The deceased was Mary Elizabeth Thornton, aged twenty-four, daughter of
a Stockport tradesman. The father said that on Saturday evening, April 20,
his daughter was speaking to a friend, Mrs. Pickford, outside the shop.
On the following Monday she complained of her nose being sore.
Next day she again complained and said, "It must be the hatpin."
While talking to Mrs. Pickford, she explained, Mrs. Pickford's baby
stumbled on the footpath. They both stooped to pick it up,
and a hatpin in Mrs. Pickford's hat caught her in the nostril.
His daughter gradually got worse and died on Saturday last. Mrs. Pickford,
wife of a paper merchant, said that some minutes after the deceased
had picked up the child she said, "Do you know, I scratched my nose
on your hatpin?" Mrs. Pickford was wearing the hatpin in court.
It projected two inches from the hat and was about twelve inches in length.
Dr. Howie Smith said that septic inflammation was set up
as a result of the wound, and travelling to the brain caused meningitis.
The coroner said that not many cases came before coroners
in which death was directly traceable to the hatpin but there must be
a very large number of cases in which the hatpin caused injury,
in some cases loss of sight. It was no uncommon sight to see
these deadly weapons protruding three or four inches from the hat.
In Hamburg women were compelled by statute to put shields or protectors
on the points of hatpins.
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