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From a calculation lately published by the "London City Mission" we learn that in the metropolitan area a death takes place every six minutes. ... There is one phase of the subject of this vast recurrence of mortality which demands attention, however, and discussions not only as to the advantage of "cremation" ... but on the best mode of burial, have been for some time past occupying public attention. .... Not a few persons are convinced that cremation will be ultimately adopted; and, although there is a widely-spread repugnance to consuming the bodies of relatives on a funeral pyre, it is argued that some of the most dignified nations have adopted this method and invested it with a certain grandeur which have made the funeral urn containing the ashes of the dead a classical and solemn symbol to this day, used to denote the spot beneath which the bodies of our own dead lie in the ground, to decay by a slower and more doubtful process of transition into the elements to which fire reduces them at once.
    We have nothing to urge in favour of cremation, and we confess that though the vast number of burials within or near to large centres of population has frequently presented a danger to the living, there is some doubt whether the establishment of furnaces where the same number of dead bodies would have to be consumed at no considerable distance from a vast capital would not impregnate the atmosphere with gases that might themselves be dangerous.

The Penny Illustrated Paper, 17 July, 1875

CREMATION AND URN BURIAL 
OR 
THE CEMTERIES OF THE FUTURE
BY
W.ROBINSON

CASSELL & COMPANY LIMITED
LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE

1889

[-1-]

CREMATION AND URN-BURIAL.

THE sanitary reasons for preferring urn-burial are strong, even by those who, for other reasons, are not among its advocates. I propose to consider the subject from another point of view - the aesthetic one, or that of the beauty of nature and art, which an improved system of burial would make possible in all that relates to the resting-place of the dead. Many are apt to consider cremation as meaning the absence of all the forms of respect we usually bestow on this; and finally, of such associations as are generally gathered round the spot. But it is, on the contrary, the present system of burial which is open to the greatest objections in this respect. The history of many graveyards in crowded cities is this: Comparatively few years' accumulation of bodies, say from one to two generations, then finally closing from overcrowding. A generation or two passes away; many changes occur among those interested in preserving the graves, and soon their voice is heard no more in the matter. Then, at the will of [-2-] some one or more persons desirous of disposing of a place which, frequently, is extremely valuable, at any moment the remains of every person buried therein are liable to be subjected to the utmost degradation; to be carted away as secretly as may be by some contractor, whose only object is to find a convenient shoot for them. Such changes are not unfrequent in London, though they are usually carried out as quietly as possible.* 

* DESECRATION OF CITY GRAVEYARDS.-Are we not becoming too much accustomed to the idea that anything, however sacred, may be turned into money? Is not this the case with regard to burial-grounds? They fetch a large sum and they disappear. After the Great Fire of London care appears to have been taken in rebuilding the City to reserve in the main the burial-grounds of the parishes in which the churches themselves were not rebuilt. They are dotted as green spots all over the City, as many must often have observed. When the present extensive buildings of the Bank of England were erected, one whole parish was swallowed up. It was generally understood that its churchyard was respected, and is represented by the pleasant open garden court which gives such cheerfulness to the offices around it. St. Clement Danes' parish appears to view the subject in another light, and makes short work of the matter. Some years ago one of its burial-grounds, situate in Portugal Street, was disposed of for the site of part of King's College Hospital, and all trace of its former use has now disappeared. We have just heard that it has parted with another of its burial-grounds, adjoining Clement's Inn, for the site of a portion of the New Law Courts. One burial-ground, its principal one, in the middle of which the church of St. Clement Danes stands, still remains to the parish. An effort is being made, in connection [-3-] with the Law Courts, to induce the parishioners to sell this also. Can we hope, after what has been done, that they will be proof against it? I trust we may. Sites can be got without invading these small churchyards, which have been bought over and over again by those who lie in them.-W. B., in Times.

That secrecy, [-3-] however, is not always exercised in operations of this kind is evident, from the fact that the remains from a disused cemetery in the west-central district of London were spread over a couple of acres of Kensington Gardens a few years ago.
    In Paris the state of things is no better, as there the bones are taken out of the ground, and the headstones and other memorials often destroyed within a few years of their being placed in position.
    In America, owing to the extent of the beautiful cemeteries now existing near the larger cities, such evils are not so apparent, though they exist there also. No matter how large cemeteries are, they are certain, in time, to have serious drawbacks from the conditions inherent to the present mode of burial.
    Under this system, the whole area of the place must, sooner or later, be filled with bodies, and must, eventually, be closed, unless in very sparsely-peopled districts. The small cemeteries in a city like London disappear from time to time, as noted above. The park-like ones in America may seem more secure from violation; but every future generation cannot, as the present one, enclose many hundreds [-4-]of acres of valuable ground for burials. The American way is more decent than what is usual in France, but the difficulties of space alone would make it, if not impossible, a difficult plan to follow in the future.

[-5-]

BEAUTIFUL CEMETERIES POSSIBLE WITH URN-BURIAL.

WITH an inoffensive and prompt system of reducing the body to ashes, this drawback of our burial system at once disappears. The ground not being occupied with bodies, there is no need to close the cemetery at any time. In graveyards of the size of the present overcrowded London ones, urn-burial could be carried on for hundreds of years without the slightest offence to the living. By the common consent of mankind "God's acre" is most fittingly arranged as a garden; and as the place for urn-burials need not occupy more than a fourth of the space of a large cemetery, the whole central or main part would be free space for gardens and groves of trees. The cemetery of the future must not only be a garden in the best sense of the word, but the most beautiful and best cared-for of all gardens. But as the present way of using the ground often leaves no room for either garden or planting, it may be best first to consider the subject in relation to monumental art, and to the dismal regiments of stones which cover the soil of our graveyards.
    It is impossible to over-rate the opportunities for improvement in all that concerns the beauty or even the sentiment of the matter, which would be secured [-6-] by the condition of permanence. Apart altogether from the closing of the burying-place, the decay from exposure, which now defaces memorial stones, is a very serious drawback. So recent a headstone record even as that of Gilbert White, in Selborne churchyard, is found with difficulty by the stranger; and many memorials erected in London cemeteries during the past fifty years are now crumbling to dust. There is no reason why these stone records should not be at least as enduring and as legible as the paper ones within the church. Most persons will agree that it is desirable that they should be so; now they are the very image of decay. While long duration is not possible under our present system, with urn-burial the simplest stone inscription may be in as good order a thousand years hence as today. With it also there would be a satisfactory realisation of the meaning conveyed by the word cemetery-a resting-place, or place of sleep, for the dead.

THE PRESENT GRAVEYARD NOT A PLACE OF REST.

The ordinary city graveyard being now only of temporary use, such monuments as it possesses share the general fate of all the other materials when it is closed. The frequent disturbance of the ground for interments is against any good work in [-7-] such art as the place invites. In a London cemetery, such as that on the high road near the Marble Arch (St. George's, Hanover Square), it may be noticed that the memorial stones are crumbling away, although this is one of the best cared-for of closed cemeteries. One cannot regret the poverty of the "art" displayed in such places to decay and be forgotten. In Paris the foundations of roads are made of headstones only a few years erected; and though in London memorial stones, erected to "perpetuate" the memory of persons, are not cleared away so promptly, the result in the end is very much the same. Pieces of broken monumental stones, some of them bearing dates, were among the débris for which a contractor found a convenient place in a London public park. The effect of the tombs and stones dotted thickly over crowded city cemeteries is as ugly as it can well be, but it is in accord with the very temporary interest which, in the nature of things, these places have for the public.
    Notwithstanding the great attention and vast and unselfish expense devoted by the American people to their cemeteries, this passage, from Oliver Wendell Holmes, points to the fact that the same evil exists there:-
    "The most accursed act of vandalism ever committed within my knowledge was the uprooting of [-8-] the ancient gravestones in three, at least, of our city burial-grounds, and one, at least, just outside the city, and planting them in rows to suit the taste for symmetry of the perpetrators. The stones have been shuffled about like chessmen, and nothing short of the Day of Judgment will tell whose dust lies beneath any of those records, meant by affection to mark one small spot as sacred to some cherished memory. Shame! shame! shame !-that is all I can say. It was on public thoroughfares, under the eye of authority, that this infamy was enacted. I should like to see the gravestones which have been disturbed or removed, and the ground levelled, leaving the flat tombstones; epitaphs were never famous for truth, but the old reproach of 'Here lies' never had such a wholesale illustration as in these outraged burial-places, where the stone does lie above, and the bones do not lie beneath.

NOBLE AND ENDURING ART MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH URN-BURIAL.

By the adoption of urn-burial all that relates to the artistic embellishment of a cemetery would be at once placed on a very different footing. One of the larger burial-grounds now closed, perforce, in a less time than that of an ordinary life, would accommodate a like number of burials on an im-[-9-]proved system for many ages. The neglect and desecration of the resting-place of the dead inherent to the present system would give place to unremitting and loving care, for the simple reason that each living generation would be as much interested in the preservation of the cemetery as those that had gone before were at any previous time in its history. We should at once have-what is so much to be desired from artistic and other points of view - a permanent resting-place for our dead. With this would come the certainty that any memorials erected to their memory would be carefully preserved in the coming years, and free from the sacrilege ·and neglect so often seen. Hence an incentive to art which might be not unworthy of such places. The knowledge that our cemeteries would be sacred-would be sacred to all, and jealously preserved by all, through the coming generations-would effect much in this new field for artistic effort. In days when careful attention is bestowed upon the designs of trifling details of our houses, it is to be hoped that we shall soon be ashamed of the present state of what should be the beautiful and unpolluted rest-garden of all that remains of those whom we have known, or loved, or honoured in life, or heard of in death as having lived not unworthy of their kind.
    In endeavouring now to obtain any good effects, [-10-] defeat is certain through the essential conditions of the present mode of burial. With urn-burial everything we can desire for the artist is not only possible but easily attained. Soft, green, undisturbed lawns; stately and beautiful trees in many forms; ground undisturbed, except in certain small parts; a background of surrounding groves; no hideous vistas of crowded stones; and the certainty that the monumental work done may remain permanently. And these are not all of the advantages which another system of burial would give us from the point of view of monumental art. The adoption of cremation does not necessarily do away with the tombs. So far from that, in old Roman cemeteries beautiful tombs may yet be seen, with the urns within them in as good order as when placed there two thousand years ago. In such cases a single tomb served as a family burial-place. The expense which is now spread over a variety of graves, headstones, and the purchase of ground would, intelligently applied, build a tomb which might endure for ages. To make it beautiful and enduring as man and stone could would be an aim not unworthy of an artist. A single burial in such an urn-tomb need not be so expensive as one in the commonest of the graves with which such large areas in our cities are now covered. The disturbance of the ground would not be necessary, as it is now; [-11-] not to speak of the abolition of other onerous charges. The question of space is settled by the fact that one hundred of the simplest forms of urn could be placed in the space necessary for the burial of a single body in the ordinary way.

[-12-]

UGLINESS ABOLISHED AND INSCRIPTIONS AND MEMORIALS PRESERVED FROM DECAY.

