§ MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON (Tower Hamlets, Stepney)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the report of an inquest held at Rotherhithe on the body of a woman which was recovered apparently dead by a Rotherhithe lighterman, the woman being, in fact, only insensible, but subsequently died; whether at the inquest the Coroner was obliged to inform the lighterman, in reply to an application for a small reward to enable him to replace the clothes which had been ruined in the work, that as the woman had breathed after she had been landed, he was unable to award him any fee, as he could have done had she been found dead; and whether he will effect a change in the law or rule by which a payment is made for recovering a dead body, and no payment for saving life?
§ MR. ASQUITHThe Coroner has no power to award a fee except in the case of the recovery of dead bodies. The law can only be changed by legislation, and I have no intention of making any proposal on the subject.