ing one. He said it was the habit to
invite to a seat on the bench people of a respectable position in
life--which, of course, a clergyman should be in--and that he asked
Father Bergin to sit beside him in that capacity. But see the dilemma
the Coroner put himself in. According to his own statement he had
previously allowed this reverend gentleman to interfere, and to be
represented by a solicitor because he was incriminated, inculpated, or
accused, and it certainly was not customary to invite any one so
situated to occupy a seat on the bench. He (the Lord Chief Baron) did
not believe that Father Bergin was incriminated in any way, but that was
the Coroner's allegation, and such was his peculiar action thereafter.
The Coroner further stated that no matter whether he read the originals
or the copies of the first day's depositions, it was on the evidence of
September 1st that the jury acted. If that was so he placed himself in a
further dilemma, for there was no evidence before the jury at all on the
second day upon which they could bring a verdict against Ellen Gaffney.
In regard to the recording and announcing of the verdict it appeared
that the jury were 19 in number, and after their deliberations the
foreman declared that 13 were for finding a verdict one way and 6 for
another; that Mr. Whyte dictated the verdict to the Coroner, and the
Coroner asked the 13 men if that was what they agreed to. Mr. Whyte's
statement was that the jury, through the foreman, stated what their
verdict was; that he wrote it down, and that the Coroner asked him for
what he had written, and used it himself. But in addition to that, when
the jury came in the Coroner and Mr. Whyte divided them--placed them
apart while the verdict was being written--and then said to the 13 men,
"Is that what you agree to?" Such apparent misconduct it was hardly
possible to conceive in anybody occupying a judicial position as did the
Coroner, and especially a Coroner who had an inquisition quashed before.
What he had mentioned was sufficient to call forth the emphatic decision
of the court quashing the proceedings, which, however, were also
impeached on the grounds of its insufficiency and irregularity, and of
the character of the finding itself. It was not until the Coroner had
been threatened with the consequences of his contempt that he made a
return to the visit of _certiorari_, and it was then found that out of
ten so-called depositions only one contained any