THE need for headstones would be done away with at once by urn-burial, inasmuch as it would lead to burials in columbaria, which are, in fact, large urn-tombs. In many of them in Italy may still be seen exposed the little urns containing human ashes, dating from before the time of our era, in as perfect preservation as if placed there only a few days ago! Witness, for example, the marvellously well-preserved columbaria on the Vigna Codini and Via Aurelia. With our present system no trace now remains of some cemeteries in active, and as was supposed "permanent, use a few generations ago. The design of these columbaria or tomb-temples would be worthy of the best efforts of the architect, and their formation in the most lasting and noble form would not be so costly as the system of deep burial of the body, the headstones, and the continual and laborious moving of the ground. These buildings would save all memorials from destruction through exposure. This saving of all inscriptions and memorials of the dead from the ravages of time and weather is in itself a precious gain, which no one will undervalue who thinks of the importance of such records in legal and other [-13-] questions of public or private interest.*

* The external history of the Etruscans, as there are no native chronicles extant, is to be gathered only from scattered notices in Greek and Roman writers. Their internal history, till of late years, was almost a blank; but by the continual accumulation of fresh facts it is now daily acquiring form and substance, and promises ere long to be as distinct and palpable as that of Egypt, Greece, or Rome. . . . We are indebted for most of this knowledge, not to musty records drawn from the oblivion of centuries, but to monumental remains-purer founts of historical truth-landmarks which, even when few and far between, are the surest guides across the expanse of distant ages-to the monuments which are still extant on the sites of the ancient cities of Etruria, or have been drawn from their cemeteries, and are stored in the museums of Italy and of Europe. The internal history of Etruria is written on the mighty walls of her cities, and on other architectural monuments, on her roads, her sewers, her tunnels, but above all in her sepulchres; it is to be read on graven rocks, and on the painted walls of tombs; but its chief chronicles are inscribed on steloe or tombstones, on sarcophagi and cinerary urns.- Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria.

 Buildings, sacred or otherwise, may be adapted for urn-burial. The massive walls which should surround cemeteries might be formed into a covered way, or series of covered ways, in which urn-burial might be carried out.

ALL RELIGIOUS OR BEAUTIFUL CEREMONY EASY.

    Inasmuch as no ceremony, sacred or otherwise, need be omitted in the mode of burial here advo-[-14-]cated, so there would be fitting opportunities for the building of such religious structures as might be thought desirable in each case. When we come to the ceremony of urn-burial itself, we find it one that needs by no means be repulsive. The simplest urn ever made for the ashes of a Roman soldier is far more beautiful than the costly funeral trappings used in the most imposing burial pageant of modern times. Of urns of a more ambitious kind, the variety and the beauty are often remarkable, as may be seen in our national and various private collections. It would be a gain to art if some of the money spent on coffins, which rot unseen in the earth, were devoted to such urns, which do not decay, and which might be placed in the light of day, and perhaps teach a lesson in art as well as bear a record. There is a marble urn in the Woburn collection, with simple carving of the shoots of the common ivy over it, which is more suggestive of all that is beautiful in a memorial than any elaborate effort in a modern cemetery.
    The ceremony of burial in this way, too, how different it may be made from that with which we are familiar! What a contrast there is between that picture of the noble Roman woman, surrounded by her maidens and friends, herself bearing her husband's ashes to the tomb, and the black array, the paid, half-besotted mutes, and the hideous box in [-15-] which the remains of poor humanity are nailed up for a decay as needless as it is odious, to anyone who has seen it or thought of it! What a gain it would be to get rid of much of this Monster Funereal, the most impudent of the ghouls that haunt the path of progress! Vulgar show may, of course, be indulged in as much one way as the other; but it is pleasant to think of the ugly things and trades that may be abolished in cities when urn-burial became practicable. No doubt simplicity is possible, and is sometimes practised as far as may be, with the present system; but with urn-burial certain main causes of expenditure and show may be abolished altogether-great difficulties of transport being one of them.* 

*I am speaking now of sentimental reasons, and I adduce a second, which first called my own attention to the unpleasant consequences which arise from our present system. It has been my misfortune to lose four of my nearest relations in different parts of the world. It has been also a subject of regret to me that their remains lie so far off. I care little for the fate which happens to their bodies; and yet, had such a. practice as cremation been in use, it would sometimes have been a comfort to feel that I had their ashes with me. Collected in an urn, they might either repose in columbaria, like those at Rome, or in a mortuary chapel in my own house.- The Rev. Brooke Lambert.

Given a crematorium near the town, and transport to the cemetery, however distant, involves little trouble. To a people scattered over the world, like our own, the ease with which remains [-16-] could be brought from any distant country, without inconvenience and at little cost, to its final resting- place at home, deserves consideration.

BURIALS IN AND AROUND CHURCHES AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS MIGHT BE PRACTISED TO ANY EXTENT.

    In connection with this part of the subject, it may be well to consider the opportunities which urn-burial would afford for depositing the inoffensive remains of the dead in our churches-old and new. It would have the great advantage of permitting burials to be carried out in churches and city graveyards to any extent and for any number of years. For various reasons, many persons would prefer burial in churches or near them; but, as is well known, the evils of the present system of burial became so horrible and so evidently dangerous in the case of city graveyards and churches, that burial within cities had to be forbidden by law, and not too soon. The state of things from which extramural burial saved us is again appearing in populous suburban districts. At Highgate, for example, strong undertakers' men have been made seriously ill while at work by the underflowing drainage from the higher parts of the burial-ground.* 

* Communications have reached us, and observations been made, which compel us to draw serious attention to the con-[-17-]dition of some of the cemeteries within the metropolitan district, which are rapidly becoming sources of peril not duly to the neighbourhoods in which they are situated, but to the whole metropolis. The emanations from some of the newly-opened graves are so horribly offensive as to occasion nausea among those who attend at funerals. As cases of actual illness, after being present at interments in some of the cemeteries, have occurred, there can be no doubt about the danger. Meanwhile the crowding of the graves is apparent. The number of bodies laid in the earth may not be excessive when calculated upon the whole acreage of the space licensed, but with an eye to the future the ground seems to be appropriated in parcels, while in some of the older cemeteries there is really no room for more graves, and the licence ought to be withdrawn. This is a matter of so much concern to the health of the community that we forbear to run the risk of weakening the evidence of facts by any comment. The intervention of the Secretary of State should not be delayed.-Lancet, September 27, 1879.

At no dis-[-17-]tant day, under the present system, the numerous family tombs and graves in our extensive suburban cemeteries must fall into disuse. As extra-mural burial was not made law in London only, but in other large cities throughout the United Kingdom, it was a most radical change. Families who had for generations been buried in city churchyards have now to take their dead without the walls. Urn-burial would change all this. Establish this system, and people who have family tombs in our neglected city graveyards would begin to take a renewed interest in them, an interest that might save them from the desecration so often mentioned. It would tend to [-18-] make our churches more interesting, and even our cities, for there is a certain fitness in men resting in death near the scene of their life and labours. The ashes of those who had deserved well of their country might be brought home from any distant place where they had perished, and receive a place of honour in our national churches' or buildings. Our great dead now, very properly, find a resting- place in Westminster Abbey, and there is no reason whatever why other great cities or other parts of the country should not have the same system for their own most worthy sons. But you cannot long have a place of horror and a place of honour too, and therefore urn-burial makes this public honour of the memory of the great dead to any extent, and for all time, not only possible but easy. Urn-burial is, in view of the change it would cause in this and in other ways, worthy in all its bearings of the serious consideration of the clergy. In the cemeteries of the future, of which a slight outline will be given further on, buildings will have to be formed for the reception of the memorials of the dead. In our churches these already exist, and would, for a long time, have the advantage over all others. Vaults, passages, niches, and walls would form suitable places for urns, and their accompanying inscriptions or memorials. In new or old churches, when these places were insufficient, portions of the building [-19-] could be constructed for this purpose, which, being in complete harmony with the object and associations of religious buildings, would tend to encourage good architectural and artistic work. And not the church only, but the surrounding space would be valuable for the same reason. It is well to remember that some of the more beautiful tombs to be seen in modern cemeteries are based on ancient models of tombs, used as depositories for urns. Such family tombs would probably be built in our now disused churchyards; they might be above ground, and they would involve no disturbance of the earth, as the present grave-burials do, and little or no interference with trees or planting.

CEMETERIES BEAUTIFUL AND PERMANENT PUBLIC GARDENS.

    Apart from the question of art is the important consideration of the great advantages the improved system would give us in adding natural beauty to the gardens of the dead, and improving many large open spaces in our cities of all sizes. Given a space equal to one of our largest London cemeteries, or one of those in America several hundred acres in extent, we may begin to outline what the cemetery of the future may easily be made. Permanent and inviolable it must be. The cemetery ~of the future [-20-] not only prevents the need of occupying large areas of ground with decaying bodies, in a ratio increasing with the population and with time, but leaves ample space to spare for those open green lawns, without which no good natural effect is possible in such places. It is to be a national garden in the best sense; safe from violation as the via sacra, and having the added charms of pure air, trees, grass, and flowers. The open central lawns should always be preserved from the follies of the geometrical and stone gardeners, so as to secure freedom of view and air and a resting-place for the eye.

THE CEMETERY OF THE FUTURE: BUILDINGS.

    Approaching the boundary, but not quite near it, should be erected a covered way, as strong and lasting as rock. This is to form a series of urn- receptacles on its inner side, well but simply designed. This alone, in the case of a large place, could easily be arranged to afford space for burials for ages. All other tombs and buildings of whatever kind should be confined to a belt of the ground within and near the covered way, and, with their accompanying groves, should not occupy more than a fourth of the whole space. The covered way should not be the work of one man or period, and, this being so, it would be well to separate [-21-] its parts by planting or otherwise - occurring, if possible, in places commanding views of the surrounding country.
    We are now considering a cemetery of the largest size and first importance - a national or metropolitan one. Several reasons determine that the covered way and main buildings shall not be on the extreme boundary; namely, to have them in as quiet a position as possible, as safe from injury on their outer as on their inner sides: to secure freedom from any kind of nuisance which might arise, from the buildings being placed too near property over which the governing body of the cemetery had no control; also to allow of the buildings being screened from the surrounding neighbourhood by tall trees, on any side where the views were not such as would add to the landscape beauty of the place.
    Thus it would be possible to control the views not only from the centre to the covered way and tombs, and vice versa, but also beyond them, and to secure freedom from any objectionable sights or sounds. The actual boundary would be secured in a more ordinary but effectual manner. There being ample space within and without the great covered way and accompanying tombs for much noble tree-planting, the larger trees need not be planted near tombs, as there have been many instances of the disturbance of these by their roots. The buildings should be [-22-] near and between groves of evergreens, and the dwarfer flowering, weeping, or columnar trees. These would partly conceal and soften them, as seen from the central parts. A main walk passes by these groves and the monuments, and it should be the principal, and if possible the only, road in the place. A beautiful church or classic temple, such as that at Munich, might form the entrance; this and all other structures being built subject to the approval of a group of artists and architects who would see that their design and workmanship were not unworthy of the spot.

FREE AND SIMPLE BURIALS FOR THE POOR.

