“In the Court of Queen’s Bench, on Saturday, the Lord Chief-Justice (Sir Michael Morris, Bart.), Mr. Justice O’Brien, Mr. Justice Murphy, and Mr. Justice Gibson presiding, judgment was delivered in the case of Ellen Gaffney.  The original motion was to quash the verdict of a coroner’s jury held at Philipstown on August 27th and September 1st last, on the body of a child named Mary Anne Gaffney.

“The Lord Chief-Justice said it appeared that Mary Anne Gaffney, the child on whose body the inquest was held, was born on the 23d July, and that she died on the 25th August, 1887.  A Dr. Clarke, who had been very much referred to in the course of the proceedings, called upon the local sergeant of the police, and directed his attention to the body, but the sergeant having inspected the body, came to the conclusion that there was no need for an inquest.  The doctor considered differently, and the sergeant communicated with the Coroner on the 26th August, and on the next day that gentleman arrived in Philipstown.  He had a conference there with Dr. Clarke and with a reverend gentleman named Father Bergin, and subsequently proceeded to hold an inquest upon the child in a public-house—­a most appropriate place apparently for the transactions which afterwards occurred there.  The investigation, if it might be so called, was proceeded with upon that 27th of August.  Very strong affidavits had been made on the part of Mrs. Gaffney—­who applied to have the inquisition quashed—­her husband, and some of the constabulary authorities as to the line of conduct pursued upon that occasion.  Ellen Gaffney and her husband were taken into custody on the day the inquest opened by the verbal direction of the Coroner, who refused to complete the depositions given by the former on the ground that she was not sworn.  That did not take him out of the difficulty, for if she was not sworn she had a right to be sworn, and the Coroner had no right to prevent her.  The inquest was resumed on the 1st September in the court-house at Philipstown—­the proper place—­and a curious letter was read from the Coroner, the effect of which was that he did not consider that there was any ground for detaining the man Gaffney in custody, but the woman was brought before a justice of the peace and committed for trial.  She was in prison from August 27th until the month of December, when the lucky accident of a winter assize occurred, else she might be there still.  At the adjourned inquest the Coroner proceeded to read over the depositions taken on the former day, and it was sworn by four witnesses, whom he (the Lord Chief-Justice) entirely credited, that the Coroner read these depositions as if they were originals, whereas an unprecedented transaction had occurred.  The Coroner had given the original depositions out of his own custody, and given them to a reverend gentleman who was rather careless of them, as was shown by the evidence of a witness named Greene, who deposed that he saw a car