The St. Helens Examiner, and Prescot Weekly News. — 1905-11-25 (Saint Helens, Merseyside, England)

THE INQUEST. SENSATIONAL ALLEGATIONS BY THE DECEASED MAN'S lOTHER. AN OPEN vERDIcr.  The adjourned inquest on the remains of the child was held by l‘tr. S. Brighonse at the Police Station on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. A. T. liallaway (deputy town clerk) watched the case on behalf of the police, and the Chief Constable was also present.—Nfr. Steel represented the prisoners. Addressing the jury the Coroner said the question they had first to decide was wbether the child had had a life to ttke away. The lam aisamel that every person was horn dead until the contrary was proved and therefore when they waated to charge any person with ' murder or manslaughter they must first he satisfied that. the child had a separate e.isteace apart from the mother.  Dr. Reginald Smith, police surgeon, said tke bones were those of a child of sti licient development that it might have been born alive. He was, however, grate unable to say whether the child hada separate existence or even whether the remains were those of a male or female child.  Mrs. Eliza Drury. wife of John Drury, fish dealer, 69, Laira-street, and mother-in-law of the prisoner, Alicia Drury, said that it was her son upon whom the inquest was held at Sankey in September. About six months lysfore the death of her son. her daughter-inlaw visited her house. In the course of the conversation prisoner said" I have committed murder for them and it is what they will not do for me." .Further questioned witness said prisoner also said" Beatrice has been conGeed. It happened on a Saturday afternoon " and she added thatshe (prison3r) took the child into another room and killed it.  The Coroner : Are those the exact words she made use of ?  Witness : lam not qiiite sure whether she said she strangled it, but she led m 3 to understand she bad killed it. The Coroner said it was not a question of what witness understood but of the exact words used by Alicia. Drury. Did she actually say" I killed it " ? Witness : She did take its life because she said " It did moan."  Further questioned by the Coroner witness could not give the exact words used by her daughter-in-liw, and the Coroner remarked that they could not convict on evidence like that.  Witness admitted that she told the Chief Constable that she had not been the same in mini since her son's suicide. She had brooded over it night and day, had been very depressed, and still was depressed. In reply to Ir. Steel (solicitor for the prisoners)the witness said she knew the child had been buried in the pantry five months before her son committed suicide, but she had not mentioned it to anyone because she thought her son might be imprisoned. When she heard that detectives were about she became afraid. After the prisoner Drury made the staterwity., to her she gave her son a good talking to. The Coroner rem trked that hwrtin life was too precious to be bartered away on such evidence. The jury thee retired, and after an absence of a few minutes, the foreman (Air. E. Pickaeance) said they had come to the uneeimous conclusion that there was not the slightest evidence for them to dee'de whether the chili was born alive or not, and. they returned an open verdict.  The Coronar intimated that he agreed with tha jary's verdict. and wont" hive acted in a, m weer, had the matter been in his own hands.