    Some might claim the privilege of erecting urn- temples or other buildings for public use, or for securing free urn-burial to the poor who desired it. It may be easily shown that urn-burial is much the less costly way, and those who have to combat the prejudices against it must take care that it is made as inexpensive as possible. Moreover, as it is desirable that no person, however poor or friendless, who desires it should be denied for pecuniary reasons this mode of burial, so there should be free burials for the very poor - free from any demeaning condition.* 

* The mode of burying paupers in London and Paris is an abomination and a disgrace. In London, as may be seen by [- 23-] reference to pp. 55 et seq. for the account of the Tooting Cemetery, it is a public danger as well as a horror.

Although [-23-] the plan of this paper is to deal with only certain of the aspects of the question, not commonly considered, a very sad one which many must notice is that of the cruel sufferings of the poor owing to the ordinary system of burial. Few but those who go among them much know the hardships to which they are reduced through the death of the head, of the breadwinner, or other working member of the family. This is frequently preceded by the exhaustion of all the little means of the house, wholly derived, perhaps, from the labour of the one who lies dead. Then come these excessive burial and funeral charges, which often cannot be met, or, if met, absorb the last shilling in the house. A case was some time ago reported in the daily papers where an undertaker in London allowed a body to lie in the house till the police had to interfere, because the widow could not advance him the whole of the sum of eight pounds. Proportionate charges for the most useless and hideous of all forms of display are too well known in every rank; and cases such as the above are not uncommon in our towns, though seldom reported in the newspapers.*

    * BOW STREET - AN UNBURIED BODY. - A poor woman named Laller applied to Mr. Vaughan on Tuesday, and stated [-24-] that on Monday week her son had died. He was nineteen years old. The body was taken to an undertaker named France, who lived at 9 Great White Lion Street, Seven Dials, who agreed to bury it for £3 3s. She paid him £2 10s., but could not at present make up the remainder. The man France had made her sign a paper by which it was agreed that he need not bury the body unless the whole of the money was paid, and as she could not pay the 13s. the body still remained unburied. She [-25-] had received only about £1 5s. Mr. Mitchell said the parish were quite willing to bury the body, but they had wanted the case to come before a magistrate first, as this was not the first case of the kind against this man France. He had been at this court and at Marlborough Street several times for not burying bodies.

SYLVAN AND FLORAL BEAUTY OF THE CEMETERY.

The sylvan charms of such a spot might be greater than is usually obtained in public gardens. The protecting architectural wall is far enough from the [-25-] boundary to allow of groves of oak and other hardy native trees being planted outside it; these groves to have grass and wild and naturalised flowers beneath and between them. The interior groves and gardens might be the home of all the beautiful green things that grow in our climate. The main portion of the surface being always free for such ends, we should soon have a tree-garden which might even be of great public use. As some might desire to enrich the place with useful buildings, so others might claim to plant memorial trees or groups, where the opportunity existed. The views should be numerous and carefully considered. The planting should be wholly natural, in the best sense of the word. The outer portion, with its bordering tombs, columbaria, architectural covered way, and churches, should contain all the purely artistic adornments of the place; while the central portions should be quite free from the drill-master manner of arranging plants, and sundry like effects of a too prevalent style of gardening.
    However all-sufficient the sylvan charms of the [-26-] place might be, a desirable structure, in a bad climate like ours, would be the winter-garden, in which religious or burial ceremonies could take place at inclement seasons-in an agreeable temperature, and in the midst of a variety of beautiful living things. Few would object to this plan were it not from the objectionable way in which such structures are generally designed, the too frequent idea being that a glass shed more or less vast is the best plan. But the palm-house in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, and a variety of structures used as winter gardens in continental cities, prove that vegetation thrives in buildings with stately and solid walls. Far more beautiful effects are obtained in such, from the contrast of the graceful forms of palms and other fine plants with noble building, than in the ordinary way. The temperature necessary to keep plants from temperate climes in health would be also that which would make it agreeable to people assisting at ceremonies, for which, of course, its most important spaces should be reserved.

CREMATORIUM, OR ANY STRUCTURE ANSWERING A LIKE END, BEST SEPARATED FROM THE CEMETERY.

    As no body in a state of decay should ever enter into our garden-cemetery, the process of cremation, or any improvement on it, may be carried out else-[-27-]where. But where, as will no doubt often be the case, the crematorium is constructed on the spot, it will be best to separate it from the general scene by planting or buildings. There is no reason why such a building should be so planned that any of its arrangements need offend the most sensitive person. There is no reason why any rite or act to be performed therein should not be carried out in accordance with due respect to every feeling of the friends of a deceased person. One of the earliest impediments in the way of improvement will probably be the failure to give due weight to these considerations in plans of crematoria.
    An important result of the change herein advocated would be the preservation, as public gardens, of the many large cemeteries now in use, because with urn-burials continually going on they would remain inviolate. Their fate when filled and finally closed is, as before shown, very doubtful. 

IMPROVEMENT IN PLANTING OLD GRAVEYARDS,

    Apart from the question of improvement in burial, the present state of our rural cemeteries may be fittingly alluded to here. Possessing often considerable advantages as to site and soil, and associations that always seem to call for some care in adorning them with trees and flowers, they are often seen [-28-] amidst our fairest landscapes as bare as a stoneyard, and, as regards vegetation, much less interesting than the hedgerows by which they are surrounded. The church-garden, even if small, need never be arid or ugly. But if there were only the walls-so often hard and naked-they alone might form a garden. Fresh foliage and blossoms are not often seen to greater advantage than against the worn stones of our churches, often unadorned with even ivy or Virginian creeper. Many of the best climbing roses and other climbers may be grown well on these walls. The several sides of the church might each have the plants suitable to their shelter or position. The walls round graveyards might also offer a suitable position for numerous low-climbing plants and bushes. Tombs may be partially garlanded with trailers, sweetbriar, or honeysuckle, and all this without disturbance of the ground or stones. It is best to adorn or gracefully relieve, instead of obliterating, such objects. The ground is generally well adapted for trees, and even the turf itself may be converted into a garden of early flowers. Indeed, the graveyard might often be a tree-garden, and one not without its uses. In planting it is essential not to hide the building from important points of view: too much care can hardly be paid to the views obtainable towards or from the site.
    In cities and large towns trees often embellish the [-29-] space round the churches to a much larger extent than in the rural districts, though the practice of planting evergreens in city churchyards is a foolish one in all ways, as they can only perish under our smoke plague. In such cases the summer-clad trees only should be used. Our old city churchyards could all be easily converted into oases of trees. The not unusual way of levelling or removing the headstones, and making the whole into a formal garden, is not the best. There is no real need for any sacrilege of the kind. The trees that flourish in such places are those that require little preparation of the ground-weeping and other native trees. Much short-lived and formal flower-gardening should be avoided, in consequence of the ceaseless care and cost it requires; the attention should mainly be devoted to the suitable hardy trees.

PRIVATE BURIAL-PLACES.

    Near country seats urn-burial would lead to the family burial-place within the grounds-a quiet enclosed glade in some sunny spot, chosen for its beauty, embowered in a grove of evergreens, the grass sprinkled with hardy native or naturalised flowers only - so as to prevent any frequent attention on the part of workmen. Such a spot, with its carpet of turf, and walls of musical-leaved trees, [-30-] wholly free from the long-lasting and many-staged horror of decomposition, which makes the ordinary churchyard so far from inviting to many persons, would form a fitting place of meditation for the living, as well as of repose for the ashes of the dead.

COUNTRY CEMETERIES.

    The drawbacks of various kinds known to exist in connection with large urban cemeteries are often supposed not to exist in the case of rural ones; but, unhappily, they are sometimes in quite as bad a state as those in cities. Overcrowding is far from uncommon in country districts, but here there is less chance of the wholesale removals before mentioned. Some years ago, however, when certain changes in the church required the raising of a number of bodies in the churchyard at Cobham, in Surrey, the work of the navvies was of the most horrible and dangerous character, and was accomplished with difficulty in the early mornings, partly under the influence of repeated doses of gin administered to the men. Such removals are not uncommon, but they are performed as secretly as possible, for fear of raising opposition. In many quiet country places there is as great need to close the graveyard as ever existed in large ones, and sometimes greater danger, owing to imperfect [-31-] drainage. In such cases any improvements or changes are extremely difficult to carry out, owing to the state of the ground. The same plan already spoken of in connection with great urban or national cemeteries would be proportionately no less advantageous, on a small scale, for country towns and villages. Danger to the living; pollution of earth or water; overcrowding; decay of memorials through exposure; hideous ugliness of stone, telling of accumulated horrors beneath the turf-all these, and many other evils, should be avoided in country as in town, while the various advantages of the improved system would be as precious in one case as in the other. The church and its vaults, and other unused spaces, and a covered way, replacing the whole or a portion of the usual fence, would, in most cases suffice for ages for urn-burial, leaving the whole of the churchyard itself free, as a beautifully planted spot. Urns placed under memorial windows, and in various positions on the walls, would invite monumental work of the highest class. The sentiment that people's ashes might repose in the church where they worshipped during life would not be interfered with in this case, whereas, frequently in rural districts nowadays, the present system compels the formation of a new graveyard away from the church. 

[-32-]

THE "EARTH TO EARTH" SYSTEM.

