The inquest on the body of Sir Gilbert East resulted
in an abso- lutely open verdict, the jury refusing even to declare that he was drowned on the night on which he was last seen. They " believed that he was drowned." The important evidence was that of Miss Braham, a Jewess, who had lived with Sir Gilbert " as his wife " ;for nine years, and was with him when they passed through the tollgate on the pier. She is Bald by a Hampshire paper to have shown "perfect indifference" to the nature of the inquiry. She exclaimed, " Well, here I •am 1" and when asked how Sir ,Gilbert fell, answered, " Why, the same as any other person, of course ;" while, " Lord bless the man, how can I tell ?" was her mode of evading a natural question by the fore- man. Her account of the matter was that the deceased .had accidentally fallen and dropped into the sea, despite her efforts to hold him on the side of the pier. Evidence was also given to prove that Sir Gilbert was not in difficulties, very unlikely to commit suicide, and that Miss Braham had no interest whatever in his death. There really seems no ground for the suspicions almost openly expressed. Sir Gilbert East was clearly not sober, it is most probable that he was the very reverse, and that he fell into the sea, unable to turn even his ability to swim into a means of saving himself. It is clear that the piermeu were too confused to give the help they might have done, but the half-uttered suspicions of the public seem only a strange mode of expression of English respectability. Because he was with a mistrems, and not a wife, everybody connected with the accident is debited with some undefined and hideous crime. The most conclusive proof that Miss Braham did not push him over, would probably only give -rise to a dozen other myths equally tragic and equally unfounded;
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