on the road upon which sat two clergymen, and he found on the road the original depositions which, presumably, one of the clergymen had dropped.  The depositions were handed to a magistrate and afterwards returned to the police at Philipstown, who had possession of them on the resumption of the inquest.  If the case stood alone there it was difficult to understand how a Coroner could come into court and appear by counsel to resist the quashing of an inquisition in regard to which at the very door such gross personal misconduct was demonstrated.  No doubt, he said, he did not read them as originals but as copies, and it was strange, that being so, that he did not inform the jury of what had become of them, and he complained now of not being told by the police of their recovery—­not told of his own misconduct.  On the 1st September, Ellen Gaffney applied by a solicitor—­Mr. Disdall, and as a set-off the Coroner permitted a gentleman named O’Kearney Whyte to appear—­for whom?  Was it for the constituted authorities or for the next-of-kin?  No, but for the Rev. Father Bergin, who was described as president of the local branch of the National League, and the Coroner (Mr. Gowing) alleged as the reason why he allowed him to appear and cross-examine the witnesses and address the jury and give him the right of reply like Crown counsel was, that Ellen Gaffney stated that she had been so much annoyed by Father Bergin that she attributed the loss of her child to him—­that it was he who had murdered the child.  It was asserted that Father Bergin sat on the bench with the Coroner and interfered during the conduct of the inquest, and having to give some explanation of that Mr. Gowing’s version was certainly a most amusing one.  He said it was the habit to invite to a seat on the bench people of a respectable position in life—­which, of course, a clergyman should be in—­and that he asked Father Bergin to sit beside him in that capacity.  But see the dilemma the Coroner put himself in.  According to his own statement he had previously allowed this reverend gentleman to interfere, and to be represented by a solicitor because he was incriminated, inculpated, or accused, and it certainly was not customary to invite any one so situated to occupy a seat on the bench.  He (the Lord Chief Baron) did not believe that Father Bergin was incriminated in any way, but that was the Coroner’s allegation, and such was his peculiar action thereafter.  The Coroner further stated that no matter whether he read the originals or the copies of the first day’s depositions, it was on the evidence of September 1st that the jury acted.  If that was so he placed himself in a further dilemma, for there was no evidence before the jury at all on the second day upon which they could bring a verdict against Ellen Gaffney.  In regard to the recording and announcing of the verdict it appeared that the jury were 19 in number, and after their deliberations the foreman declared that 13 were for finding a verdict