The coroner frequents more public houses than any man alive. The smell of sawdust, beer, tobacco smoke and spirits, is inseparable in his vocation from death in its most awful shapes. He is conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting room, where he puts his hat on the piano, and takes a Windsor chair at the head of a long table, formed of several short tables put together, and ornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury as can crowd together at the table sit there. The rest get among the spittoons and pipes, or bear against the piano. Over the coroner’s head is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a bell, which rather gives the Majesty of the Court, the appearance of going to be hanged presently. Call over and swear the jury! “Well gentlemen,” the Coroner begins:— “Silence there will you,” says the beadle—not the coroner, though it might appear so. “Well gentlemen!” resumed the coroner, “you are impanelled here, to enquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given before you, as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will give your verdict according to the evidence and not according to anything else. The first thing to be done is to view the body. “Make way there!” cries the beadle. So they go out in loose procession, something after the manner of a straggling funeral, and make inspection, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and precipitately. The inquiry proceeds. The jury learn how the subject of the inquiry died, and learn no more about him. “A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen,” says the coroner, “who I am informed was accidentally present, when discovery of the death was made; but he could only repeat the evidence you have already heard from the surgeon, the landlord, &c., and it is not necessary to trouble him.” Is any body in attendance who knows anything more? Mrs. Piper pushed forward by Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Piper sworn. Anastasia Piper, gentlemen, married woman. Now, Mrs. Piper—what have you got to say about this?