdomen, as if caused by blowi or kicks. The lower part of the body appeared to have been kicked, or the injuries might have been caused by her being trampled upon. He bad no doubt that the rupture of the itatestines was the immediate cause of death. The CORONER said the deceased has received injuries sufficient to kill half-a-dozen persons. The cause of death was clearly described by theiurgeon, and it would now be the duty of the jury to ascertain how and by. na-the injuries were inflicted. Re understood thaidta boy of tender years, the son of the deceased, had been already interrogated by the magistrate, but that he was not qualified to give evidence. The jury said they should like to hear what the boy had to say, without inserting his statement on the minutes of evidence. The CORONER said, in order to make the child's statement admissible, it was necessary it should be taken down in writing. The magistrate had decided that the boy was pot a fit person to be examined as a witness, and had directed that he should be taken to the workhouse and properly instructed, to qualify him to take an oath. After some further discussion, it was agreed that the boy should be called in. He is a simple fellow, about eight years of age, with very little intellect. The jurors then put a great number of questions to the boy, and with very great difficulty extracted from him, in broken sentences, that on Saturday last his father beat his mother and trampled upon her, and that when she was lying on the floor he jumped on her with his feet. His father was tipsy, but his mother was not. He saw him kick his mother as she was leaning against the wall. The jury were nearly an hour extracting these few words from the child. Inspector Bilson, of the K division, said the boy told exactly the same story in the presence of his father, at the station-house. The inquest was then adjourned, after the jury had heard some unimportant evidence.