"Coroner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The coroner tried faithfully to locate the blame. But as Jacobs was unarmed and was shot from the front, and the stranger had only one bullet in his revolver and was shot from behind, and as nobody lost nor gained by not untangling the mystery, the affair after a nine days' complete threshing, ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the Forth, close to the end of the pier. In the Zoological Gardens a specimen of the common seal proved for months a great source of attraction by its mild nature, and its singular form and activity. It soon died, and, had a coroner's jury returned a verdict, it would have been "Death from the hooks swallowed with the fish" daily provided. We have heard seal-fishers describe the great rapidity of the growth of seals in the Arctic seas. They seem in about ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... vaudeville turn and shouted: "Say what you please, I notify the coroner! Hosley killed his wife so that he might marry my daughter; I have had detectives out, so I know and ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Burghley, and the tale has since become so interwoven with classic and legendary fiction, as well as with more authentic history, that the phantom of the murdered Amy Robsart is sure to arise at every mention of the Earl's name. Yet a coroner's inquest—as appears from his own secret correspondence with his relative and agent at Cumnor—was immediately and persistently demanded by Dudley. A jury was impaneled—every man of them a stranger to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... coroner's inquest, and wondering how the judge will sum up. She met my eyes, and I held up my hands. If I hadn't I ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... ready for that question. Ever since finding the body, I had been wondering what I should say when authority, either in the shape of a coroner or a policeman, asked me about my own adventures that night. To be sure, I had seen a stranger, and I had observed that he had lost a couple of fingers, the first and second, of his right hand; and it was certainly a queer thing that he should be in that immediate neighbourhood about ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... a gunshot wound received by accident," the coroner came and found. John March and the minister had gone into March's office, but Captain Champion's word was quite enough. It was nearly tea-time when John and the Parson came out again. The sidewalk was empty. As John locked the door he felt a nail under his boot, picked ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... him and do not know it. We'll get to him the second he makes a mistake of any kind. Maybe he'll make his first one when he tries to get Saret Balisle—Good Lord, I forgot something. Tyler, phone again and ask Headquarters if the coroner found anything strange about the head of the men I chased ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... of the stairs, and his neck broken. It is said by some a trap was laid for him on the staircase. And if it was,' the man continued, after a pause, his true feeling finding sudden vent, 'it is a black shame that the law does not punish it! But the coroner brought it ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... the door the Doctor, the Police Inspector of the district, and the examining Magistrate or Coroner. All three came in turn, looked at the dead teacher, and then went out, throwing suspicious glances at Kuvalda. He sat there, without taking any notice of them, until the Police Inspector ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... and draw for which one of the mess should have it all—with the condition, that the winner should make a pot of coffee, and drink it, and let the rest of us see him do it. This was done. Ben Lambert won—made the pot of coffee—sat on the ground, with us twelve, like a coroner's jury, sitting around watching him, and drank every drop. How he could do it, under the gaze of twelve hungry men, who had no coffee, it is hard to see, but Ben was capable of very difficult feats. He drank that pot ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... said, "I daresay you know me by sight, Mr. Sabre. I've seen you about the town. I'm the coroner's officer at Tidborough. You're rather wanted down there. I've been to Brighton after you and followed here and just took a lucky chance on finding you about this part. You're rather wanted down there. The fact is that young woman that's been living ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... in the dark by three unknown men and that he defended himself vigorously; he can fail to identify the Greeks, and the Greeks cannot do less than fail to identify Dirty Dan, who can plead self-defense if the coroner's jury delves too deeply into the mulatto's death. I imagine they will not. At any rate, it's up to Dan whether Donald figures in the case or not, and Dan will die before ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... I know. You forget that I am a lawyer as well as a doctor. But this is not altogether for the law. You knew that, when you avoided the coroner. I have more than him to avoid. There may be papers ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... the presence of the coroner and Surgeon McBride. Here is the report of the result." He searched among his papers, and handed one of the sheets to the judge advocate, who, before inserting it in his ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... an inquest—an investigation—the usual thing. I have been in communication with the coroner's office by telephone, and I have promised to drive down to Homebury St. Mary myself this afternoon. He was away on another case, and will not reach there himself until six. Meantime we must do what we can. They will necessarily make an ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... apprehended, endeavouring to make his escape, and committed to the county prison. From thence he was conveyed to London by the gaoler of Leicester, and conducted by the usher of the black rod and his deputy into the house of lords, where the coroner's inquest, and the affidavits touching the murder, being read, the gaoler delivered up his prisoner to the care of the black rod, and he was immediately committed to the Tower. He appeared very calm, composed, and unconcerned, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... bailiff, tipstaff, bum-bailiff, catchpoll, beadle; policeman, cop [Coll.], police constable, police sergeant; sbirro^, alguazil^, gendarme, kavass^, lictor^, mace bearer, huissier [Fr.], bedel^; tithingman^. press gang; exciseman^, gauger, gager^, customhouse officer, douanier [Fr.]