The coroner is at best no more than an appendix to the legal
anatomy, and frequently he is a disease. The spectacle of a
medical man of small learning and less English trying to
preside over a court of first instance is enough to make the
accused himself chuckle for joy.
Not long ago the coroners of New York discovered that, owing
to the fact that the district attorney or his representatives
generally arrived first at the scene of any crime, there was
nothing left for the "medicos" to do, for the district
attorney would thereupon submit the matter at once to the
grand jury instead of going through the formality of a hearing
in the coroner's court. The legal medicine men felt
aggrieved, and determined to be such early birds that no worm
should escape them. Accordingly, the next time one of them
was notified of a homicide he raced his horse down Madison
Avenue at such speed that he collided with a trolley car and
broke his leg.
Another complained to the district attorney that the
assistants of the latter, who had arrived at the scene of an
asphyxiation before him, had bungled everything.
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