The inquest on the accident brought out some features of
English society in strong relief. The Coroner, Dr. Pierce, appears to be from the reports to be a fumy, undecided person of no ability and a tendency to small talk. He repeatedly demanded the " heads " of the victims as essential to identification, fixed, altered, and refixed the day for the inquest, boggled about his certificate for the burials, and kept up a running and slightly ridiculous commentary on the proceedings. Thereupon the newly made Lord Farnham, brother of the deceased lord, as representa- tive of the relatives of the victims, rose, and in a short but emphatic speech, told the coroner that he was a fool, or, to use the exact words, a "totally incompetent" person. The poor coroner, daunted. by the unanimity and the rank of those present, instead of com- mitting Lord Farnham for contempt, acknowledged almost in words that he thought so too, mildly intimating that he had appointed a legal assessor. Dr. Pierce is, no doubt, an "extreme case," and every consideration is due to men carried beyond themselves by such a catastrophe, but a more direct and deliberate affront was never offered to a judge. The needful pressure could have been put on in private just as well as in public, and would not then have destroyed the coroner's authority for ever.
We only wonder, as we read Lord Farnham's speech, that he did not there and then, as a peer and the representative of the majority, proceed to appoint another coroner.