. coroner, edile^, aedile^, portreeve^, paritor^; posse comitatus [Lat.]. bureau, cutcherry^, department, secretariat. [extension of jurisdiction] long arm of the law, extradition. V. judge, sit in judgment; extradite. Adj. executive, administrative, municipal; inquisitorial, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... The coroner's verdict, however, declared that the Osborns had been murdered, and Colley was tried at Hertford Assizes, before Sir William Lee, and having been found guilty of murder, was sent back to the scene of the crime under a large escort of one hundred and eight ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... cautiously] Pray don't. I'm ever so careless in handling firearms. Sure to be a fatal accident, with a reprimand from the coroner's jury for my negligence. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... quite prepared to take the responsibility," replied the mandarin, "and I have already ordered the Coroner to open the coffin and to make a careful examination of ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... magistrate are so numerous and so varied that one man could not possibly cope with them all. At the same time he is fully responsible. In addition to presiding over a court of first instance for all criminal trials in his district, he has to act as coroner (without a jury) at all inquests, collect and remit the land-tax, register all conveyances of land and house-property, act as preliminary examiner of candidates for literary degrees, and perform a host of miscellaneous ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... Capital fellows were the young Phillipses: Nature's gentlemen; unsophisticated, hearty Welshmen; lads from sixteen to twenty. Down they used to come, in a most dangerous little craft of their own, which went by the name of the "Coroner's Inquest," to smoke cigars, (against which the Captain had published an interdict at home,) and question us about Oxford larks, and tell us in return stories of wild-fowl shooting, otter hunting, and salmon fishing, in all which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... have to be very careful for a long time. It was likely to prove a long case. But Ketley had severed the jugular at one swift, keen stroke, and had died almost instantly. Of course there was an inquest, and the coroner asked many questions regarding the habits of the deceased. Mrs. Ketley was one of the witnesses called, and she deposed that he had lost a great deal of money lately in betting, and that he went to the "King's Head" for the ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... once in Little Rock under the administration of Mayer Kemer. We had Nigger coroner, Chief of Police, Police Judge, Policemen. Ike Gillam's father was coroner. Sam Garrett was Chief of Police; Judge M. W. Gibbs was Police Judge. He was also a receiver of public lands. So was J. E. Bush, who founded the Mosaics [HW: (Modern Mosaic Templars of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... enjoyed. The Church is the same Church, we are told, before and after the change; if anything, it was Protestant before the Reformation, and Catholic after. It is, of course, the same Church. A man may be described as the same man before and after death, and the business of a coroner's jury is to establish the identity; but it does not ignore the vital difference. Even Saul and Paul were the same man. And the identity of the Church before and after the legislation of Henry VIII. covers a considerable ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... remained a mystery, despite all the police could do. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of "Murder by some person or persons unknown"—which, indeed, was all that could be expected of them; for they had no more before them than the bare fact that the body, disguised in the ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... incorporated City, is governed by a Mayor, Recorder, six Aldermen, with an equal number of Assistants, under the style of "The Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of St. John." The other officers are a Sheriff and Coroner (who likewise act for the County of St. John) a Common Clerk, a Chamberlain, a High Constable, six inferior ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... and ten pigs, is in receipt of eleven shillings a week, three pints of skim milk a day, and a cottage that has been condemned by the sanitary inspector and described as having no bedroom windows. We are not surprised to learn that the coroner, before taking the verdict, asked the house surgeon, who gave evidence, whether he could say that death 'was accelerated by anything.' Our wonder is that the reply was in the negative. The cottage is in the possession of the farmer ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... library and went to a private telephone that connected the garage to the house. He ordered the chauffeur to have a fast runabout ready for instant call. Then, at the other telephone, he notified the coroner's office of ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... the coroner of Leeds, and assented to as probable by the surgeon, that there were, as near as could be calculated, about three hundred children put to death yearly in Leeds alone that were not registered by the law. In other words, three hundred infants were murdered to avoid the ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... point he had mentioned to Caldew at his chambers after reading the copy of the coroner's depositions which Merrington had lent him. While perusing them he had been struck by a curious fact. The medical evidence stated that the cause of death was a small punctured wound not larger than a threepenny piece, but added the information that ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... house was silent, and they could do nothing but await the coroner's inquest, a subdued, large, low voice spread into the air of the room from behind the heavy walls at ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... the grand jury of the county was based on the election of knights in the hundred courts; and the keeping of pleas of the crown was taken from the sheriff and given to a newly-elected officer, the coroner. In these elections were found at a later time precedents for parliamentary representation; in Hubert's mind they were doubtless intended to do little more than reconcile the people to the crushing taxation. His work poured a million into the treasury, and enabled Richard during ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... pounds have been offered for a