xlvi REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED TO VI.
Remedial Measures.
Inspection of Weights and Measures to be attached to Con¬ stabulary.
Coroners;
suggestions as to, in England.
the person entitled to the amount, or his order—that each draft shall be prepared by the Secretary of the Grand Jury, and shall be signed by two members of thei Committee, and countersigned by him; save drafts for Quarterly Payments, to Contractors, each of which shall be signed by two Road Wardens, instead of two members of the Finance Committee—and that the future salary of tho Secretary of the Grand Jury shall be regulated by the Lord Lieutenant in Council.
That the office of Inspector of Weights and Measures, as a distinct office,
shall be abolished, and that the duties appertaining to it shall, in future, be performed by the Inspectors and Sub-inspectors of Constabulary in each County, who shall report what they shall have done in the per¬ formance thereof to the Magistrates at each Quarter Sessions.
With respect to the office of Coroner, the Committee on tho County Rates in England, to which we have already adverted, say,-—" In considering the various items of County expenditure referred to thorn, tho Members of your Committee, in the first place, turned their attention to the best mode of diminishing the charges upon the County Stock for the fees and travelling expenses of Coroners.
With this view they beg to recommend that each County should be divided into so many Districts as the Justices of the Peace in Quarter Sessions assembled may deem proper, and that a Coroner should be appointed for each District whose residence should be so near the centre of the District, as to enable him to travel to any part of the same, within a distance of 20 miles from his resi¬ dence.
After thus limiting the distance that each Coroner will have to travel, your Committee conceive that it would be unnecessary to allow him any sum under the name of travelling expenses, but that it would be a more simple mode of payment, and less liable to abuse, if an adequate increase should be made to his salary.
It is under this impression that they would then propose an increase to be made in his Fee to 30*.
instead of '2(h\, to which he is now, by Law, entitled.
Your Committee would also suggest the propriety of altering the provisions of 25 Geo.
II.
ch.
29, which was the first statute that imposed the charges of Coroners' Fees upon Counties, and of rendering Parishes liable, as they appear to have been before the passing of that Act, to the payment thereof; in which cases such Parishes should hereafter be relieved from any charge or amercement to which they are now liable, where Inquests are held upon offences involving murder or manslaughter.
Whilst upon this subject, your Committee cannot help further observing, that the office of Coroner, although one of great antiquity and importance, appears in the mode of its execution to be ill adapted for many of the cases which now come under its cognizance, and that some of tho enqui¬ ries for which the attendance of a Coroner and Jury is now demanded, might be carried on before a Justice of the Peace, with less expense and greater benefit to the Public.
The numerous instances of accidental death which are constantly occurring in the presence of a number of witnesses, and all other cases in which there remains not the shadow of a doubt upon the mind of any one that the deceased did not come by his death through the violence or misconduct of any other person, might just as effectually be decided without tho intervention of a Coroner and Jury."
They acid,—" Should this suggestion be favourably received, your Committee would recommend, that hereafter it shall be the duty of the Constable, or in his absence, one of the Overseers of the Poor of every Town¬ ship or place where any person may come to an unnatural or sudden death, to give immediate notice thereof to some Justice of the Peace, acting for the Divi¬ sion in which such death shall occur, who shall forthwith take cognizance thereof; and if, upon enquiry, it shall be found that such death was occasioned by violence, or took place in Prison, such Justice shall cause a Coroner to be sent for, and an Inquest held; but in cases of sudden deaths, such Justice shall be authorized to abstain from sending for the Coroner to hold an Inquest, if in his discretion he shall consider it unnecessary to do so; in all such cases, how¬ ever, he shall take the evidence submitted to him in writing, and transmit it to the proper Officer of the Court of Assize.
To prevent any improper exercise of this discretionary power, so recommended to be vested in Justices of the Peace, your Committee further recommend, that if the officiating Minister, or the Con¬ stable, and one of the Parish Officers, or the majority of the Parish Officers, or any five Householders rated lo the relief of the Poor, in any Township or Parish,
