130 The Public Health. [Jan., 
ought not to leave to accident the discovery of the crimes of public 
servants. In prisons, a Coroner’s Jury is summoned on the death 
of every prisioner, and neither Masters of Prisons nor Country 
Magistrates can prevent this public inquiry. In county lunatic 
asylums notice of the death of every patient is obliged to be sent to 
the Coroner. Can it be doubted that the presence of the Coroner 
and his jury in these places is the cause of preventing much abuse? 
If it could be doubted, the comparison of the abuses in our work- 
houses with our prisons would set the matter at rest. 
The practical difficulty of holdmg so many inquests as would 
be required in workhouses has been suggested, but this is really 
imaginary. It is usual in workhouses for the dead to be buried in 
one or two days in the week, and it would be very practicable for 
the Coroner’s Jury to meet the day before the burying-day and in- 
quire into all causes of death. In most cases the inquiry would be 
formal, but it would give an opportunity for any person aggrieved 
to come into court and complain. The jury would not always be 
the same men, and many of them would take care to look round 
the building, and being ratepayers, would see if they were having 
their money’s worth for their money. They would have an oppor- 
tunity of looking at the bread and tasting the soup and seeing the 
actual condition of the paupers themselves. ‘This would be a very 
much more effectual way of inquiring than the farcical tribunals 
conducted by a Poor Law Inspector. At the inquiry conducted by 
Mr. Farnall into the death of Gibson at St. Giles’s Workhouse, he 
directed a loaf of bread to be brought and shown a medical witness, 
and then asked him if he did not think it very good. ‘The loaf 
might or might not have been brought from the workhouse stock, 
but this is a specimen of the way in which Government inquiries 
are conducted. 
But even were it not thought desirable to hold an inquest on 
every person that dies throughout the United Kingdom, there is no 
doubt that an advantage would arise from the Coroner having sent 
up to him a fully filled-up information in the case of every death 
in a workhouse. He could then examine the details and decide 
for himself as to whether an inquest should be held or not. 
Whilst on the subject of Prison and Workhouse management 
we may refer to the very unsatisfactory state of the Dietaries in 
Trish prisons. This subject was brought before Parliamement 
during its last summer Session by Mr. John A. Blake, Member for 
Waterford. The subject was also brought before the Health De- 
partment of the Social Science Congress at Belfast* by Dr. Lan- 
kester. The complaint of Mr. Blake was that the diet was scanty 
* See abstract of a paper “On Prison and Workhouse Dietaries,” by Dr. Lan- 
kester, in ‘ British Medical Journal,’ Noy. 2, 1867. 
