CORONER'S INQUEST.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1181, 11 October 1882, Page 2

CORONER'S INQUEST.

An inquest was held yesterday, at the* Court Hous", yesterday, on the body of an infant named Joseph Frederick Potter, aged eight weeks, who died suddenly on Monday morning, under the circumstances detailed in the subjoined evidence; : —

Dr. Collins said that lie had made a post inortiM" examination of deceased ; there were no marks of violence ; the skin was for the most part dark ; the viscera were in a healthy condition, but the right side of the heart was full of black lluid blood, as also the large vessels on the right sido ; the left lung, although healthy, had collapsed ; the right lung was in a natural state ; stiffness following death had set in quickly ; those are the natural evidences of death from smothering, and he had no doubt death in this case was thereby occasioned ; he did not think the child had been over-laid, for there would in that case have been signs of weight on it; in so young a child smothering would readily be caused ; the hands of the child were clenched, which is another symptom of smothering.

Joseph Potter, father of deceased, said the child appeared to be in perfect health till the morning of its death. When he got up his wife took the child up and pried out " Oh my baby," and on looking at it it appeared to be dead. He went away for the doctor at once; the baby was in bod with them, inside next the wall ; the child when picked up was lying on its left

side with its mouth on the sheet ; when the doctor arrived the child was dead. • /--V. \ Elizabeth Potter of the previous witness, and mother of : the deceased, gave similar evidence ; she' had nursed, the baby about twenty minutes i before; eKe took* him tip, sfuj durihg:that time; had turned away from him.} deceased was only partly on his face, and his mouth half downjojj the sheet j .he was dead she thought "when she took him up;, she had gone^tp' sleep with him on her arm, but when she woke she found sh ? had turned away from him. This was all the evidence. The jury found a verdict of accidental death through suffocation.