uld be chosen as coroners, and in one instance a person was
actually removed from office for insufficiency of estate. Lands to the
value of L20 per annum (the qualification for knighthood) were
afterwards deemed sufficient to satisfy the requirements as to estate
which ought to be insisted on in the case of a coroner. The complaint of
Blackstone shows the transition of the office from its original
dignified and honorary character to a paid appointment in the public
service, "Now, indeed, through the culpable neglect of gentlemen of
property, this office has been suffered to fall into disrepute, and get
into low and indigent hands; so that, although formerly no coroners
would condescend to be paid for serving their country, and they were by
the aforesaid Statute of Westminster expressly forbidden to take a
reward, under pain of a great forfeiture to the king; yet for many years
past they have only desired to be chosen for their perquisites; being
allowed fees for their attendance by the statute 3 Henry VII. c. 1,
which Sir Edward Coke complains of heavily; though since his time those
fees have been much enlarged." The mercenary character of the office,
thus deprecated by Coke and Blackstone, is now firmly established,
without, however (it need hardly be said), affording the slightest
ground for such reflections as the above. The coroner is in fact a
public officer, and like other public officers receives payment for his
services. The person appointed is almost invariably a qualified legal or
medical practitioner; how far one is a more "fit person" than another
has frequently been a matter of dispute--a Bill of 1879, which, however,
failed to pass, decided in favour of the legal profession. The property
qualification for a county coroner ("having land in fee sufficient in
the same county whereof he may answer to all manner of people," 14 Ed.
III. st. 1, c. 8), although re-enacted in the Coroners Act 1887, is now
virtually dispensed with. The appointment is for life, but is vacated by
the holder being made sheriff. A coroner may be removed by the writ _de
coronatore exonerando_, for sufficient cause assigned, or the lord
chancellor may, if he thinks fit, remove any coroner from his office for
inability or misbehaviour in the discharge of his duty.

Coroners are of three kinds: (1) coroners by virtue of their office,
e.g. the lord chief justice of the king's bench is the principal coroner
of England; the puisne judges of the