§ MR. O'DONNELLasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If his attention has been called to the circumstances of the death of the Rajah of Kolapore in a struggle with a European ex-soldier named Green; whether the Maharajah, being of invalid health in mind and body, was taken out of the charge of his relatives and placed in charge of Green?
§ MR. J. K. CROSSSir, full particulars of the circumstances connected with the death of the Maharajah of Kolapore have been received from the Government of Bombay, and have been considered by the Secretary of State in Council. The Maharajah having, in 1881, become hopelessly insane, it was deemed advisable, in the interest of his health, to remove him from Kolapore to Ahmednuggur, where he was placed in charge of his former guardian, Mr. Birch, assisted by Private Green, who had already shown himself a careful, kindly, and judicious attendant, and a suitable number of servants. On the 25th of December, the Maharajah, who had been subject to occasional fits of violence, assaulted Green, who, without using unnecessary force, endeavoured to get him into a chair. His Highness resisted, and fell, and shortly afterwards died. The opinion arrived at by the Bombay Government, that the fatal result was entirely duo to the diseased state of the Maharajah's spleen, and that no blame could be attached to the attendant, was based upon the result of a post-mortem examination. A careful inquiry was held before the district magistrate, and a jury of Native gentlemen of different castes, selected, in view both of their position and intelligence, who reported that the death was accidental, and that the evidence showed the Maharajah to have been well treated by the persons, both European and Native, who attended upon him.