PETERSFIELD
AN INQUEST was held on Monday at the Sun Inn Privett, near Petersfield, before Edwin John Harvey Esq., deputy-coroner for the county of Hants, on the body of George Earwaker, aged 36, a labourer.—It appeared from the evidence that on the previous Friday evening deceased and others spent the evening at the Sun Inn, and left about ten minutes to twelve p.m. After they had left, deceased said he had lost his hat! His companions told him to let it be until the morning, to which he replied, "All right.” One of his companions then knocked at the door and told the waiter to look for deceased’s hat, which he promised to do. The men then left and supposed that the deceased was following them, but it appears must have mistaken his road and taken a wrong direction (the night being very dark and stormy, and snow falling at the time the ground being covered with it), and so fell into a ditch at the back of the Sun Inn, about ten feet wide and having over three feet of water in it, where deceased was found the next morning dead. The medical evidence, which was given by Mr. F. Rogers, surgeon, of Eastmeon, who had known deceased from boyhood, proved him to have been sober, steady man, but subject to fits, and from the appearance of the body he gave it as his opinion that deceased had fallen into the ditch in fit, and so, being powerless, was drowned. The waiter, shortly after the men left, went out and found deceased’s hat, but did not hear or see anything of the deceased.—The Coroner, in summing up, pointed out to the jury that such a ditch as that in which the deceased was found ought not to be allowed to remain in its present state, it being quite close to the taproom door of the inn, anyone might walk out and fall into it at night and so perish, particularly if they had been drinking.—The land steward was present and promised that immediate steps should be taken either to drain the ditch dry or fill it in.—The jury returned a verdict of "Found drowned, but how or by what means there was no evidence to show."