    The "earth to earth" system, or the burial of the body without a more or less solid covering, has been much talked of as a substitute for the usual mode of burial. It has in reality no merits whatever. By coffinless burial our ugly and noisome cemeteries can in no sense be bettered. The ground is occupied in the same way. It is an advantage to dispense with the needless and more or less costly wooden or leaden envelopes, but it is a mistake to suppose that very rapid decay takes place through their absence, as it has been proved that bodies deeply buried without coffins often decay slowly in ordinary soils. But even if the action of decomposition were always as rapid as it is in some soils, burial without coffins in no way frees us from the serious responsibility of needlessly polluting earth, air, and water. All the drawbacks, all the horrors, all the dangers of the present system would be just the same with this proposed alternative, which is, indeed, worthy of no serious attention as a substitute for the usual mode of burial. It has not even the merit of being a safe system, and those responsible for the public health could not permit of its use in the case of persons dying from confluent smallpox and putrid fevers.
    This earth to earth system, so called, is merely a [-33-] recurrence to the old-fashioned English way of burial in a shroud of woollen or other material. The wholly odious use of leaden coffins is defended by no one, not even the undertaker. Mr. Haden, who strenuously advocated the use of coffinless burial, with, as some have thought, the needless addition of basket- coffins, has dealt with this question in an ugly utilitarian way, which will, it is to be hoped, commend itself to few, and certainly to no one who has a particle of the feeling which animated the old Romans when they took their very effective precautions against disturbance of, or insult to, the ashes of their dead. It has been proved, over and over again, that the saturation of the soil by human remains is fraught with the greatest danger to the public health. We have it on the testimony of trustworthy and scientific witnesses, embodied in reports to Parliament, that disease on an extensive scale has been traced directly to this systematic and extensive pollution of the ground with bodies, yet Mr. Haden has nothing better to offer us than further pollution of the same description. I quote some of his reasons for his views. The italics are mine.
    "Since," he says, "it is impossible for nature to err, and since it may be taken as an axiom that she will ever be found ready to supply us with the means of doing that which she requires us to do, need we ever [-34-] be at a loss for ground in which to bury our dead? If it be true that a body, properly buried, is resolved in five, or at most six, years, it follows that at that interval, or at intervals as much longer as we please, we may bury again and again in the same ground, with no other effect than to increase its substance and to raise its surface. Is there, however, no ground in the immediate neighbourhood of our own city that would be the better for this increase and for being thus raised? The cremationists will tell us that there is not, but is there the shadow of a foundation for such a statement? Along the course of our great river from London to the sea, for instance, have we not vast lowland tracts of rich alluvial soil deposited by that very river and capable of being drained, planted, and beautified, in which, with equal benefit to the land and to ourselves, we may bury our dead for centuries? If, as we have seen, the surface of the Holborn Burial-ground was raised fifteen feet or eighteen feet by the interments within it of three centuries, why should not the lowlands of Kent and Essex be raised and reclaimed in the same way, and as much as possible of the valuable ground in and about the city now occupied as cemeteries be restored to better uses? What if it take us thousands instead of hundreds of years thus to reclaim and elevate such lands, and so practically dispose of our difficulties as to burial for ever?
    [-35-] Anything more puerile and impracticable could surely not be thought of or written by any person who knows the state of our graveyards and cemeteries, and has ever desired their reform. In the "Report on the Practice of Interment in Towns,"  * (* Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street, 1843.) presented to both Houses of Parliament, it is stated that "there appear to be no cases in which emanations from human remains in an advanced state of decomposition are not of a deleterious nature"; and yet Mr. Haden, in the name of progress, seriously proposes to raise and reclaim "the lowlands of Kent and Essex" with decaying human bodies! lie knows that in the course of ages small patches of ground in London and other cities have been raised by piling them with boxes containing bodies, and, accordingly, proceeds to improve the home counties agriculturally in the same wholesome way! Happily our lowlands are not in want of any such "improvement," which is all the more singular as a suggestion from one who poses as a teacher of graveyard reform and aesthetics.

BURYING REPEATEDLY IN THE SAME SOIL.

Official authorities, in opposing urn-burial, have maintained that in "good soil the body may be [-36-] considered as decomposed and non-existent in from twenty to twenty-five years, and that the same spot may then be used again for the purpose of burying, precisely as if it were virgin soil ". This was in reply to objections as to the great areas of land that must be used for this purpose. "No!" Mr. Holland replies, "the same land can be used at least four times in a century if it is 'good,'- is dry and well drained 'soil' "- a remarkable admission from those who desire to respect or preserve their ancestors' dust! This system of reburying in the same ground again is part of Mr. Haden's pet plan, but what the feeling of the public is about all such plans is shown in the following extract from a lecture by the Rev. Brooke Lambert:
    "The results of the improvements in the Tamworth churchyard show me that, however little I may be susceptible to what becomes of my own remains, there is no subject on which people feel more deeply than the disturbance of the remains of their ancestors, and even the displacement of effete memorials of them. From the letters of the better class to the comments of the inhabitants of 'Day's Yard,' who wished that those beneath would come up and punish me and my churchwardens, I find that the prevailing feeling is that the dead ought never to be removed, nor the position of their monuments changed even by a hair's-breadth. Now [-37-] whilst our present system of burial remains, such changes in their places of interment must occur."
    The system of removing the bodies after a lapse of years and burying in the same ground again is carried out in all its ugliness in the Paris cemeteries, but it is so evidently wrong from a sanitary point of view, and also from that of common decency, that it is to be hoped it will never be practised in this country, and it has no chance of success in America, where, more than in any country, the dead receive decent burial. What law, human or divine, justifies this ignoble disturbance of the remains of the dead, and the use of the ground for the burial of other bodies, to be in their turn disinterred in like manner? One may see the effect of it in many exposed bones and skulls in Alpine and North Italian valleys, where thousands of acres of waste land lie around. It is no less offensive, and more dangerous, in large cities; and those who advocate it for our English cemeteries must indeed be at the end of their arguments.

ONE TRUE WAY TO BURIAL REFORM.

    There is not, and there never can be, any satisfactory system of disposing of the dead, which does not do, as promptly and as inoffensively as possible, what is now done in the slowest and most horrible manner. Until some better system is devised, [-38-] cremation is the only method which will rapidly resolve the body into its harmless elements by a process which cannot offend the living, and which shall render the remains of the dead innocuous. This system is also that which gives us the amplest opportunity for making a cemetery beautiful, a blessing instead of a danger to its neighbourhood; by its means we may have memorials preserved from decay; ground from, sacrilege; soil and water from impurity; art not unworthy of its aim; church-burial for all who desire it; space for gardens and groves in our cemeteries; the mindfulness and care of each successive generation; deliverance from the undertaker, and his "effects ; many precious open spaces in cities free from dread or danger; age-enduring cemeteries, in which efforts towards "perpetuating the memory of the dead need not be so delusory as they now are; quiet places, where the ashes of the dead should never be dishonoured, but might find unpolluted rest.

[-39-]

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF CEMETERIES.

    WHATEVER the future of our cemeteries may be, it is much to be desired that they should not be controlled by trading companies. This is not the way the Americans have established their beautiful cemeteries, which are as well arranged and kept as is possible under the present system of burial. So large and so important a question as the burial of the dead should never be in the hands of those who merely regard it from the point of view of moneymaking. It is well known that the profits from certain cemeteries in some of the pleasantest suburbs of London are very large; the temptation to continue burial in them, longer than decency or sanitary [-40-] reasons would permit, will probably lead to danger in the future from pollution of air and water. The present state of some of our cemeteries close to London is already dangerous and offensive. On this point Mr. S. Haden makes some just remarks:
    "Considering that our reason for discontinuing intra-mural interment was that the soil of the old city graveyards had become so saturated and supersaturated with animal matter that it could no longer properly be called soil, it might have been supposed that, in establishing the new cemeteries, stringent provision would be made that such a pollution of the ground should not again occur; the more so that it must have been foreseen that, by the inevitable extension of the town, the then suburban would become again the intra-mural cemetery, and that the horrors of the old graveyard would thus come to be repeated and multiplied. Not only was no such provision made, but one of the chief of the new companies gave prompt proof of its unfitness to comprehend and to use the powers entrusted to it, by making the extraordinary proposal to bury 1,335,000 bodies in seven acres of ground. Here, since it may not else be believed, is this amazing proposal: 'It has been found,' says the newly installed directors of the General Cemetery Company (Kensal Green), in recommendation of the plans which they are proposing for their future [-41-] guidance,- 'it has been found that seven acres will contain 133,500 graves; each grave will contain ten coffins; thus, accommodation will be found for 1,335,000 deceased paupers'. The very naïveté of this proposal might, one would think, have at once opened the eyes and excited the alarm of those who were conferring on these companies almost unlimited powers, and have prepared them for the abuse of those powers which speedily followed. No such alarm, however, appears to have been excited, and a system of interment founded, we must suppose, on this surprising calculation, was at once Inaugurated and permitted. If, in the old graveyards, the vestries and guardians of the poor saved themselves expense by piling coffin upon coffin till the hole which they had dug would contain no more, the new cemetery companies increased their dividends and propitiated their shareholders by doing precisely the same thing. It is surprising that the Government, which refused to listen to the recommendations of the Board of Health in this matter, should have preferred to entrust the sanitary interests of a great city, and so important a duty as the burial of its dead, to a class of men who, however respectable, had shown themselves ignorant of the very first principles which should govern them in the management of such things.
    "Again, apart from the improbability that a mere [-42-] trading company would prove itself competent to deal with so large, so technical, and so delicate a question as the burial of the dead, it might have been foreseen that the material interests of such a company, its obligations to its shareholders, and its trade associations, could never be in harmony with, but must ever be opposed to, the interests of the public.
    The very different spirit with which the new cemeteries in America are undertaken by the leading citizens is well known to many who have travelled there. Cemeteries in America, as well as in Europe, are conducted on various plans. A number of them are under the control of the city authorities, and of course are seldom self-supporting. Others, again, are the property of religious communities, which sometimes manage to pay expenses, and have at times something left for the benefit of the church; but in these cases there is very little security to the owners of burial-places, for the city council or the trustees of the church may at any time pass an ordinance for the removal of the dead to other quarters particularly if the burial-ground be situated in or near a city and has become valuable for other purposes. In that case the last resting-place of the dead is easily condemned as a nuisance, and the consecrated ground is sold for building purposes, for the sake of gain; and in this way, as in our cities, [-43-] the houses of the living are erected over the graves of the dead.
    The plan that has given the greatest satisfaction to the public, and led to the creation of the nobler cemeteries near all the larger cities, and to many beautiful cemeteries in the Western States and in remote places, is that where every lot-holder is a member of the corporation of the cemetery, and where the entire income is devoted to the improvement and perpetual care of the cemetery. Some of these bodies, in addition to forming garden and park-like cemeteries, to which the best in Paris and London are mere stoneyards, have already accumulated a considerable surplus, and there is not the least doubt that in a few years they will have a fund, the interest of which will be more than sufficient to keep the grounds perpetually in complete order.
    The following extract is from the Act of Incorporation of the Spring Grove Cemetery at Cincinnati.
    "SECTION 6. This Corporation is authorised to purchase, or take by gift or devise, and hold land exempt from execution and from any appropriation to public purposes, for the sole purpose of a cemetery, not exceeding three hundred acres; one hundred and sixty-seven acres of which, such as shall be designated by the directors, shall be exempt from taxation, and the remainder shall be taxed as other lands, until [-44-]   the legislature shall otherwise direct. After paying for such land, all future receipts, whether from the sale 4 of lots, from donations, or otherwise, shall be applied exclusively, under the direction of the board, to laying out, preserving, protecting, and embellishing the cemetery, and the avenues leading thereto, and to paying the necessary expenses of the Corporation."

 [-45-]

BURIAL : A HORRIBLE PRACTICE

"IF people could see the human body after the process of decomposition sets in, which is as soon as the vital spark ceases to exist, they would not want to be buried; they would be in favour of cremation. If they could go into a dissecting-room and see the horrid sights of the dissecting-table, they would not wish to be buried. Burying the human body, I think, is a horrible thing. If more was known about the human frame while undergoing decomposition, [-46-] people would turn with horror from the custom of burying their dead. It sometimes takes a human body fifty, sixty, eighty years - yes, longer than that - to decay. Think of it! The remains of a friend lying under six feet of ground, or less, for that length of time, going through the slow stages of decay, and other bodies all this time being buried around these remains. Infants grow up and pass into manhood or womanhood, grow old and get near the door of death; and during all that time the body which was buried in their infancy lies a few feet underground in this sickening state, undergoing the slow process of decay. Think of thousands of such bodies crowded into a few acres of ground, and then reflect that these graves, or many of them, in time fill with water, and that water percolates through the ground and mixes with the springs and wells and rivers from which we drink. Why, if people knew what physicians know, what they have learned in the dissecting-room, they would look upon burning the human body as a beautiful art in comparison with burying it. There is something eminently repulsive to me about the idea of lying a few feet under ground for a century, or perhaps two centuries, going through the process of decomposition. When I die I want my body to be burned. Any unprejudiced mind needs but little time to reflect in forming a conclusion as to which is the better method of disposing of the body. Common [-47-] sense and reason proclaim in favour of cremation. There is no reason for keeping up the burial custom, but many against it, some of the most practical of which are but too recently developed to need mention. There is nothing repulsive in the idea of cremation. People's prejudice is the only opponent it has. If they could be awakened to a sense of the horror of crowding thousands of. bodies under the ground, to pollute in many instances the air we breathe and the water we drink, their prejudice would be overcome. Cremation would be taken for what it truly is, a beautiful method of disposing of the body." -Dr. S.D. Gross.

