“On Friday morning last, a man named Patrick Knowlan, a private in the 3rd Buffs, was discovered lying dead close beneath the platform of a wharf at the bottom of Holborn-lane, Chatham. It would appear that deceased had mistaken his way, and fallen from the wharf, which is used for landing coals from the river, a depth of about eight feet, upon the muddy beach below, which was then strewn with refuse coal. There was a large and severe wound upon the left temple, and a piece of coal was sticking in the left cheek, close below the eye. The whole left side of the face was much contracted. He had evidently, from the state of his clothes, been covered with water, which overflows this spot at the period of spring tides. Although nothing certain is known, it is generally supposed that he mistook Holborn-lane for the West-lane, which leads to the barracks, and that walking forward in the darkness he fell from the wharf. Mr. Lewis, the coroner for the city of Rochester, claims jurisdiction over all bodies found in the water at this spot; and as the unfortunate man had evidently been immersed, he thought this a proper case for the exercise of his office, and accordingly summoned a jury to sit upon the body at ten o'clock on Friday morning--but on his going to view the deceased, he found that it was at the King's Arms, Chatham, in the hands of Bines, the Chatham constable, as the representative of Mr. Hinde, one of the coroners for the eastern division of the county of Kent, who refused to give up the key of the room, but allowed Mr. Lewis and his jury to view the body. They then returned to the Nag's Head, Rochester, and having heard the evidence of John Shepherd, a fisherman, who deposed that a carter, going on to the beach for coals, at half-past seven o'clock on Friday morning, found the body as already described, the jury returned a verdict of 'Found dead.' Mr. Hinde, the county coroner, held another inquest upon the deceased, at the King's Arms; and after taking the evidence of William Whittingham, the carter who found the body, and Frederick Collins, a corporal of the 3rd Buffs, who stated that he saw the deceased on the evening preceding his death, and he was then sober, the jury returned a verdict of 'Accidental death;' each of the coroners issued a warrant for the interment of the body. The disputed jurisdiction, it is believed, will now be submitted to the decision of a higher court, in order to settle what is here considered a _vexata quostio_.”--Maidstone Journal.