sucking-pig. Figsby must come in, notwithstanding two cart-loads of the temperance voters are now riding up to the poll, most of them being too drunk to walk. Three duels have been this morning reported. Results not known. The coroner has been holding inquests in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... of the coroner's jury, and they could scarcely have declared anything else—there was not a tittle of evidence implicating another as the perpetrator of the deed. The deceased was found lying in his studio at the foot ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... hot breath warping the panels and cracking the glass and making old timber sweat that had forgotten it was ever alive with sap. Run for your life! leap! or you will be a cinder in five minutes, that nothing but a coroner would take for the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... as one of the citizens remarked, "Whatever the judge said, went." It should be remembered that this was in '84, but had a similar trouble occurred five years earlier, it is likely that Judge Colt would have figured in the preliminaries, and the coroner might have been called on to impanel a jury. But the rudiments of civilization were sweeping westward, and Ogalalla was nerved to the importance of the occasion; for that very afternoon a hearing was to be given for the possession of two herds ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... reports about That the coroner never guest. So he decreed that she should lie Where four roads meet in infamy, With a ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... was summoned, and after a brief consultation, the coroner brought in the following verdict: "Suicide occasioned by the dread of slavery, to which the deceased ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Mabot to stay with him and, jumping on my horse, rode to Crittenden, where I obtained a coroner and a jury that would sit on the Chinaman's death. The next morning the jury found that he had been killed by some person or persons unknown, and let it ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... suspected that the young architect had killed himself. Garry was known to have suffered from insomnia, and was supposed to have taken an overdose of chloral. The doctor so decided, and the doctor's word was law in such MATTERS, and so there was no coroner's inquest. Then again, it was also known that he was doing a prosperous business with several buildings still in course of construction, and that his wife's ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... this murderous nature went unvisited, and if no inquiry was made respecting its circumstances? The forms of justice were observed; the handmaid was present, but the sacred mistress was far away. A coroner's inquest was called; for the laws decreed that no such injuries should take place without having an inquiry instituted. Eleven inquisitions were held, eleven inquiries were made, eleven verdicts were returned. For murder? Manslaughter? Misconduct? No; but that "they died ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... for the establishment of a public hospital, a jail and a deadhouse (the latter seems a strange want, at least an urgent one). The present jail is too small, and coroner's inquests have to be held in the open air in front of the jail; the jury stand around the corpse, some leaning against it, spread on some boards, and the coroner sits on the top of an empty barrel ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... sleep nine hours on end," says Dr. WESTCOTT, the coroner, "should not have babies, and, if they do, they should be put in cradles." The only difficulty is that at present there is no cradle on the market large ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... my solicitor forbade him to vindicate my innocence by taking any technical legal objections to the action of the magistrate or of the coroner. I insisted on my witnesses being summoned to the lawyer's office, and allowed to state, in their own way, what they could truly declare on my behalf; and I left my defense to be founded upon the materials thus obtained. In the meanwhile ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... alii balivi nostri, teneant placita coronae nostrae." (No sheriff, constable, coroner, or other our bailiffs, shall hold pleas of our crown.) John's Charter, ch. ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... taking the precaution to lock them up together to prevent kidnapping. One day, while at his dinner, he crowded a large, hard-boiled potato down his neck, and it conducted him into eternity. His clay was taken to the Coroner's, and the great world went on, marrying and giving in marriage, lying, cheating, and praying, as if he ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... her surmise that her suspense would be short. The interview between herself and the husband of her dead friend was one she was not likely to forget. Then the coroner, himself a physician, sent for her and she found him waiting at his desk. All the former friendliness was gone from his eyes when he swung in his office chair ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... seek the coroner, and let him sit o' my coz; for he's in the third degree of drink; he's drowned: go, look ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the practice is entirely un-American; that in America bodies usually are impressed with the solemnity of the occasion and the general propriety of the thing, and lie quiet until the arrival of the coroner, but that the coroners are disputing so much in regard to their jurisdiction, and so many delays occur in issuing burial permits, that, altogether, they are making the process so tedious and disagreeable that nowadays in America hardly anybody cares to die. You tell them this ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... next morning, the ground-floor of the big house was again invaded by a heterogeneous collection of people drawn thither by the coroner's inquest into the death of Simon Varr. Some were there as witnesses or because they had a personal interest in the proceedings, some because they were part of the legal machinery, and many because they were driven by morbid curiosity. The Coroner, ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... hatpin in court. It projected two inches from the hat and was about twelve inches in length. Dr. Howie Smith said that septic inflammation was set up as a result of the wound, and travelling to the brain caused meningitis. The coroner said that not many cases came before coroners in which death was directly traceable to the hatpin but there must be a