PRECAUTIONS AS TO PROOF OF DEATH.

    The only serious objection urged from any quarter against the prompt and harmless reduction of the body to its inoffensive parts is that of the supposed immunity it would give to poisoners; and this question is dealt with by Sir Henry Thompson and Mr. Lavel of Paris.
    "It has been said, and most naturally, What guarantee is there against poisoning if the remains are burned, and it is no longer possible, as after burial, to reproduce the body for the purpose of examination? It is to my mind a sufficient reply that, regarding only 'the greatest good for the greatest [-48-] number,' the amount of evil in the shape of disease and death which results from the present system of burial in earth, is infinitely larger than the evil caused by secret poisoning is or could be, even if the practice of the crime were very considerably to increase. Further, the appointment of officers to examine and certify in all cases of death would be an additional and very efficient, safeguard. But-and here I touch on a very important subject-is there reason to believe that our present precautions in the matter of death-certificate against the danger of poisoning are what they ought to be? I think that it must be confessed that they are defective, for not only is our system inadequate to the end proposed, but it is less efficient by comparison than that adopted by foreign governments. Our existing arrangements for ascertaining and registering the cause of death are very lax, and give rise, as we shall see, to serious errors. In order to attain an approach to certitude in this important matter, I contend that it would be most desirable to nominate in every district a properly qualified inspector to certify in all cases to the fact that death has taken place, to satisfy himself as far as possible that no foul play has existed, and to give the certificate accordingly. This would relieve the medical attendant of the deceased from any disagreeable duty relative to inquiry concerning suspicious circumstances, if any [-49-] have been observed. Such officers exist throughout the large cities of France and Germany, and the system is more or less pursued throughout the provinces. In Paris no burial can take place without the written permission of the médecin vérificateur. and whether we adopt cremation or not, such an officer might with advantage be appointed here. It is not generally known that many bodies are buried in this country without any medical certificate at all, and that among these any number of deaths by poison may have taken place for anything that anybody knows. Is it in the provinces chiefly that this lax practice exists? No doubt, and more Particularly in the Principality of Wales. But it occurs also in the heart of London. A good many certificates of death are signed every year in London by some non.. medical persons. In one metropolitan parish, not long ago, which I can name, but do not, above forty deaths were registered in a year on the mere statement of neighbours of the deceased. No medical certificate was procurable, and no inquest was held; the bodies were buried without inquiry. This practice is not illegal, and, in my opinion, it goes far to make a case for the appointment of a médecin vérificateur.
    "It would be possible, at much less cost than is at present incurred for burial, to preserve, in every case of death, the stomach and a portion of one of the [-50-] viscera, say for fifteen or twenty years or thereabouts, so that, in the event of any suspicion subsequently occurring, greater facility for examination would exist than by the present method of exhumation. Nothing could be more certain to check the designs of the poisoner than the knowledge that the proofs of his crime, instead of being buried in the earth (from whence, as a fact, not one in a hundred thousand is ever disinterred for examination), are safely preserved in a public office, and that they can be produced against him at any moment. The universal application of this plan, although easily practicable, is, however, obviously unnecessary. It is quite certain that no pretext for such conservation can exist in more than one instance in every five hundred deaths. In the remainder, the fatal result would be attributed without mistake to some natural cause-as decay, fever, consumption, or other malady, the signs of which are clear even to a tyro in the medical art. But in any case in which the slightest doubt arises in the mind of the medical attendant, or in which the precaution is desired or suggested by a relative, or whenever the subject himself may have desired it, nothing would be easier than to make the requisite conservation. As before stated, the existence of an official verificator would relieve the ordinary medical attendant of the case from active interference in the matter. If, then, the public is [-51-] earnest in its endeavour to render exceedingly difficult or impossible the crime of secret poisoning - and it ought to be so if the objection to cremation on this ground is a valid one - the sooner some measures are taken to this end the better, whether burial in earth or cremation be the future method of treating our dead." -Sir Henry Thompson, in Contemporary Review.
   "Avant de l'exposer, nous croyons indispensable de répondre a la principale, on pourrait même dire a la seule objection présentée contre la crémation, c'est-a-dire le danger de faire disparaitre les traces d'empoisonnement. M. Cadet a discuté cette question de la manière la plus satisfaisante. Il partage, comme la Commission du Conseil de salubrité, les poisons en deux categories.
    "'La premiere, renfermant les poisons qui ne peuvent être retrouvés que dans les cendres: substances organiques, ainsi que le mercure qui est volatil, et le phosphore, ce dernier corps étant en quantité considerable dans notre organisme; La deuxième, comprenant les poisons susceptibles d'être retrouvés: arsenic, antimoine, zinc, cuivre, plomb, etc.; Il est inutile de s'arrêter aux poisons de la premiere catégorie; car tous, excepté le mercure, ne se retrouvent pas plus dans l'inhumation que dans la cremation.'
    "M. Cadet examine ensuite la seconde catégorie [-52-] et prend pour exemple le poison le plus connu, l'arsenic. Il rend compte de nombreuses experiences par lui faites sur des animaux qu'il a empoisonnés par l'arsenic, et qu'il a ensuite incinérés. Il a retrouvé l'arsenic dans les cendres. La société ne serait donc pas désarmée vis-a-vis de tentatives criminelles. M. Cadet ajoute des réflexions extremement justes, qne nous croyons devoir transcrire, parce qu'elles élucident la question de la manière la plus péremptoire.
    "'Quand même les poisons ne seraient pas retrouvés dans les cendres, est-ce que cette objection, quoique sérieuse, faite an nom de la médecine légale, que la cremation entrave les investigations de la justice, dans certains cas de crime, est-ce que cette objection, dis-je, pourrait être un obstacle? Elle impose tout simplement la nécessité de prendre des precautions telles, que tout individu tenté de commettre un empoisonnement, ait a réfléchir avant de consommer le crime. Ne peut-on pas établir un mode plus rigoureux de constatation des décès? Une enquête sévère ne pourrait-elle pas être faite avant de délivrer le permis d'incinération d'un cadavre? Un certificat du médecin qui aura donné les soins, constatant la nature de la maladie; un certificat du pharmacien, sur lequel seront transcrites les prescriptions du médecin, pendant la maladie; un certificat du médecin chargé de la verification des décès, [-53-] indiquant dans quel état il a trouvé le cadavre, avec les signes qui lui sembleraient extraordinaires; le tout envoyé a un médecin contrôleur, seraient des garanties supérieures a celles exigées aujourd'hui pour l'inhumation. En cas de rnort subite ou de mort resultant d'un accident on d'une maladie quelconque, pendant laquelle aucun médecin n'aura été mandé pour donner ses soins, le médecin vérificateur fera une enquête dans la maison du décédé, soit près des parents, soit près des voisins, constatera exactement, dans son certificat, tons les renseignements recueillis, et avisera de suite le médecin contrôleur. Si, dans la visite de ce dernier, ii s'élevait le moindre soupçon, un ordre de s'opposer a la cremation serait envoyé a qui de droit, et le Parquet prévenu du fait. Que pent-on exiger de plus? Toutes les precautions exigées en cas d'empoisonnement ne sont-elles pas suffisantes? Puis, pendant la maladie, ne pourraiton pas exiger du médecin, chaque fois qu'il remarquerait des symptômes douteux ou suspects, qu'il appelat en consultation un on deux confreres, et après examen sérieux, si le doute persistait, qu'il prévint? la justice? Et les matières vomies ne devraient-elles pas être recueillies? Dans de telles circonstances, l'autopsie serait faite ; les viscères, le foie, les organes utiles pour l'analyse chimique, seraient conserves; puis, après un examen attentif de la part du medécin, le corps serait brulé. Il est bien entendu que, sur [-54-] 1a demande d'un des membres de la famille, ou sur les désirs manifestés par le décedé pendant sa maladie, ou sur les moindres soupcons on indices d'une personne quelconque, l'autopsie aurait lieu de droit.'
    "Voilà un ensemble de precautions parfaitement propre a rassurer. La cremation étant autorisée, la police, en vertu des attributions qu'elle possède, et sans qu'il y ait besoin de lois nouvelles, userait de son droit de faire des règlements sur les formalités a remplir. Elle pourrait, dans les cas douteux, prescrire l'autopsie. Mais cette operation laborieuse et dispendieuse ne serait pas la regle generale; car il y a toujours une infinite de cas ou la cause de la rnort est parfaitement connue et ou, par consequent, la cremation ne présente aucun inconvenient. Pour obvier au danger signale par la Commission d'hygiene, d'enlèvement on d'altération des cendres, on pourrait exiger que chaque urne fut scellée et conservée dans le cimetière, pendant plusieurs années; de manière qu'on ne pourrait y porter atteinte sans commettre le delit de violation de sepulture." - Rapport au Conseil Municipal de Paris, 1879.

THE STATE OF OUR GREAT SUBURBAN CEMETERIES.

