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361 at JE1900 are other examples of the most expensive class. The largest engine on the market is that of the Renault 45 6-cylinder, the capacity of which is 9 litres. The long chassis costs 21050. On Gloves. Not many doctors clean their own cars except in an emergency, but if this should arise a pair of water- proof gloves are invaluable. The " Cozee " washing- glove (H. Baily and Co., Ltd., Glastonbury, Somerset) is made of best English sheep-skin, chrome-tanned by a special process, and is impervious to water. The thick soft fleece will hold water but no grit, is very soft on paint-work but effectually loosens the dirt. Inside the glove is a convenient grip-bar, with slots for the fingers, and a cow-hide cuff protects the user’s wrist, around which it tightens with a strap and a rustless buckle. The dimensions of the glove are about 11 in. and 9 in., and its price is 8s. 6d. Dry, it makes an excellent polisher. If such gloves are not available, rubber gloves of which the wrists can be tied over a mackintosh, can be obtained at 6d. each at Woolworth’s. Before starting operations involving the use of grease or oil, without gloves, both hands should be rubbed over with nearly dry soap and the nails filled up. Should this precaution have been omitted, Gresolvent is useful for cleaning hands. On the subject of gloves, every motorist who drives at night, especially in suburbs where traffic is thick, lives in fear that overtaking cars may not see his signalling hand. A loose white gauntlet without fingers, such as any needlewoman can make in 20 minutes, slipped over a driving-glove is con- spicuous even in a dim light. Pictorial Road Plans. The third of the series of pictorial road plans, published at 6d. each for the Dunlop Rubber Co. by E. J. Burrows and Co., 43, Kingsway, London, has reached us. It describes the Bath-road and the alternative roads from London to Milford Haven, via Brecon and via Cardiff and Swansea. The little pictures of places and things to be seen on the road will enhance the pleasure of the run. Milestones are clearly marked and the height of the road above sea-level indicated at various points. Clear large scale maps of every important town crossed are given. The only suggestions we would offer concern these. Experienced motorists passing through Reading towards Bath do not follow the road outlined, but take the more direct route through Berkeley-avenue, avoiding much traffic and rejoining the main road just before it crosses the Great Western Railway. The town of Bristol presents exceptional difficulties to the stranger, who will welcome the help here given ; the indication of the position of the " tramway centre," to which he is sure to be referred by friendly townsmen or the local police, would put him in a position to make intelligent use of their advice, MEDICINE AND THE LAW. POINTS FROM RECENT INQUESTS. THOUGH the Home Office has not made conspicuous progress of late with legislative proposals in which it is interested, there is hope that Parliament may shortly pass the Government Bill for amending the law relating to coroners. If so, the whole subject will doubtless be dealt with thereafter by a con- solidating statute. Meanwhile inquests continue to disclose points worth considering when the amend- ment of the existing law is undertaken. At the Wiltshire Assizes a fortnight ago John Lincoln was charged with the murder of Edward Charles Richards. An inquest had been opened on the death of Richards, but the coroner (Mr. A. L. Forrester) had exercised a wise discretion in confining the inquiry to evidence as to the nature of the dead man’s wounds, the question of criminal responsibility having been taken up by the magistrates. While the inquest stood adjourned, the trial at the assizes proceeded and resulted in the conviction of Lincoln as the murderer. There was thus no further need for the coroner to investigate the cause of Richards’s death, and the jury were brought together again to record a formal verdict. As the evidence at the inquest had been confined to the wounds only, the coroner suggested that the verdict should be that the deceased was shot by a person not identified and against whom no evidence had been offered in that court. The coroner’s jury evidently stood upon its dignity. One juryman is reported by the Times to have objected strongly to a jury being asked to agree against its own con- victions. Eventually, after a long absence, the suggested verdict was returned, but the foreman announced that the jury decided to add a rider, and, when the coroner refused to accept any rider, said : " We are of opinion that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice." Provision is made in the Coroners Bill for avoiding the simultaneous conduct of proceedings before magistrates and coroner in such a case, but it is interesting to note that coroners’ juries may resent the usurpation of their time- honoured functions. Where the cause of death is conclusively established by a conviction for murder, it might be better to let that fact operate as the termination of an adjourned inquest. Another matter for consideration in any amendment of the law is the question of the place where inquests are to be held when death is the result of a motor accident. At present an inquest is held at the place where the body lies. The proper place, suggests Mr. C. W. W. Surridge, the Manchester city coroner, is the place where the accident occurs, where the coroner and jury (if a jury is required) can contribute and employ the knowledge they possess of the locality. " The barrier," said Mr. Surridge, " which prevents this common-sense procedure is that the law enforces the viewing of the body by the coroner ; I deeply regret that the draft of the new Coroners Bill perpetuates this useless anachronism." Here, as in the Trowbridge inquest, one detects the survival of the ancient function of the jury, which was to declare the facts they knew rather than to listen to evidence of which they may be supposed ignorant. Nothing seems to be attempted by the Bill in the direction of another quite different matter-the holding of inquests by coroners into outbreaks of fire. There has been some official backing for this proposal, and it has been strongly advocated by Dr. F. J. Waldo, who, as coroner for the City of London, has unique jurisdiction of this nature. There are frequently occasions where arson is suspected and where judicial investigation would be valuable, though it may be that the coroner is not necessarily the best tribunal for the purpose. Yet another question of the coroner’s functions is raised by a recent incident at Leigh. There was something of a scene at an inquest, one herbalist after another being removed protesting from the coroner’s court. A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian asks under which section of the Coroners Acts a coroner can consider himself authorised to hold an inquest where people are attended by an unregistered medical practitioner. He suggests that, if a coroner acts for any other purpose than to inquire into the death of a person within the provisions of Section 3 of the Act of 1887, he exceeds his powers and justifies a protest. Each case depends, of course, upon its own set of facts, and there is the high authority of Mr. Justice Stephen for the principle that the coroner cannot hold inquests as a mere matter of caprice. " It would be intoler- able," observed that judge, " if he had power to intrude without adequate cause upon the privacy of a family in distress, and to interfere with their arrangements for a funeral. Nothing can justify such interference except a reasonable suspicion that there may have been something peculiar in the death- that it may have been due to other causes than common illness." Without denying the truth of these dicta, it may be added that the coroner’s dis- cretion is not likely to be interfered with lightly.
