But for anything known, you may have passed cases of murder?—Certainly; and there is at present no security against such cases. The personal inspection of the deceased would undoubtedly act as a great security. Mr. P. H. Holland, surgeon, registrar for Chorlton-on-Medlock:— My district is of the better description, inhabited either by the higher classes or by respectable working men, in which cases of deaths from crime are not very likely to occur; yet suspicious cases have from time to time happened (say six or eight annually in my district), to which I have thought it necessary to call the attention of the coroner. In one case, for example, a father, a labouring man, came to me to report the death of his infant child, stating the cause to be sickness and purging; there was then no cholera prevalent, and the rapidity of the disease was unusually great. My suspicion was excited as to the cause of the death, of which the father could give no clear account, and I sent word to the coroner that I thought the case was one which required inquiry. An inquest was held, and it turned out that the child had taken arsenic. The jury were of opinion that the death was entirely accidental,—that there had been no criminal intention. Had not the cause of the accident been developed by the inquiry, others of the family might have suffered in the same way. The other cases, which had escaped inquiry, have been chiefly those of accident, in which the death occurred at long periods subsequently, such as five or six weeks. I have found that it is a common practice to represent children as “still-born,” who were born alive, it not being necessary to register still-born children. By passing them off as still-born, burial is obtained for a smaller fee. But by this means cases of infanticide might be concealed. The fact of a married woman having been pregnant, and no proof existing as to the issue may hereafter be of legal importance. I have heard of many suspected cases of the wilful neglect of children, on whose deaths sums were obtainable from different burial societies. I cannot doubt that by inquiring much infantile death, which occurs from ignorance and incorrect treatment, would be prevented. Inspection on the spot would, I consider, operate much more powerfully in prevention than in detection of crime. It would also occasion the stoppage of many existing but unsuspected causes of death. I have had reason to believe in the existence of a large amount of the preventible causes of death, with respect to which I have had no means of inquiry.