At the inquest the coroner's officer
stated that "all he found in the room was a lot of old rags covered with
vermin. He had got himself smothered with the vermin. The room was in a
shocking condition, and he had never seen anything like it. Everything
was absolutely covered with vermin."
The doctor said: "He found deceased lying across the fender on her back.
She had one garment and her stockings on. The body was quite alive with
vermin, and all the clothes in the room were absolutely grey with
insects. Deceased was very badly nourished and was very emaciated. She
had extensive sores on her legs, and her stockings were adherent to those
sores. The sores were the result of vermin."
A man present at the inquest wrote: "I had the evil fortune to see the
body of the unfortunate woman as it lay in the mortuary; and even now the
memory of that gruesome sight makes me shudder. There she lay in the
mortuary shell, so starved and emaciated that she was a mere bundle of
skin and bones. Her hair, which was matted with filth, was simply a nest
of vermin. Over her bony chest leaped and rolled hundreds, thousands,
myriads of vermin!"
If it is not good for your mother and my mother so to die, then it is not
good for this woman, whosoever's mother she might be, so to die.
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