§ MR. GEDGE (Walsall)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that a medical practitioner at Walsall, named John Joseph Lynch, has been in the habit of certifying all deaths as from natural causes, and that in the month of December last he certified that a boy named William Charles Young died from natural causes, although he had not seen the boy for a month before his death, and another doctor had attended him on his last illness, and that on the inquest the 1109 jury found that the boy had died from swallowing a halfpenny, and characterised Dr. Lynch's conduct as discreditable, and requested the coroner to call the Registrar General's attention to it; whether he is aware that in consequence of this and of a further representation made to the Registrar General officially by the town clerk of Walsall, the Registrar General directed the superintendent registrar there to treat all certificates given by Dr. Lynch of deaths from natural causes as equivalent to certificates of death from causes unknown, with a view to his holding inquests in such cases; and could he explain on what grounds and on whose recommendation Dr. John Joseph Lynch has recently been made a magistrate of the borough of Walsall?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENTI have made inquiries about this matter, and understand that the facts with regard to the boy Young are as stated in the Question. The conduct of the doctor in respect to the certification of deaths would certainly appear to have been irregular, but I have received a letter from him in which he assures me that he has reverted, to the proper practice. I have no information as to his appointment to the magistracy.