    The greater portion of the public probably suppose that the forbidding of burials within the town has saved us from all present danger. The following [-55-]concerns cemeteries in the immediate suburbs of London-some of those situated in the most pleasant, and which will soon be crowded, suburbs of London.
    "During the time that the merits of cremation have been under discussion its advocates might have strengthened their case had they been cognisant of the way in which two of the cemeteries of South London were being managed. We refer to the Battersea Cemetery, controlled by a Burial Board elected by the Vestry of Battersea; and to the Tooting Cemetery, managed by a Burial Board elected by the Vestry of Lambeth. The Tooting Cemetery is not in the parish of Lambeth, but is in the parish of Tooting Graveney, which is comprised within the district of the Wandsworth Board of Works; and the Battersea Cemetery abuts upon the district of the Wandsworth Board. Therefore, the members of the Wandsworth Board are concerned, on behalf of their constituents, in the sanitary condition of both cemeteries. In this matter at least the multiplicity of local authorities has not been without its advantages, for it has required the action of the Wandsworth Board to put a stop to the violation of the Secretary of State's regulations in both cemeteries.
    "In April and May an impression prevailed among those resident near the Battersea Cemetery that an [-56-] exceptional amount of sickness in the neighbourhood, including cases of scarlet fever and diarrhoea, was due to the overcrowded and consequent insanitary condition of the burial-ground. Whatever the cause of the sickness, its existence was a fact. The medical officer of health for West Battersea, Dr. Oakman, reported to the Wandsworth Board that the overcrowding also was a fact, and that it was assuming dangerous and alarming proportions. The Home Office was communicated with, Mr. Holland held an inquiry, and all that had been alleged was proved or admitted. The only person responsible in such a case for the violation of the law is the superintendent of the cemetery, who may be fined for every proved offence. In this instance his resignation was required by the Home Office. He has suffered for the sins of himself and his Board, and has been superseded: and under the management of his successor it is hoped that the regulations of the Secretary of State are being observed.
    "A description, in the London weekly organ of the Presbyterians, of a Sunday funeral at Tooting Cemetery, first directed attention to that burial-ground. It was an Irish Catholic funeral, and the mourners lowered the coffin. That was an unusually long one, and, being slightly tilted, it stuck fast half-way down the grave. A gravedigger touched it with his feet, or stood upon it, and some [-57-] excitement ensued. The object of the writer was to furnish reasons for the discontinuance of Sunday funerals. Incidentally, he mentioned circumstances which pointed to illegalities in the conduct of funerals and to the overcrowding of the ground. The article was read in the Lambeth Vestry. The Burial Board instituted an inquiry into what happened on the Sunday, but ignored the suggested illegalities. They sent a letter to the Vestry declaring the article to be sensational and untrue. The Vestry appointed a committee to inquire into the ignored charges. The Clerk to the Board and the Superintendent of the Cemetery being examined as witnesses made a clean breast of it, and admitted everything. The Vestry Committee reported unanimously that every charge was established.
    The irregularities at both the Battersea and the Tooting Cemetery have been of a similar character. In both cases the object was to economise ground and keep down current expenses. The length of time a burial-ground will be available is a mere question of figures if the graves are to be of a certain depth, if there is to be a foot of earth between each coffin, and if no coffin is to be within three or four feet of the top. Dr. Oakman, in his report on the Battersea Cemetery, concludes that, if all regulations are to be carried out, it does not contain sufficient space for a year's burials, and in another part that [-58-] it must be closed in three years. This contingency it was which led the Board, with ground drained to the depth of eight feet, to permit graves to be dug deep enough to hold the coffins of fourteen adults or twenty-six children. The percolation of water into these common graves produced decomposition before the graves were filled; and the emanations from them endangered the health of the clergymen and the mourners at each successive funeral up to the fourteenth or the twenty-sixth, as the case might be. However, as the Board have sacrificed their manager, it may be hoped that these irregularities are things of the past at Battersea.
    "With regard to Tooting Cemetery, what the Wandsworth Board did was to appoint Mr. D. C. Noel, medical officer of health for Streatham and Tooting, and Mr. James Barber, the surveyor for the district, to inquire and report. The soil is gravel and clay, the latter predominating; and it therefore retains water. One day, on making a visit, they saw a coffin exposed in a private grave; it had been laid bare at the request of a family for a member of which the grave had been re-opened. The head of the coffin was immersed in one or two inches of black, offensive water. It was intended to place the next coffin immediately upon that exposed, so that a greater number could be buried in the grave. Messrs. Noel and Barber addressed a serious of questions to the Lambeth Burial Board, and these were frankly [-59-] answered. In this case, too, the ground is drained to the depth of eight feet. One question was, 'Is the under-drainage such as to prevent the accumulation of water in graves?' The answer is, 'As far as possible'. Another question was, 'What is the greatest depth to which graves are dug?' The answer is, 'Generally twelve feet, but in some few cases fourteen feet'. Messrs. Noel and Barber infer from these answers that there is no deep under-drainage. The material regulations affecting this cemetery are that there is to be a foot of earth between each coffin, four feet above the top coffin, and no second interment in an earthen grave on the same day unless it be of a member of the same family. The object of the last requirement as it affects common graves is that time may be allowed for the deposit of a foot of earth, which shall be closely rammed down, never to be again disturbed'. It used to be required that graves should be filled up, but the stringency of this regulation was relaxed by the provision that if a foot of earth were closely rammed down over a coffin, the grave might be available the next day and on each succeeding day until it had received the proper number of coffins to leave the last four feet from the surface. Messrs. Noel and Barber do not seem to have noticed this. The questions and answers bearing upon these regulations are as follow: 'Are several coffins buried in one grave on the same day [-60-] or during the same week?' - 'Yes.' The offence here is in the second interment on the same day; and it was admitted before the Vestry Committee that two interments on the same day were usual, and sometimes there were three. 'Is any layer of earth placed between the coffins in the same common grave, and what thickness?' - 'Hitherto from four inches to six inches, but now one foot.' 'What is the greatest number of persons over twelve years of age in one common grave?' - 'Up to the present time, six; but now, as a foot of earth is placed between each coffin, only four.' 'What is the greatest number under twelve years of age?' - Ten up to the present time; but, as a foot of earth is to be placed between each coffin, there will only be seven.' It is stated, in answer to one question, that six are the greatest number of coffins buried in a family grave; and the extreme depth of any grave is said, in another answer, to be fourteen feet; whereas, to place one foot of earth between each coffin and to place four feet of earth between the last coffin and the surface of the ground would require that the grave should be originally at least fifteen feet deep, instead of only twelve feet or fourteen feet. Messrs. Noel and Barber find, in conclusion, as the Vestry Committee found before them, that the regulations have been violated; but they have apparently fallen into an error in supposing that this cemetery was [-61-] subject to the regulation which requires that any and every grave shall be filled up after one interment. They report that the ground is not drained to such a depth and in such effectual manner as shall prevent the accumulation of water in any grave therein, and that a layer of a foot of earth has not been left over a previously buried coffin.
   "As the municipal government of the Metropolis is under discussion, it may not be inappropriate to point out that, although the Vestry elects the members of a Burial Board, and the Vestry votes the money required by the Board, the Vestry has no control over the Burial Board, the members of which are practically irresponsible. When the Committee of the Lambeth Vestry asked for the attendance of the clerk to the Burial Board and its superintendent at the cemetery, it was found that they were unable to comply with the request without the consent of the Board. The consent was given, but not without a protest against the resolution passed by the Committee, and with the proviso that the permission was not to be treated as a precedent, because the Burial Acts did not authorise the interference of the Vestry in the functions of the Board.
    "The enforcement of the law and of the existing regulations will, it is said, necessitate an appeal to the Home Secretary for some relaxations in the case of the metropolitan cemeteries, most of which it is [-62-] broadly insinuated by the delinquent Boards have been guilty of the same practices. There is something startling in local Boards urging their deliberate breach of well-considered laws as a reason why those laws should be amended. The absorbent properties of soils, the progress of decomposition in different soils, the emanation and diffusion of poisonous gases, the risks of mourners and of adjoining residents, are all elements which have determined the present state of the law, and what is based on scientific fact and experience cannot be changed, to the detriment of the living, for the sake of enabling a local Board to pursue a policy of so-called economy. -Times, November 17, 1874.
    After reading the foregoing passages in italics no one can say the fosse commune of Paris, abominable as it is, is the worst example of the burial of the poor. Do the public, and particularly the women of England, know and acquiesce in the fact that human bodies are stacked, one over the other, with from four inches to a foot of soil between them?
    The Pall Mall Gazette of the following day contained the following:
    "Mr. Holland, the Government Inspector of Burial Grounds, held an official inquiry yesterday into certain allegations which had been made respecting the management of Tooting Cemetery, and the way in which bodies were interred. The most serious [-63-] charge was that the Cemetery Board had never adopted any measures for the sufficient drainage of the cemetery. A very insufficient system of mere surface drainage was, it had been stated, all that had been provided, and in one case, at least, a coffin had been placed in a grave with water in it sufficient to cover the head of it. This was admitted by the Cemetery Board, the chairman of which, Mr Robert Taylor, explained that the more efficient drainage of the ground had been under consideration, and that communications had been in progress for the past eight years. Mr. Holland remarked that communication with the main drainage was what was required, and said that unless some steps were speedily taken in the matter the closing of the cemetery would probably be the result. In the course of the inquiry it was elicited that the entire drainage of the cemetery was conducted into a neighbouring ditch, which discharged itself into the river Wandle, from which many of the inhabitants in its vicinity were accustomed to draw supplies of water."
   After such facts one can sympathise with the declaration of the Rev. Brooke Lambert, in a lecture at Tamworth, that the whole process is, from beginning to end, revolting and disgusting. Such a revolution in our burial arrangements will not come suddenly, but perhaps a little reflection may serve to convince those who have feelings of repulsion to [-64-] urn-burial, that, as a matter of fact, less dishonour is done to the remains of those whom one loves in subjecting them to a fire which reduces them to ashes which can be carefully preserved, than in allowing them to become the subjects of the loathsome process of corruption first, and then subjecting them to the chance of being ultimately carted away to make room for some metropolitan or local improvement.
    Few would not say as much who knew the shocking realities of the cemetery, but those connected with such places do all in their power, for obvious reasons, to keep the painful facts as much concealed as possible from the public. According to the Times report, quoted above, a mere incidental allusion in a class paper was what called attention to such a disgraceful and repulsive state of things. And yet we have a Government Inspector of Burials!
    A correspondent of Land and Water, "E. N. R.", sent to that journal the following:
    "How WE BURN OUR DEAD POOR.-Emerging a few days ago from the dismal recesses of a metropolitan railway-station, I chanced to ask my way of an intelligent young fellow who was going in the same direction, and who cheerfully undertook to conduct me. Having, after some consultation, decided the great question of the weather, past, present, and to come, I casually directed his attention [-65-] to a large cemetery on our right-one of those huge metropolitan burial-grounds established originally far away enough from the haunts of men, but now surrounded by dwellings and closely overlooked by many hundred families.
    "To my astonishment I found I had touched a very familiar chord, for my guide, though not himself following the profession, had an intimate connection with the grave-digging interest, his father having 'worked' in that particular cemetery for three-and- twenty years. It was really with the enthusiasm of a man who knows his subject that he imparted to me the inner working life of the Necropolis, first drawing the broad distinction between the 'privates' and the 'commonses,' alluding almost with pathos to the sacred soil devoted to the former, and detailing with professional sang-froid the management of the ground dedicated to the latter.
    "It is scarcely worth while to reproduce the suburban vernacular in which his remarks were clothed, but he spoke like one who had seen something worth seeing when he exclaimed, 'You should go in there of a night, sometimes, sir, and see them burning the bones and the coffins. You see, they dig up the 'commonses' every twelve years (of course they dare not interfere with the privates), and what they find left of them they burn.'
    "The minute particulars of this exhumation and [-66-] the subsequent cremation were described with a particularity of detail which I am sure I need not attempt; but the moral I draw from this little tale is, that if the poor are to be subjected to cremation at all, surely it would be at least as well to do it in the first instance, and to do it decently, as to postpone the operation for twelve years, and then allow it to be done anyhow!
    "To put the matter quite plainly: a corpse buried in 1862 is dug up to-day (in 1874) and burned, very properly; and apart from the miasmatic exhalations of the grave there is an end of it; but admitting that the earth was virgin ground then, it has now been thoroughly tainted, and its disinfecting powers having been largely exhausted, a new corpse, forsooth, is placed in the old grave to tenant it for a new term!
    "This is a state of things deserving very serious consideration, for it is clear that it cannot go on without fatal results from a sanitary point of view, for such plans as these are only subterfuges - and, I submit, very improper ones - which serve to shelve the great and pressing question for a time."

