Note 76 — OF THE CORONER’s INQUEST.

Except in case of persons dying in jail, the Coroner must not hold unnecessary inquests on the bodies of those who have died in the ordinary course of nature. “And the Court of King’s Bench, on two several occasions within my own memory, blamed the Coroners of Norfolk and Anglesea, for holding repeated and unnecessary inquests, for the sake of enhancing their fees, on bodies and parts of bodies which were cast up by the sea shore, without the smallest probability or suspicion of the deaths happening in any other manner than by the unfortunate perils of the sea.” 1 East. P.C. 382. See ib. the case of Rex v. Harrison, for extorting money for not holding an inquest.