The Democrat, In Its Last Issue

tained a scvere attack upon our system of holding coroner's inquests in cases wlierc our laws now provide that such inquests be held. The writer characten.es this feature of our law as a relie of barbariem, and declares that nothing isaccomplishod in the carrying out of this law, but the heaping up of county expenses. We believe that the editor of The Democrat is mistaken in his views. It is truc, we admit, inalarge raajority of cases, that little is accomplished by acoroners inquest. In sonie cases, however, it is discovered that what is apparently an accidental death, and one whioh even Ute ofiicers would not thing of investigating, is really a caso ofmurder. Take the case cited by The DjmjcrU; that of the young lady killed by a Michigan Central U-aio near the depot a few weeks ago. In this case it proved to be purely accidental, no one being at all to blame, But tlie writer knows of a case, which, witta one exception, is identically parallel. A young lady had been killed by a fast train. Evcrybody about the little town where it happened, believed it to be purely accidental, and a local papor, printed a few hours after the 'gh-1 was killed, condemned the law whicll would require tlie coroner to incur an expense to the county by holding an inquest. At the inquest, however, it developed that the engiaeer, who was a moderate drinker, had, for the first time in his life, taken a few glasses too much and had failed to give the danger signal to the young lady upon the track. That engineer is now serving time for the death of the girl, due to criminal negligence. The Democrat argües that in such cases soine interested people will make an investigation. In this case the girl was an orphan and had no immediate friends or relatives within a thousaud miles of where she was killed. Furthermore it is the duty of the state and not of individuáis to ferret out crimes and prosecute those who commit them. It is true that in the large majority of cases where accidental deaths occur, no one, save possibly the person killed, is to blame, but in order to be sure that murders'shall not go unpunished because the case may ue made to appear accitental, it is neceasary thatevery such casebe given at least some investigation. To insure such investigations being held it must be the official duty of somebody to make them. Our metliod of holding coroners inquests affords that means. It may not be the best, but it is far better than none at all.