The county commission may authorize and require the coroner to pay, at the view or inquest itself, the legal fees due to jurors, witnesses and interpreters at the same, out of money to be advanced to him, from time to time, out of the county funds, and for the legal disbursement of which he and his sureties shall be liable on his official bond, in any county in which such order shall have been made by the county commission thereof; jurors, witnesses and interpreters, at any view or inquest, shall receive only such fees as are allowed by law, for the time being, for like services in a civil case before an associate circuit judge; and the county commission may prescribe the form and manner in which the coroner shall make proof to it of his payment of such fees. It shall be the duty of the coroner to summon to the view or inquest only such number of witnesses as, from a preliminary inquiry into the nature of the case, and the cause of the death, may reasonably appear sufficient to prove the essential facts thereof; and if it shall appear to the county commission that any witness had been unnecessarily summoned to testify at a view or inquest, the fees paid as aforesaid to such witness shall not be allowed in favor of the coroner in the settlement of his account for the money so advanced to him as aforesaid, except in a case in which some credible person shall have declared, under oath, to the coroner, that the person whose body is to be viewed came to his death by violence, or other criminal act of another, the coroner shall not summon any jury, but shall himself view the body and declare the cause of death.