Inquest and Verdict on Labourer's Death Coroner E, F. O'Connor held an inquest at 10 p.m. on night of Jan. 13 at Dunmanway into the circumstances of ihe death of Patrick Burke (50) labourer, of Kilronan, who died at Dunmanway Cottage Hospital earlier in the evening.
The Coroner ordered a post-mortem. examination, and it was carried out by Dr, T. A. Neville assisted by Dr. T. J. O'Donovan, states the "Cork Weekly-Examiner."
Deceased's wife said that her^husband did not want to go to hospital but Dr. O'Donovan forced him to go. Some weeks previous she found a letter in her husband's rod over his bed. It was in ner husband's handwriting, and it read—Molly, I am hung with lies, and I cannot stick it any longer. Mind the children they will soon be a help to you now, The letter was not signed.. Witness showed the letter to Mr. Vincent Crowley, Kilronan, Dunmanway, and to Mr. "Thomas Hourihan, Castle Street, Dun-manway. She also showed this letter to her husband, who did not read same, but said—"Don't mind that," and he burned the letter. She identified the remains in the mortuary of the Cottage Hospitel Dunmanway, as those of her husband. She never saw any poison for the purpose of poisoning rats at any time in her husband's possession.
Mr. Vincent Crowley, *Kilronan, Dunmanway, deposed he was a farmer and resided within 200 yards of the deceased, Patrick Burke. About the end of December when he was passing Burke's cottage, Mrs. Burke, wife of the deceased, ran out of. her house and Nite bal, min Soto Pat authorities at Tientfh after the hostilities in that city had come to an end. What exactly happened z do not know, but. the explanation offered to me was that these private letters, written from a holiday resort to friends and relatives at home—the sort of correspondence one would imagine, hardly likely either to deal with military secrets or to contain Communist propaganda—had been "censored" by the Japanese military when they took over control of the Chinese Government institutions at Tientsin, Once a letter hi been posted the sender has no means of knowing what has happened to it until a reply is received from the person to whom it is addressed, and, if there is any likelihood that the private or commercial correspondence foreigners in Shanghai will in future be dealt with in so ruthless a fashion, it may be advisable at once to consider re-establishing for the period of the present emergency the national post offices that formerly operated im China.
Shanghai, Mar. 3.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.