very large number of cases in which the hatpin caused injury, in some cases loss of sight. It was no uncommon sight ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... that this means the same as 'What is just now occupying my attention is the comparative disadvantages of continuing to live or putting an end to myself.' And for practical purposes—the purpose, for example, of a coroner—it does. But as the second version altogether misrepresents the speaker at that moment of his existence, while the first does represent him, how can they for any but a practical or logical purpose be said to have the same sense? Hamlet was ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... child drowned herself in the river Avon, where, haveing layn twenty-four houres, she was taken up and brought into the church at Sutton Benger, and layd upon the board, where the coroner did his office. Mris. Joane Sumner hath often assured me that the sayd wench did sweat a cold sweat when she lay dead; and that she severall times did wipe off the sweat from her body, and it would quickly returne ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... my head out. At last an old gentleman, who was having his dinner there, said he couldn't bear whiskers served up as a vegetable with his beef. Then they knew they'd got near my face, so they sent away the Coroner and pulled me out, and when I got home my coat-tail pockets were full of old ham-bones. The boy did that—young varmint! I'll ham-bone him when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... Mr. Doll; "I shall leave the child here, and you can do as you like with it. It ain't mine, at all events. I say it lay in your parish; and if you don't look after it you may be the worse of it. The coroner's sure to try to earn ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... After the coroner's inquest, Mendoza gave ten thousand pounds to each of the bargeman's ten children, and it was thus his first acquaintance was formed ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the reports of the Coroner's investigation of the Twenty-third street murder, it was mentioned that "Several ladies and some young children ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... hours—turn him out of court—subpoena a posse—subpoena me." I then left the court-room. The attorney in the case accompanied me, and we were followed by the deputy sheriff. After going a few steps we met the coroner, to whom the deputy sheriff transferred me; and the coroner accompanied me to my office, and after remaining there a few moments left me to myself. On the way an incident occurred, which probably inflamed Judge Turner against me more than anything ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... nothing. Burke himself would not have been able to dispose of her; but dying as she did, her ashes were the source of wealth. The bed, with her remains lying in the centre, even the curtains of the bed, were all brought on shore, and locked up in an outhouse. The coroner came down in a post-chaise and four, charged to the country; the jury was empanelled, my evidence was taken, surgeons and apothecaries attended from far and near to give their opinions, and after much examination, much arguing, and much disagreement, the verdict was brought in ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... one was more conscientious in the discharge of his duties to the church and the pastor. It never seemed to disturb him that the portion of the community which was opposed to the "machine" that elected everything from the village coroner to the representative, regarded him as the most debauched and unscrupulous politician in that part of the State. He simply accepted this as one of his crosses, bore it bravely, and went on perfecting his remarkably perfect methods for excluding all voters who did not vote for his candidate. ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... House of Commons. Some kind of a riot arose, a proclamation was made in the terms of the Riot-Act, and the soldiers firing by order of Justice Gillam, killed five or six on the spot. The justice and one of the soldiers were on the coroner's inquest brought in guilty of wilful murder, and two other soldiers of aiding and abetting therein. With great difficulty the prisoners were saved from the rage of the populace. They were all acquitted however. At Gillam's trial the judge ruled in his favour, so that ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... to know was to examine the bottle, and Glenarvan set to work without further delay, so carefully and minutely, that he might have been taken for a coroner making an inquest. ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... name of Father Bartolo, was to have been here in his capuchin dress, with a beard and bare feet; but I presume he could not get permission from his Superior. That is Mr. Huff, the political economist, talking with Mr. Macduff, the Member for Glenlivat. That is the coroner for Middlesex conversing with the great surgeon Sir Cutler Sharp, and that pretty laughing girl talking with them is no other than the celebrated Miss Pinnnifer, whose novel of Ralph the Resurrectionist created such a sensation after it was ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... company assembled in the castle court, waiting for the coroner from Portsmouth, though the sentry on guard would allow no one to go down, in spite of some, even ladies, I am ashamed to say, who offered him bribes for the permission. Everything, I heard, had been replaced as we found ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The Coroner then asked why the glass with what remained of the contents had not been put in evidence, but was informed that the glass ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... inquest was held on the body of a deceased convict; all the chief authorities were called to this special inquest, and three prisoner-nurses were also examined, and the result appeared in the newspapers, to the great astonishment of the prisoners. It was reported that the coroner had held an inquest on the body of a deceased convict, and found that the deceased had received excellent diet and medical treatment. He further expressed his surprise to find the prisoners received such luxuries in prison as fish, fowl, and jellies, in addition to wines, &c! If they had not mentioned ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... on, the gentlefolk who were talking the matter over in the centre of the yard had dispatched a message for the coroner all the way ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... prescription, and the first charter from Matilda, confirmed by