EVIDENCE AS TO POLLUTION.

 "We," say the reporters of the Sanitary Commission, may safely rest the sanitary part of the [-67-] case on the single fact, that the placing of the dead body in a grave and covering it with a few feet of earth does not prevent the gases generated by decomposition, together with putrescent matters which they hold in suspension, from penetrating the surrounding soil, and escaping into the air above and the water beneath."
    After supporting this statement by illustrations of the enormous force exercised by gases of decomposition, in bursting open leaden coffins whence they issue without restraint, the reporters quote the evidence of Dr. Lyon Playfair to the following effect:
    "I have examined," he says, "various churchyards and burial-grounds for the purpose of ascertaining whether the layer of earth above the bodies is sufficient to absorb the putrid gases evolved. The slightest inspection shows that they are not thoroughly absorbed by the soil lying over the bodies. I know several churchyards from which most fetid smells are evolved; and gases with similar odour are emitted from the sides of sewers passing in the vicinity of churchyards, although they may be more than thirty feet from them . . . "
    He goes on to estimate the amount of gases which issue from the graveyard, and estimates that for the 52,000 annual interments of the metropolis (a number which has already reached 80,000 in 1873, so rapid is the increase of population. The above [-68-] was written in 1849), no less a quantity than 2,572,580 cubic feet of gases are emitted, "the whole of which, beyond what is absorbed by the soil, must pass into the water below or the atmosphere above ". The foregoing is but one small item from the long list of illustrative cases proving the fact that no dead body is ever buried within the earth without polluting the soil, the water, and the air around and above it: the extent of the offence produced corresponding with the amount of decaying animal matter subjected to the process.
    But "offence" only is proved; is the result not only disagreeable but injurious to the living?
    The report referred to gives notable examples of the fatal influence of such effluvia when encountered in a concentrated form; one being that of two grave-diggers who, in 1841, perished in descending into a grave in St. Botolph's Churchyard, Aldgate. Such are, however, extremely exceptional instances; but our reporter goes on to say that there is abundant evidence of the injurious action of these gases in a more diluted state, and cites the well-demonstrated fact that "cholera was unusually prevalent in the immediate neighbourhood of London graveyards ". I cannot cite, on account of its length, a paragraph by Dr. Sutherland, attesting this fact; while the many pages detailing Dr. Milroy's inspection of numerous graveyards are filled with evidence which [-69-] is quite conclusive, and describes scenes which must be read by those who desire further acquaintance with the subject.
    Dr. Waller Lewis reports the mischievous results of breathing the pestiferous air of vaults, and the kind of illness produced by it. His long and elaborate report of the condition of these excavations beneath the churches of the metropolis presents a marvellous view of the phenomena, which, ordinarily hidden in the grave, could be examined here, illustrating the many stages of decay - a condition which he describes as a "disgrace to any 'civilisation.'" But it may be said all this is changed now; intra-mural interment no longer exists; why produce these shocking records of the past?
    Precisely because they enable us to know what it is which we have only banished to our suburban cemeteries ; that we may be reminded that the process has not changed; that all this horrible decomposition, removed from our doors - although this will not long be the case, either at Kensal Green or Norwood, to say nothing of some other cemeteries - goes on as ever, and will one day be found in dangerous vicinity to our homes.

STATE OF COUNTRY CHURCHYARDS.

     To return to our reporters: we have seen the condition of graveyards in towns, but it will not be [-70-]undesirable to glance at the evidence relating to the condition of provincial churchyards, where, in the midst of a sparse population, the pure country air circulates with natural freedom - numbers of such spots are mentioned - let one single example be "Cadoxton Churchyard, near Neath ". Respecting this, the reporter writes: "I do not know how otherwise to describe the state of this churchyard than by saying that it is truly and thoroughly abominable. The smell from it is revolting. I could distinctly perceive it in every one of the neighbouring houses which I visited, and in every one of these houses there have been cases of cholera or severe diarrhoea. This is not a selected specimen, some are even worse; for further examples, see the report of Mr. Bowie, describing graveyards at Merthyr-Tydvil, Hawick, Roxburghshire, Greenock, and other places.-Sir H. Thompson.
    "At a vestry meeting at East and West Looe, Cornwall, the chairman, the Rev. H. Mayo, Vicar of Talland, described the state of the churchyard at Talland, which is the burial-place for West Looe. Over 8000 bodies had been interred, he said, in a little more than half an acre of ground. The usual depth of graves was about 4½ feet deep, deeper graves being out of the question, owing to the friable nature of the soil, which was being continually turned over. There are no spaces between the graves, and when-[-71-]ever a person had to be buried the remains of others had of necessity to be disturbed. The sexton had a curious mode of determining whether or not he would be safe in opening any particular spot. He drove a long iron bar down to the requisite depth, and if he met with no substantial obstacle the grave was dug. Only last week, the chairman said he saw a woman beside a newly-opened grave in bitter distress, because the remains of one dear to her had been ruthlessly dug up and exposed. The repeated burials had raised the soil to such an extent that the church appeared to be in a pit, and the polluted atmosphere rendered the sacred edifice unfit for public service. There was constantly oozing from the graves in the higher part of the yard a horrible slime, which came on the floor of the belfry. He was obliged to keep disinfectants for the safety of the ringers. Fresh primroses, which were gathered and placed in the church for decoration on Easter Saturday, were almost black by the following evening, and a scientific friend had told him it was owing to the presence of sulphuretted hydrogen in the atmosphere, in such quantities as would endanger human life. On Ash Wednesday so fetid was the air in the church that the congregation was obliged to withdraw. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Dr. Holland, the Government Inspector, is of opinion that something must be done to provide a cemetery [-72-] for the united townships; the ratepayers, however, are determined to put off the evil day of spending money as long as possible, and a motion in favour of taking steps for the formation of a Burial Board was defeated." -Times, 1874.

STATE OF FOREIGN CEMETERIES.

     "A SPANISH CEMETERY.-There is a little walled- in spot of sandy, rocky ground, some two miles outside the town from which I write - it is the cimenterio, where at last the bones of the Spanish peasant are laid in peace, waiting for the touch of that magic wand which one day is to make all things new. I entered that sacred ground a few nights since for the first time. Much as I had heard of the beauty of burial-yards abroad, I looked at least for decency and cleanliness. The first thing that struck me as I opened the gate and took off my hat was the sickly, putrid smell, that well-nigh caused me to vomit. Close before me, on a rough hewn and unlettered stone, stood two tiny coffins; the lids (always of glass) were not screwed down. I pushed one aside, and there, beautiful even in death, were the rich tresses and pink cheeks of a child of some eight summers. The other was the coffin of an infant. Both bodies were wrapped, as is customary here, in coloured silver paper-for the clothes are burnt [-73-] invariably, as they might be a temptation to some dishonest person to exhume the coffin from its shallow grave. Just then I looked down, and lo! the whole place was covered with human bones, lying on the surface. The evening breeze rose and fell; coming from the distant Sierra Morena, and wafted to my feet - it clung around my feet - a light loose mass of long and tangled hair. Stooping down to look, I saw that there was plenty of it about; on the gravestones, and around the dry thistles, which grew in abundance, it twined and clung. There was no grass, no turf-only sand, and rocks peeping out. This, then, was the end of life's brief drama here: the rude end of a still ruder life! I saw no tombstones worthy of the name. I asked the old grave-digger when would he bury the two little coffins? 'Manana' (to-morrow), he answered; but the place is so full, I hardly know where to scrape a hole.' "- Macmillan's Magazine.
   Similar unpleasant scenes may be witnessed in many of the fairest mountain districts of Europe, where, notwithstanding thousands of acres of Italy and Switzerland lying waste around, the bones are dug up and exposed for no other "reason" than "want of room"!

[-74-]

THE CEMETERIES OF PARIS.

    This nuisance, in various ways bound up with superstition, is unseen in France, but, to anyone accustomed to associate cemeteries with gardens more or less beautiful, the cemeteries of Paris are far from being agreeable. In these, human love does not fail in its testimony; but such are the evils of overcrowding, of still following plans less evidently wrong when the city was much smaller, and of the odious system of using the same ground for interments many times over, that the best aspects of these cemeteries are painful. Nothing more agreeable is to be seen than crowded stones, and whole acres covered with decaying blackened "immortelles ". In the portions devoted to the graves of the rich, or of such as passed on their way to the grave by the paths of fame or glory, a little chapel or a ponderous tomb often prevents for a time the dust of individuals from mingling with the common clay of their neighbours, and the earth is not used merely as a deodorising medium, as in other parts of the same cemetery.
    Where the poorer people bury their dead in this part of the graveyard may be seen a most revolting mode of sepulture. A very wide trench or fosse is cut, broad enough to hold two rows of coffins placed across it, and one hundred yards or so in length. Here they are rapidly stowed in one after another, [-75-] close together, no earth between the coffins, and wherever the coffins, which are very fragile, happen to be short, so that a little space is left between the two rows, those of children are placed in lengthwise between them to economise space; the whole being done much as a workman would pack bricks together. This is the fosse commune, or grave of the humble class of people, who cannot afford to pay for the ground. The remains of these people thus dishonoured are not even allowed to rest in the grave, such as it is, but after the lapse of a short time their bones are dug up and the ground prepared for another "crop". A cutting, 13 to 14 feet wide, with the earth thrown up in high banks on either side, a priest standing at one part near a slope formed by the slight covering thrown over the buried of that day, and, frequently, a little crowd of mourners and friends, bearing a coffin. They hand it to the man in the bottom of the trench, who packs it beside the others without placing a particle of earth between; the priest says a few words, and sprinkles a few drops of water on the coffin and clay; some of the mourners weep, but are soon moved out by another little crowd, with its dead, and so on till the long and wide trench is full. They do not even take the trouble to throw a little earth against the coffins last put in, but simply place a rough board against them for the night. Those places not paid for in perpetuity are completely [-76-] cleared out, dug up, and used again after a few years. The wooden crosses, little headstones, and countless ornaments are carted away or are thrown together in great heaps, the crosses and consumable parts being generally sent to the hospitals as fuel. The headstones from such a clearance (when not claimed in good time by their owners) go to make the drainage of a drive, or for some similar end. And yet these people, who cannot afford to pay for the ground in perpetuity, go on erecting inscribed headstones, and bringing often their little tokens of love, knowing well that a few years will sweep away these, and that afterwards they cannot even tell where is the dust of those that have been taken from them. One day, when in the Cemetery of Mont Parnasse, I saw the workmen making a new road, the bottom of which was formed of broken headstones, many of them bearing a date four years before. These had been placed on ground that had not been paid for in perpetuity, and were consequently grubbed up at the end of a few years when the ground was required again for another series of these disgusting interments. The plan is, however, on the whole, more decent and less dangerous than the London one of piling many bodies one over the other, with a very little soil between each.

