The magistrate examined them, and finding
them to be the depositions taken before the Coroner in the case of Ellen
Gaffney, handed them to the police. How did they come to be in the road?
On the 1st of September the Coroner resumed his inquest, this time in
the Court-House at Philipstown, and one of the police, with the
depositions in his pocket, went to hear the proceedings. Great was his
amazement to see certain papers produced, and calmly read, as being the
very original depositions which at that moment were in his own custody!
He held his peace, and let the inquest go on. A letter was read from the
Coroner, to the effect that he saw no ground for detaining the husband,
Gaffney--but the woman was taken before a justice of the peace, and
committed to prison on this finding by the Coroner's jury: "That Mary
Anne Gaffney came by her death; and that the mother of the child, Ellen
Gaffney, is guilty of wilful neglect by not supplying the necessary food
and care to sustain the life of this child "!

It is scarcely credible, but it is true, that upon this extraordinary
finding the Coroner issued a warrant for "murder" against this poor
woman, on which she was actually locked up for more than three months!
The jury which made this unique finding consisted of nineteen persons,
and it was in evidence that their foreman reported thirteen of the jury
to be for finding one way and six for finding another, whereupon a
certain Mr. Whyte, who came into the case as the representative of
Father Bergin, President of the local branch of the National
League--nobody can quite see on what colourable pretext--was allowed by
the Coroner to write down the finding I have quoted, and hand it to the
Coroner. The Coroner read it over. He and Mr. Whyte then put six of the
jury in one place, and thirteen in another; the Coroner read the finding
aloud to the thirteen, and said to them, "Is that what you agree to?"
and so the inquest was closed, and the warrant issued--for murder--and
the woman, this poor peasant mother sent off to jail with the brand upon
her of infanticide.[29]

Where would that poor woman be now were there no "Coercion" in Ireland
to protect her against "Crowner's quest law" thus administered? And what
is to be thought of educated and responsible public men in England who,
as recent events have shown, are not ashamed to go to "Crowner's quest
Courts" of this sort for weapons of attack, not upon the administration
only of their ow