Clipping From the Maggie Power Archive
From The Times Newspaper, November 7th 1842.
Yesterday an inquest was held in front of Mr J B Higgins at the Rose and Crown, Whitefriars, after the body of man pulled from the sewers beneath the city was identified as one Paul Eastman, a person missing since early October.
The deputy coroner was told that Mr Eastman had been identified as the dead man by several people, including a woman claiming to be his wife – a most vigorous claimant to all the worldly goods he has left behind.
It was not known why Mr Eastman was in the sewer in the first place, and the hearing was offered a number of conclusions; the most likely theories being that he had become lost and disoriented, perhaps the worse for drink; or that he had been lured there by people up to no good, with the intention of robbery.
Dr Halliday MD gave evidence to the inquest that he believed the man died of drowning, perhaps at the hands of another fellow, but, under cross-examination, he also conceded that Mr Eastman could have become the victim of the notorious noxious gases which are known to build up from time to time in the sewers, with all too familiar and fatal results.
The deputy coroner, explaining that there was no eye-witness accounts to support a verdict that he had been likely the victim of a crime, thus recorded a verdict of accidental death.
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