[-77-]

DISRESPECT AND INSULT TO THE DEAD.

     A correspondent of the Medical Times and Gazette, writing from Bordeaux, says:
    " . . . The earth around one of the oldest churches in Bordeaux seems to have something peculiarly antiseptic in its nature, so that the bodies buried during ages were converted into mummies. During some alterations at the beginning of this century these bodies were laid bare, and instead of being decently buried again, they were taken out of their resting-places and ranged upright, in a row, around a crypt under the bell-tower of the church of St. Michel. Here they constitute a disgusting and demoralising show, which is visited by crowds of people, and I am afraid that the clergy of the church are not ashamed to pocket the profits. A rough fellow, with a candle on the end of a stick, such as they have in wine- cellars, goes round as showman. He taps and thumps the bodies to show that they are perfectly sound, tough like leather trunks, and not the least brittle. 'See here, gentlemen, is a very tall man; see how powerful his muscles must have been, and what excellent calves he has now! The next is the body of a young woman. Remark the excellent preservation of her chemise, though it was buried 400 years ago; and see! it is trimmed with lace! The next, gentlemen, is a priest; you can see his [-78-] soutane with the buttons on it. There is a woman with a dreadful chasm in her breast; she had a cancer. The next four are a family poisoned with mushrooms; observe the contortions on their faces from the coliques they suffered. See next a very old man with his wig still awry upon his pate. The next is a poor miserable that was buried alive. See how his head is turned to one side and the body half turned round, in the frantic effort to get out of the coffin, with his mouth open and gasping.' (It is quiet true that the attitude is singular, but it does not warrant the inference which the showman draws from it.) But enough of this disgusting mercenary exhibition of the human body in its lowest state of humiliation. If the guardians of consecrated sepulchres, in which people have paid an honest fee to be buried, are to dig them up and cart them off as in England, or make a show of them as here, why I can only say that 'cremation' will gain a good many converts. Anyone would prefer urn-burial to the chance of being thus made a spectacle. So good, too, it must be for the rising population, to take off the edge of any salutary horror they may feel at death and decay, or of reverence for the dead!
    "MALTA.-One of the chief sights of Malta is the crypt of the Franciscan Convent, in which are preserved the dried bodies of the monks. A monk, holding a lighted candle, went down before us into [-79-] the vault or crypt, into which air and a small allowance of daylight are admitted by windows placed high up in the roof. All round the crypt, in niches, stood the bodies of former tenants of the convent, and a most ghastly sight they were. Each figure was dressed in a monk's habit and cowl, and was propped up by a wooden bar placed before the waist. Our guide held the light close to each figure, so that we might be able to see all the revolting details. In one niche the still corpulent figure of a monk lolled against the wooden bar which supported him: the jaw had sunk, and the tongue hung out of the mouth. In another a tall figure stood with its withered hands, like mouldy parchment, crossed in front of it; the brown beard still clung to the chin, but the eyes had decayed away, and the lips had shrunk back from the teeth, giving the face a dreadful leering expression, greatly at variance with the reverent attitude of the hands. The sight of these horrible figures made me a stronger believer than ever in the advisability of burning the dead. I fancy even the prejudice with which public opinion clings to the unhealthy and disgusting plan of endeavouring to preserve the bodies of the dead would receive a slight shake on having ocular demonstration of what very horrible things our mortal remains must become, even under the most favourable circumstances. The old heathen did very wisely in destroying, as far as possible, all [-80-] disgusting associations with death; and surely there is much less shock to sentiment in having the ashes of those we have 'loved and lost' carefully guarded in a cinerary urn, than knowing that the body is lying festering below, amid all the noxious abominations of churchyard earth." -Edith Osborn, Twelve Months in Southern Europe.
   A correspondent of the Times writes from Alexandria:
    "The other day, at Sakhara, I saw nine camels pacing down from the mummy pits to the bank of the river, laden with nets, in which were femora, tibia, and other bony bits of the human form, some two hundredweight in each net, on each side of the camel. Among the pits there were people busily engaged in searching out, sifting and sorting the bones which almost crust the ground. On inquiry I learned that the cargoes with which the camels were laden would be sent down to Alexandria, and thence be shipped to English manure manufacturers. They make excellent manure, I am told, particularly for Swedes and other turnips. The trade is brisk, and has been going on for years, and may go on for many more. It is a strange fate-to preserve one's skeleton for thousands of years in order that there may be fine Southdowns and Cheviots in a distant land!"
    "ENGLISH VAULTS.-When it is necessary, as [-81-] sometimes it must be, to disturb interments not older than the rest, but of a more ambitious character, the spectacles disclosed are such as to make one envy the pauper, his quicker return to Dame Nature's all-teeming, all-receiving bosom. The family vaults of old parish churches are, as anybody may know, the scene of more grotesque incidents, more sacrilegious robberies, more horrible profaneness, than any spots above ground, however open to the every-day world. Nuisances, as they certainly are, they suffer a Nemesis in the dishonour and contempt they often bring on the poor remains they were designed to protect and honour." -Times, Leading Article, 1874.

FUNERAL CEREMONY.

    "Our whole process of sepulture, with its wood and lead coffins (only necessitated by our custom of keeping the dead so long in our houses) and brick vaults, seems to me almost like an insult to God and a defiance of Nature's laws, endeavouring as we do - how vainly! - to impede or even prevent the carrying out of those laws.
    "And now, sir, one word on a subject akin to the above, not necessarily combined with it as regards reform, though in my opinion they should go hand in hand. I allude to the processes and operations to which, dead and alive, we have to submit from the [-82-] moment of death to that of placing the remains in the grave. how long, I would ask, are we to be subjected to the tyranny of custom and undertakers? How long are we to be smothered with flowing hatbands, scarves, and mourning cloaks, mobbed and overpowered by mutes, ostrich feathers, &c.? How long are we to continue to see the remains of some quiet old gentleman or lady, who perhaps never in his or her life sat behind anything more exalted than a small pony, drawn to their last home by four long-tailed black horses, or some one who, having lived unloved, dies unmourned, and is yet attended to his grave by half a dozen hired mourners at 5s. per day and their beer? Truly, it is all vanity and vexation of spirit - a mere mockery of woe; a prolongation and refining of misery to the really miserable, a source of ridicule and contempt to those who are actors or spectators; costly to all, far, far beyond its value; and ruinous to many; hateful, and an abomination to all; yet submitted to by all, because none have the moral courage to speak against it and act in defiance of it.
    "LORD ESSEX."

CREMATION, NATURE'S PROCESS.

   "It is easily demonstrable that cremation is Nature's one only process of resolving lifeless matter [-83-] into its elements, and that under any circumstances it is but a question whether this mode of consuming the lifeless human body shall occupy a longer or a shorter period. The sun is the source of all chemical change. All chemical action is, in fact, a form of cremation. Life itself is carried on by a process of combustion, and all human beings are carrying on the process within them from the cradle to the grave. When the fire which effects this result is extinguished, we should get rid of the body by Nature's most rapid means of cremation and burn it. Nature gets rid of fermenting, corrupting matter by this means, and often indicates the consummation she is aiming at by spontaneous combustion.
    "If inhumation had been Nature's best process of getting rid of dead animal and vegetable matter, we may depend upon it that the beasts would have instinctively buried their dead. But not only has she not implanted such an instinct, but she has developed birds and savage beasts to feed on garbage and carrion, and by this means to cremate what would otherwise prove noxious and pestilential, by the process of digestion. Fire was always considered to be a sacred element by the ancients. It was never allowed to expire in the temples, and it still burns as an emblem of purity and intelligence before the altar. Cremation was esteemed the acceptable mode of making an offering. 'I will purge with fire,' [-84-] 'I will not suffer My Holy One to see corruption,' are familiar texts. Which, then, is the greater desecration of human remains, to burn them with fire or to give them over to the earth and to a long process of slow combustion and corruption-a corruption that one instinctively revolts at, and which is too horrible to be contemplated?
    "Cremation ensures the purity of the atmosphere and of the springs, both of which are contaminated to a frightful and incalculable extent by the present system of interment, as we shall immediately show. Data shall be given which will put the state of things resulting from this system in its most appalling light. The registered deaths in the United Kingdom for 1874 were 699,747. Taking this as an approximate annual death registry for Great Britain, and allowing ten years for the complete resolution of the body under the present mode of interment - a period, it is believed, considerably below the mark - we have in the kingdom nearly seven millions of dead bodies lying in various stages of decomposition, and giving off noxious exhalations by means of percolation to the atmosphere, and by sending down contaminating matter to the subterranean -reservoirs. Calculating for London alone, there were, in 1872, 76,634 deaths; there are therefore, at a rough estimate, nearly a million of human bodies festering in its immediate neighbourhood. Fortunately for the springs, some [-85-] of the cemeteries are on clayey soils, and bodies interred in them are to a certain extent locked up in their clay vaults, only to be a source of mischief when they are opened. Some of these graves have been described, by one who is bound to know, as 'very cesspools' of human remains, which give forth their noxious gases whenever broken into for the purpose of some fresh interment, as many a mourner has experienced to his cost. Bodies, on the other hand, which have been buried in sandy soils are more quickly resolved, say in some six or seven years. Interments in sandy soils, however, are more likely to endanger the health of the living, for by percolation the fluids contaminate the springs and the foul gases are exhaled into the atmosphere. If human remains were buried in quick lime their dissolution would be more rapidly effected; but on the slightest reflection it is perceived that this method is but a method of cremation. Why not, therefore, at once adopt the more direct, complete, and rapid progress of cremation, and ensure the purity of the air and water for the benefit of the living? Deference should be paid to custom and to prejudice. We would not interfere with the sanctity of the funeral rite, nor deprive the Church of its dues. It would be a good bargain if we could obtain the adoption of cremation at the price of double fees. It is quite possible to have cremation with precisely the [-86-] same funeral ceremonies as at present." -W. CAVE THOMAS, Social Notes.

REASONS AGAINST COFFINLESS BURIAL, OR THE "EARTH TO EARTH" SYSTEM.

    "Though strongly averse to half measures on a question of such vital and universal importance, I hail with pleasure Mr. Seymour Haden's proposals concerning reform in the undertaker department as a step in the right direction, but still am inclined to go deeper and dive to the root of the evil, by maintaining the importance of a more decided change.
    "In the first place, I would remark that one great argument in favour of cremation is that the present poisoning of our watercourses and springs would be for ever at an end so far as our cemeteries arc concerned, but that if Mr. Seymour Haden's proposals should be adopted (admirable in intention as they are), still the evil would remain, and not only remain, but be aggravated doubly-ay, trebly.
    "To illustrate my meaning, suppose a cemetery in which there are, say, for the sake of argument, thirty interments weekly. Under the present system, which is opposed to Nature, and revolting in the extreme, the thirty bodies encased in the strong leaden or oaken prisons decompose slowly, taking years over that operation, and do not con-[-87-]taminate the surrounding earth or springs or vitiate the air in at all a sudden manner.
    "But turn now to the other picture; look at it in the new light, and suppose - horrible supposition! - that the thirty bodies (in which the proc