"I rise, Mr. Chairman," said he, "to a point of order." The other
jurymen looked at him curiously and some of them, I regret to say,
grinned. "You have referred, sir," he continued, "to the body which we
have just viewed. I wish to point out that we have not viewed a body: we
have viewed a collection of bones."
"We will refer to them as the remains, if you prefer it," said the
coroner.
"I do prefer it," was the reply, and the objector sat down.
"Very well," rejoined the coroner, and he proceeded to call the
witnesses, of whom the first was the labourer who had discovered the
bones in the watercress-bed.
"Do you happen to know how long it was since the beds had been cleaned
out previously?" the coroner asked, when the witness had told the story
of the discovery.
"They was cleaned out by Mr. Tapper's orders just before he gave them
up. That will be a little better than two years ago. In May it were. I
helped to clean 'em. I worked on this very same place and there wasn't
no bones there then."
The coroner glanced at the jury.
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