coroners' inquests, held in the several cases of death that had ensued, the conduct of the Manchester authorities would be exposed, if not censured. On the Sth of September following, the attention of all England was directed to a judicial inquiry, which took place in Oldham, arising out of the death of John Lees, a cotton spinner, who had died the previous day, and which proceeding was called emphatically the Oldham Inquest. The deceased, a son of Mr. Robert Lees, master cotton spinner, of Bent, while in attendance at the Manchester meeting, had received several bruises in different parts of the body, and a sabre wound upon his arm; to these injuries he had not paid proper attention, in consequence of which mortification ensued, and produced death. To ascertain the cause of death, an inquest was summoned by Mr. Batty, the clerk of Mr. Ferrand, the coroner for the district, the principal being at that time from home on his professional duty, at the assizes at Lancaster. The jury on this memorable occasion were Messrs. John Jackson, foreman, Thomas Jackson, Joseph Dixon, and John Newton, of Oldham; James Coates, John Kay, Thomas Wolfenden, and George Booth, of Royton ; and John Ogden, George Dixon, Henry Wolstenhulme, and Thomas Booth, of Chadderton. After an investigation commenced at the Duke of York public house, Bent, and continued by adjournments, at the Angel Inn, partly in the presence of the coroner, and partly in that of his deputy, for several weeks, the proceedings were adjourned on the 7th of October, to the Star Inn, Manchester, where they were resumed, and continued on several occasions in the spirit of those unhappy times. Ultimately, the entire inquiry was rendered nugatory by a decision of the Court of King's Bench, November, 1819, which determined that the inquest was illegal, because it was not originally held by the coroner, but by his deputy; and though the coroner had caused the body to be disinterred, that it might be viewed by him in the presence of the jury, yet, as he had not re-sworn the jury, after the inspec-

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