successive later sovereigns, merely grants exemption from certain tolls and the enjoyment of undisturbed peace. Edward III. added a clause conferring on the town the liberties of Marlborough, and Richard II. instituted a coroner. A gild merchant was granted by Edward I., Edward II. and Edward III., and in 1614 was divided into the three companies of drapers, mercers and leathersellers. The present governing charters were issued by James I. and Charles I., the latter being little more than a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... coroner answered. "The gun was fired at a distance, probably, of ten or fifteen feet—perhaps closer, but I don't think so," he amended meticulously. "As for the path of the bullet, I have fixed it, judging ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... coroner," he explained, "and it will be unpleasant. Your cab is still at the door, I think? May I have ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... own affairs. If it were not for that, I can tell you, I wouldn't go along these cliffs at night for any pay the king would give me; for I know that before a week would be out my body would be found some morning down there on the rocks, and the coroner's jury would bring in a verdict of tumbled over by accident, although there wouldn't be a man of them ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... to the coroner about the witnesses to the death of Bill's man, and the newly arrived young engineers heard him say: "Sam Brewster was the other one who ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... particular war. For the Christians there was no mercy. In cases where the evidence as to their being killed by ill treatment was so unequivocal that the verdict would certainly have been one of wilful murder had the prejudice of the coroner's jury been on the other side, their tormentors were gratuitously declared to be blameless. There was only one virtue, pugnacity: only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of war; but the Government had not the courage to legislate accordingly; and its law ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... more trouble to get access to the king in his palace than she would have had to get into the poorhouse in my day and country. In fact, he was glad to see her, glad to hear her tale; with that adventure of hers to offer, she was as welcome as a corpse is to a coroner. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... coroner's inquest, held the next day, one of the servants testified that three days before, while the old man and Brooks were at the store and while the ladies were out, a man with black whiskers, and who ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... days as an inn kept by one of his descendants, Israel Atherton, for many years. Benjamin Atherton was a man of excellent education. He filled the offices of clerk of the peace and registrar of the old county of Sunbury when it formed part of Nova Scotia; a little later he was a coroner. The old prayer book from which he used to read prayers on Sunday for the benefit of his assembled neighbors in the absence of a clergyman, is still in existence. Benjamin Atherton died June 28th, 1816, and his ashes rest beside those of his wife in the little burial ground in Lower Prince William, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... though very well in its way, did not relieve me from my embarrassing predicament. Something must be done, and that very speedily. I was rapidly wilting under the chilling influence of the water. Ten minutes more would render me a fit subject for a coroner's inquest. I saw but one alternative: to work my course a few hundred yards up the shore, and then creep out the best way I could, and run for my life till I found some friendly nook among the rocks in which I could conceal myself till ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... s'pose. Awful interesting. Lot o' dead men laying around in the mud. 'Bout as interesting, I should say, as a spell o' setting on a Coroner's jury. The things you find interesting would bore anybody ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Hennage, while a man of firmness and resource, was not brutal. He contrived, however, to avoid identification of the body by keeping Dan Pennycook from attending the coroner's inquest, for he was a good gambler and never wasted ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... reality. Toxicology was the branch of science to which Mr. Arcubus had for some time past been devoting his mind. For fourteen hours a day he worked assiduously in the laboratory of an eminent analytical chemist, whose practice in connection with the coroner was of a flourishing and increasing kind, owing to the growing taste for suicide, and the preference given to poisons over any other means for accomplishing that irrevocable wrong. In this chamber of horrors,—a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... how good and bad are mingled in human institutions. In countries which were thinly inhabited, this custom prevented private attempts against the lives of individuals, and formed a kind of coroner's inquest upon the body which had recently expired, and burning the straw upon which the sick man lay became a simple preservative against infection. At night the dead body is waked, that is to say, ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... Coroner took the body away, And the watches were sold that Saturday. The Auctioneer said one could seldom buy Such watches, and the prices ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... holding on to these purchases for the last three weeks, I don't wonder he has taken gas!" And then, as a crowd had gathered, and were gazing at the ghastly staring face of Frye, made ten times more hideous in death than in life, he added, "In the name of the law I must close the door and notify a coroner." ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... it, as it was supposed to be some row in the gambling rooms below. The watchman had ordered the crowd out of the room, and sent the messenger for Houston, and also a telegram to Silver City for the coroner, who was expected on the ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... understand; but let's keep still. Some day when he gets so drunk he'll kill one of the grand jury, maybe the rest of them and the coroner can indict him ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... rented that house of my uncle. She was a woman of superior education and strong mind, and was the only person I could ever induce to remain in the house. Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and the coroner's inquest, which gave it a notoriety in the neighbourhood, I have so despaired of finding any person to take charge of the house, much more a tenant, that I would willingly let it rent-free for a year to any one who would pay its rates ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... as it is possible for an ex-coroner or sheriff to be appointed to a secretaryship of a foreign legation—a man who does not speak the language and whose wife understands better how to cope with croup and measles than with wives of foreign diplomats ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... in a little while he got into politics in Little Rock. Yes, lady. If you would look over the old records you would see where he was made the keeper of the jail. I don't know how many times he was elected to city council. He was the only colored coroner Pulaski county ever had. He was in the legislature, too. I used to dress up and go out to hear him make speeches. Wait a minute and I will get my scrap book and show you all the things I cut from the papers printed about him ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... the sheriff, or constable, or coroner,—who is it that make these investigations? He's coming, at any rate, whoever he is, with a mob at his heels. Who did you send ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the murdered man which the Assistant Commissioner attended produced nothing in the shape of evidence and the coroner's verdict of "murder against some person or persons unknown" was ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... a less fortunate outcome. A year or two afterward came news of a terrible affair in the university town. A student was lying dead at the coroner's rooms, and on inquiry it was found that his death was the result of a carousal in which my friend F—— was a leading spirit. Eight men were concerned, of whom four were expelled—F—— being ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... conclude this chapter. The accompanying figure represents the costume of the Irish peasant about the fifteenth century. The dress was found on the body of a male skeleton, in the year 1824, which was preserved so perfectly, that a coroner was called to hold an inquest on it. The remains were taken from a bog in the parish of Killery, co. Sligo. The cloak was composed of soft brown cloth; the coat of the same material, but of finer texture. The buttons are ingeniously ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... come with us," said one of the strangers, addressing the tailor. He was justice and coroner of ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... evade anything, Harry. We 've got to face the music. Will you go with me to notify the coroner—or would ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... White Horse, Minnesota, has wrote to Willum Jennings Bryan declarin' that if he (Plog) iver went to th' Ph'lippeens, which he wud've done but f'r th' way th' oats was sproutin' in th' stack, an' had been hit with a bullet he'd ixpict th' Coroner to hold Bryan to th' gran' jury. This was followed be th' publication iv a letther fr'm Oscar L. Swub iv East Persepalis, Ohio, declarin' that his sister heerd a cousin iv th' man that wash'd buggies in a livery stable in Canton say Mack's hired man tol' him Mack'd be hanged ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... for my personal safety, at any rate—but a sensation of sickening horror went through me as I looked into his tired face and understood that at last he had fallen into the cesspool which had tormented him since early years. The words of the coroner came back into my ears: "He is a madman of uncanny intelligence," and I knew that he knew I recognized him for ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... The Coroner arrived—the inquest was held; and a 'verdict rendered in accordance with the facts.' The body was taken to the 'Dead House;' and as no friend or relative appeared to claim it, it was the next day conveyed to Potter's Field, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... connected with, that lies in the angle of Park Lane and Piccadilly. Persons of exaggerated sense of locality or mature hereditary experience can make short cuts through this district, but the wayfarer (broadly speaking) had better not try, lest he be found dead in a mews by the Coroner, and made the subject of a verdict according to the evidence. Sally knew all about it of old, and went as straight through the fog as the ground-plan of the streets permitted to the house where her mother and a nurse were doing what might ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... "Thursday last the coroner's inquest sat on the body of the person killed in Salisbury Court, who were for bringing in their verdict, wilful murder against Mr. Read, the man of the mug-house; but some of the jury stick out, and will ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the inquest," explained the constable. "The coroner's sick abed, and he said you bein' the nearest jestice of the peace you ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... not a very favourable one. The practice had declined considerably. People had no doubt accustomed themselves to his eccentricities, and these had ceased to impress them. Again, there had been one or two coroner's inquests, which had spread the impression that he had been rash in the use of powerful drugs. If the coroner could have seen the hundreds of cures which Cullingworth had effected by that same rashness ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... have done with Mr. Dimambro. Now I come to myself. I shall have to go into details about myself which I should not give if it were not for these exceptional circumstances. Mr. Davidge, I am sure, will understand me. Well, about myself—you will all remember that at both the coroner's inquest and at the proceedings before the magistrate at which Barthorpe Herapath was present and I—for reasons well known!