The Coroner's Jury assembled at Hounslow to inquire into- the
suicide of Dr. Edwardes has arrived at an unusual verdict,. —" That on the 27th day of December, William Whitfield. Edwardes did die from the mortal effects of prussic acid, admin- istered by his own hand during temporary insanity ; and they desired to express their opinion emphatically that he was driven to his death by the pressure brought to bear by his partner, Dr. Michael Whitmarsh, using the false charge of Mrs. Bignell as a means to drive him to a dishonourable dissolution of partnership." The verdict has been accepted by the London journals as just, and is undoubtedly in accordance with the weight of evidence ; but considering that it not only condemns, but executes Dr. Whitmarsh, who is fined in his whole practice, and crushes. Mrs. Bignell, and all this on evidence given in a Court filled to suffocation with an angry mob, we cannot rejoice in the precedent. Substantial justice may have been done, but had Edwardes been a suspected man and Whitmarsh unpopular, justice would have been delayed for very useful, though formal, safeguards. Dr. Whitmarsh, we presume, will try an action for libel against some one who printed Dr. Edwardes's letter -before it was produced in evidence.
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