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of the unattested deaths, to which they ventured to call
attention, were found to relate to illegitimate children,
shewing how defective is the law that permits so lax a
system of death registration that can scarcely fail of
having the very reverse of a deterring effect upon the
commission of the crime of infanticide, now so much on
the increase throughout the country.
In the Coroner's letter there are other matters referred
to, to which your Health Officers must take exception.
For instance, it is contended by the Coroner, more particularly
in cases of children "found dead," that it is both
"futile" and "inexpedient'' to put the country "to the
additional expense of £2 2s. by ordering post mortem
examinations, unless there is evidence of positive identity,"
and unless also the fact of "an independent existence had
been established." To this view of the matter the reply
of your Health Officers may be included in two simple
questions: Does the Coroner consider that positive
identity can never be established after an Inquest had
been held ? and does he think the fact of "independent
existence," or the reverse, can be satisfactorily shown in
any other way than through properly conducted post
mortem examinations ? Mere negative evidence, founded
upon such examinations, is rightly deemed by many
Coroners of the utmost importance, by reason of the
possibility of some subsequent accusation being made
against a party who may not have been suspected until
long after a jury had been dismissed; the term "futile,"
then, is surely quite inapplicable to such cases. Happily,
all Coroners are not of the opinion of Mr. Carter. One of
the Coroners for Middlesex, Dr. Lank ester, is reported to
have remarked to the Bench of Magistrates of his district:
"As well abolish the Coroners' Court altogether, as to
abolish the practice of requiring post mortem examinations
as a means of arriving at the actual causes of death."