—was not, there was mention made of a letter which I had written to Jacob Herapath and was subsequently found in Barthorpe's possession, on his arrest. That letter ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... Maloney, till the coroner arrives. He'll be here any minute, and he'll give the order for the undertaker. You can call up headquarters so the newspaper boys ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... do. Now, I'm going to turn that letter over to you. Instead of me being the one to tell you about it, you are going to be allowed to tell me about it. See? That's what you are here for now,—to show me this letter with all its harrowing details. Later on, when the coroner comes over from Boggs City, you can deliver ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... words, he was summoned, and obliged to sit, as juryman at an inquest on the body of a little child alleged to have been murdered by its mother; of which the result was, that, by his persevering exertion, seconded by the humane help of the coroner, Mr. Wakley, the verdict of himself and his fellow-jurymen charged her only with concealment of the birth. "The poor desolate creature dropped upon her knees before us with protestations that we were right (protestations among ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... difference—he was, you see, a heavy man—some fourteen or fifteen stone, I should think. Oh, instantaneous death, without a doubt! Well, well, these constables must see to the removal of the body, and we must let my friend the coroner know—he will hold the inquest tomorrow, no doubt. Quite a mere formality, my dear sir!—the whole thing is as plain as a pikestaff. It will be a relief to know that the mystery ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... passion new born in his heart. For the maggot in his brain had eaten out a rotten place wherein was the memory of many women's yieldings, of many women's tears. One side of his brain worked with rare cunning. He wound the evidence against the men in the mine, taken at the coroner's hearing, through the labyrinth of the law, and snared them tightly in it. That part of his brain clicked with automatic precision. But sitting beside him was the ape, grinning, leering, ready to ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... 5th of March, 1814, by warrant from Henry Blackstone, (Coroner Blackstone was a son of the celebrated English Jurist, Sir Wm Blackstone), Coroner for the District of Quebec, for the wilful murder of Marie Anne Dussault, of the Parish of Les Ecuriels, on the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... group of mountaineers who loitered in the open space beneath the loft, and traverse the scant distance down the bridle-path to gaze at the spot where the stranger's body had lain, whence it had been conveyed to the nearest shelter at hand, the old barn, where the coroner's jury were even now engaged in their deliberations. Sometimes, another, versed in all the current rumors, would follow to point out to the new-comer the details, show how the rain had washed the blood away, ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... of the doctor's letter need not be quoted as it deals only with certain very improbable explanations of the origin of this figure of light, the details of the removal of Holly's body, and of how he managed to satisfy the coroner that no inquest ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... of Dublin Hospital the Deputy Coroner (in the absence of Mr. Leverett) held an inquest on the body of Mrs. Emily Sinico, aged forty-three years, who was killed at Sydney Parade Station yesterday evening. The evidence showed that the deceased lady, ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... newspapers, you continually meet with a paragraph like this:—"A body of a white man, or of a negro, was found floating near such and such a wharf, on Saturday last, with evident marks of violence upon it, etcetera. etcetera, and the coroner's inquest is returned either found drowned, or violence by person or persons unknown." Now, let Mr Carey take a list from the coroner's books of the number of bodies found in this manner at New York, and the ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... In each county a Sheriff and Coroner shall be elected by the qualified voters thereof, as is prescribed for members of the General Assembly, and shall hold their offices for two years. In each township there shall be a Constable elected in like manner by the voters thereof, who shall bold his office for two years. ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... Coroner and the jury repairing in a body to 11 Glover Street to view the house and the bedroom of the deceased. And the evening posters announced, "The ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... of the road—a strict judicial inquiry takes place upon the scene of the accident, by a high official of the State, advised by experts, not as in this country, by some drunken country loafer or ward heeler, who, all ignorant of the law, has been "elected" county coroner, and one who is more anxious to procure free passes on the road than he is concerned for the victim murdered by the neglect or parsimony of ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... or (that less known but more powerful section) the lower upper class. Men like this all over the country are really saying whatever comes into their heads in their capacities of justice of the peace, candidate for Parliament, Colonel of the Yeomanry, old family doctor, Poor Law guardian, coroner, or above all, arbiter in trade disputes. He suffers, in the literal sense, from softening of the brain; he has softened it by always taking the view of everything most comfortable for his country, his class, and his private personality. He is a deadly public danger. ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... away from this rural pandemonium with disgust; but what will he say to the records of wretchedness and crime that fill up nearly the remainder of the folio. A Coroner's Inquest upon a fellow creature who "died from neglect, and want of common food to support life"—and another upon a poor girl, whose young and tender wits being "turned to folly,"—died by a draught of laudanum—are still more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... goodish practical understanding to miss, to fail in seeing, an object lying right before the eyes; and that is more wonderful in cases where the object is not one of multitude, but exists almost in a state of insulation. At the coroner's inquest on a young woman who died from tight-lacing, acting, it was said, in combination with a very full meal of animal food, to throw the heart out of position, Mr. Wakely pronounced English or British ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... people I have read of in the late storm, buried under the ruins of your own edifice, but whether you were stifled or crushed, killed by a rafter or a brick, nobody can tell. You have died a death so ignoble that it has no name, and the Coroner's verdict is "Found Dead." ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... said a policeman, "there was a hinquest on a babby, which was the female prisoner's babby and what had died. Then it come out afore Mr. Coroner, my lord, and he ordered the woman into custody, and then the man ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... boy crazy?" asked Sawyer. "Hurry, White, and notify the Coroner, for I don't intend to allow Terence Maguire to lie in this rotten ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... has been done, or is doing. The coroner has been summoned; the inspector has been sent for; a telegram has been dispatched to Scotland Yard in London for an experienced detective. Rest easy, Lady Vincent. Here, Mistress Gorilla! Attend your lady ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... day, not because the reporting of an important bill back by a committee was a thing to be excited about, if the bill were going to take the ordinary course afterward; it would be like getting excited over the empaneling of a coroner's jury in a murder case, instead of saving up one's emotions for the grander occasion of the hanging of the accused, two years later, after all the tedious forms of law had ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... afterward. In the thick of her terrible desolation, she stood beside her husband's grave, in Bridlington Priory Church yard, and she said to a hundred people there: 'Here lies my husband, foully murdered. The coroner's jury have brought their verdict against Robin Lyth the smuggler. Robin Lyth is as innocent as I am. I know who did it, and time will show. My curse is upon him; and my eyes are on him now.' Then she fell down in a fit, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... investigation of a coroner apparently is not required. The experimenter himself was the physician to the hospital. He tells us of course that Mary's death was due to an extension of the disease, for the relief of which she had been led to the "Good Samaritan Hospital." Of the ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... our room is full of holes where locks have been wrenched off in order to let the coroner in. Last night I could imagine that I was in the act of meeting, personally, the famous people who have tried to sleep here and who moaned through the night and who died while ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... late Dr. Birt Davies, was appointed May 15, 1839, and he held the office till July, 1875, when Mr. Henry Hawkes was chosen as his successor, only one member of the Town Council voting against him. The preent coroner has introduced several improvements on the old system, especially in the matters of holding inquests at public-houses, and the summoning of jurors. Formerly the latter were chosen from the residents nearest ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... they reached the Delavan House. Now just that same thing happens whenever you pretend, either from pride or from shyness, that you know the thing you do not know. If you go on in that way you will be starved before long, and the coroner's jury will bring in a verdict, "Served you right." I could have brayed a girl, whom I will call Jane Smith, last night at Mrs. Pollexfen's party, only I remembered, "Though thou bray a fool in a mortar, his foolishness ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... can't get a shirt-button sewn on for want of the Parisian accent? I said "button, button, button," plain enough, I'm sure; and a button's a button all the world over. If it had not been for that excellent Susan, the English chambermaid, I should have perished in this place, of what the coroner's inquests call "want of the necessaries of life." All depends, as every one knows, on a man's shirt-button: if that goes wrong, everything goes, and one's attire is a wreck. But I suppose after to-day my wife will see to that,—though she is a Montmorenci. Constance ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the incidents of our narrative, suspended for some time by the illness of the coroner, when Mr. Travers, himself a magistrate, came to the head inn of the county town in which he always put up, and where he held his office. He had for several days previously gone over the greater portion of ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... got to be movin' along. I'm on the coroner's jury too, and we're goin' up to Matt's right away to view the remains. The verdict will probable be: 'Come to his death on account of Moll Hawk's self-defense,' or somethin' like that. 'Never put off till to-morrow ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... to conceal it as long as they can even from their own husbands, in anticipation of a severe scolding as soon as the misdemeanour is discovered. Also the baby is kept out of sight, except on the day of signing the birth-formula, until it can walk and talk. Should the child unhappily die, a coroner's inquest is inevitable, but in order to avoid disgracing a family which may have been hitherto respected, it is almost invariably found that the child was over seventy-five years old, and died from the decay ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... come from the coroner's inquest, had to be one of the witnesses. I am afraid it will go hard ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... letter—with the envelope unfastened—on the floor of the bedchamber, and had fortunately secured it before the landlady and the servant had ventured back to the room. The doctor, returning a few minutes afterwards, had warned the two women that a coroner's inquest would be held in the house, and had vainly cautioned them to be careful of what they said or did in the interval. Not only the subject of the death, but a discovery which had followed, revealing the name of the ill-fated ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... the letter ran, "I hope you will forgive the dreadful act I am about to commit, and forget me as quickly as possible. I am not insane, though at the inquest the coroner will probably return a verdict of 'Suicide during temporary insanity.' But my life for years past has been one continuous lie, and from the first I have deceived you most shamefully. I asked you to become ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... speculations which have been busy respecting the whereabouts of a certain gentleman of large property and ancient lineage, who, some time since, mysteriously disappeared, and will, no doubt, throw this county into a state of very unusual excitement. We can state, upon authority, that the coroner will hold his inquest on the body, to-morrow at twelve o'clock, in the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... into my study." Then he turned to us. "My mother's lawyer," he explained. And in a lower voice: "He is also Coroner—you understand. Perhaps you would like to ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie |
