The Warwickshire Herald. — 1890-10-09 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT ACOCKS  GREEN.  On Tuesday evening the adjourned inquest on the body of Mary Ann Cheese (32), who resided at Weetboorne Lodge, was resumed at the Red Lion Hotel, before the Deputy Coroner for North Worcestershire (Mr. H. H. Hibbert). Dr. Bradford stated that since the inquest, on the previous Friday, he had made a poet mortem examination of the body of the deceased, in the presence of Dre. Drummond and Boetock Hill, and they entirely agreed with the evidence he was going to give. He had asked them to be present, inasmuch as there was some doubt in the case. The examination had revealed that the brain was much congested and the blood vessels dilated, but there were no signs of organic disease. The lungs, liver, kidneys, and spleen were all very much congested. All the tissues of the body were weU nourished, but the heart was covered with fat, and the walls were very thin; in fact, some of them were almost composed entirely of fat. The valves of the heart, however, were quite normal. The stomach and small intestines wereempty, and bore no sign of any irritant or other poison. In his opinion death was caused by suffocation, the result of dilatation of the right side of the heart, brought about by the weakening of the muscular tissue by fatty changes, most likely caused by chronic alcoholism. —The DeputyCoroner: Did you know the deceased at all? Witness: I bad attended her all the tirae she had been living here—nearly fourteen months.—For any specific disease? I had attended her on three separate occasions for alcoholism.—Can you say of your own knowledge whether the husband was kind to his wife ? As far as I have seen, and I will say that he took every means of preventing her getting alcohol by keeping her in the house. On one occasion when he had none in the house, and I said she had had come, he searched her boxes and found three empty bottles—Then you are of opinion that, notwithstanding what she said about committing suicide, she did not? I am confident that her death was natural, as are also Drs. Boetock, Hill and Drummond; and I think that the excitement of returning from a journey caused the dilation of the heart, and, perhaps, the disappointment of her husband not theeturg her added to It—The Deputy Coronersaid that there were other witnesses who might be called if the jury wished. One was a cabman, who would prove that he drove deceased home in a state of intoxication, and the other was hire. Harris, who would tell the jury that deceased made a statement intimating that abe intended to commit 'suicide. That statement was no doubt, the origin of all the reports that bad arisen, and led the husband and the doctor to believe that it was probable that deceased had taken some poison. She had in her possession also a letter, stating that she intended to commit suicide, but she was anticipated in that design by the intervention of the Almighty.—The Foreman of the jury•eakl that before the commencement of the =fry several of his colleague, had intimated desire to have the letter read; but the gr;lner said iCamil of no value as evidence, as it was nited and unsigned. The foreman then commilW with the jury, and mid that they found aAtityicordangswlt the medical esiderme , Death from natural causes." •