When a seaman died after fighting with a fellow crew member, no charges were brought about when it was found the death was a result instead of a failed dental procedure.
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| The Balasore, courtesy of State Library of South Australia - PRG 1373/13/32 |
On 17th November 1906 the Balasore of Eyre, Evans & Co arrived in Liverpool from San Francisco. One of the shipmates, a 23 year old Barbadian named Samuel Archer, was taken to hospital feeling ill and died later that day.
Enquiries established that during the voyage Archer had been in a fight with Italian Luigi Cocini and received a broken arm as well as broken teeth. Towards the end of he voyage, Archer had asked a fellow crew member to extract some teeth, which went badly and resulted in a broken jaw.
A postmortem revealed that Archer died from shock as a result of the broken jaw, and not in relation to injuries sustained in the fight which had occurred on 24th October. As a result of this, an inquest returned a verdict of accidental death and Cocini was discharged.
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