ON EXTRAMURAL INTERMENT.

Report of the General Scheme for Extramural Sepulture. Presented to both Houses by command of Her Majesty. Pp. 172.

To this Report we alluded in our last number as forthcoming; and it has, on the whole, fully justified the favourable anticipations with which we regarded it. There are some few opinions and expressions with which we are compelled to disagree :—but the scheme, taken altogether, is one which is really comprehensive, and strikes at the root of the wicked systems under which as yet we suffer.

We propose to go through it; dwelling on the various subjects of which it treats, in the order in which they appear in the Report.

The Commissioners were; Lord Carlisle, Lord Ashley, Mr. Chadwick, and Dr. Southwood Smith. Mr. J. Griffith, the planner of Kensal-Green, and Mr. Cresy, appear to have been the architects, and Mr. Marshall of S. Bride's, the Theologian, of the Commission, while the provincial and foreign reports were mainly entrusted to Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Milroy. We feel bound to express our regret that one or more Bishops were not included in the Commission. In our age, when Prelates are compelled to sit on Railway Committees, Privilege Committees, and to interfere in all sorts of secular business, surely in a matter so absolutely connected with the Church, they have a right to pronounce an authoritative opinion.

"There appear to be two points of view," says the Report, "in which the practice of Intramural Interment requires to be considered. 1. Its effect on the public health. 2. On the decency and solemnity of burial."

For the sanatory abominations we must refer to the Report itself, and dwell almost exclusively on the more immediately Ecclesiastical branch of the subject.

Tavistock burial ground, Drury Lane, was closed "fourteen years ago, in consequence of its overcrowded and very offensive state; but it was again opened two or three years afterwards. . . . Already in the present year 127 bodies have been added to this overcharged mass of corruption. . . . The ground, according to the statement of the sexton, often feels quite greasy to the fingers." In S. Giles's cemetery, Old S. Pancras road, "a pit, or what is called a double grave, is always dug, and is left open, boards only being laid above the mouth, until it is filled up with the due number of coffins. . . . A grave of this sort will hold, if it be 14 feet deep, about eighteen adult coffins, and of course many more of children. The next grave is opened close along side of the one just filled up, and no space of earth left between : consequently the pile of coffins in the latter is very generally exposed in the act of working the new grave. This is what is technically called working the ground very close." In Christ Church, Broadway, Westminster, the curate "has seen as many as eight coffins exposed in one grave and when I mentioned to him that a person had informed

me that he had, on one occasion, witnessed no fewer than sixteen coffins so exposed, viz. four on each side, and four at each end of the grave, Mr. James assured me that he could quite believe the statement." We had occasion, a year or two ago, to make some remarks on the enormity of "taking in" churchyards, to form a new road or a new street. In this of Christ Church, we have a shocking example. A very considerable portion of its area, nearly one quarter, I believe, has been given up for the purpose of being taken into the new line of street now forming in Westminster." In S. Clement Danes burial ground, Portugal Street, "on the 28th of August, where a very deep grave had been dug, . . the remains of at least ten different skeletons were thrown up." The burial grounds of S. Bartholomew the Great are indeed truly horrible. We will imitate the good sense and manliness of the Commissioners, in not asterisking or suppressing any of the shocking abominations described.

"1. The west or front ground is the chief one. It is considerably larger than the other three, although it does not contain above 500 square yards of superficial area. It is enclosed on two sides by the rears of the houses in Cloth-fair. Some of these houses have the privilege of having a door leading directly into the graveyard; but it is not very obvious for what purpose this privilege was granted, except that the residents might be able to use it as a substitute for a back yard, where they might deposit any spare lumber. I was informed that a small sum has been paid for the benefit of this privilege. Another person stated to me that some of the owners of the houses had been permitted for a consideration' to encroach upon the burialground. In one corner there were standing some old dilapidated furniture, an empty tar-barrel, and a quantity of rusty iron utensils. The surface of the ground I found to be strewed with fragments of human bones, intermingled with fish and fowl bones that had been thrown out of the windows, dead rats, and other refuse. The inhabitants in the overlooking houses are apt, the sexton said, to empty their basins out upon the ground, when there is no one there to prevent them.

Graves are occasionally dug close up to the very walls and windows of the houses; and the effluvia from the ground when opened are declared to be often most offensive. The graves have sometimes been so shallow, that not above 18 inches, or a couple of feet at most, have been left between the top of the coffin and the ordinary surface of the ground.

"2. The second, or green ground, is situated on the south side of the church. It is not above a third of the size of the former one, and is altogether in a still worse and more discreditable condition. It looks indeed much more like a dust and rubbish yard, than a place for the interment of human beings. In one corner stood a large heap of ashes at the side of a privy; in another there was a quantity of old bricks and mortar; in a third there was an unclosed grave, which, although it had already received five or six coffins, was only covered over with a few boards, and some handfuls of earth strewed upon them, and was therefore ready to receive more coffins before being entirely shut;

while in the remaining corner, over a comparatively recent grave, was to be seen a neatly-kept little mound, carefully hooped over to keep the earth together, and presenting a sad and painful spectacle, by the very contrast of its decency to the grossly neglected state of the rest of this ground.

"3. But of all the graveyards, the north one is immeasurably the worst in every respect. A person could scarcely believe that it could ever have been used as a place of sepulture. It forms a long narrow strip, not above 10 or 12 feet in width, between the walls of the church on one side, and the rears of some old dirty houses in Cloth-fair, which in some parts overhang the ground, on the other. To a stranger it has all the appearance of a filthy back-yard common to several low and filthy houses. The surface is strewed with cabbage-leaves, parings of turnips, fish-bones, and other sorts of rubbish, with large splashes of filthy water that had been recently emptied from some adjacent window. There is a large pile of hen-coops at one end, and a couple of dog-kennels at another part. Upon inquiring to whom they belonged, the schoolmaster of the parochial schools informed me that they were his property, adding, that the management of the ground had been left by the churchwardens in his hands for the last three or four years, and that he made use of it as a convenient place to keep his fowls in. At the present season of the year, he said, it did not look nice, but in summer the grass grew quite beautifully! Before his time, the grave. yard, he told me, was in a horrible state, and not fit to be entered by any one, being ankle-deep in many places with excrement, which had been thrown out from the houses in Cloth-fair, and no better than a common dungyard. Yet then, or at least not very long before, it was the pauper burial-ground for the parish; and that multitudes of human corpses have been thrust into it, is sufficiently evident from the great rising of the ground by many feet above the level of the adjacent court. It must, indeed, have been a shocking spectacle to have witnessed the mockery of a Christian funeral here. No one would bury a favourite dog in such a spot. Taken altogether, I have not seen anything called a graveyard so thoroughly disgusting, and so revolting to every sentiment of common decency, not to mention religion, as this ground; nor did I ever leave a place, where I knew that my fellow-creatures had been laid, with feelings of such indignant regret."

We add the following description from Dr. Milroy, in order to direct attention to the inconceivable abomination stated in the sentences in italics.

BURIAL-GROund, WADE-STREET, ALL SAINTS, POPLAR.-" Full of human remains. Many of the residents in Wade-street, which forms the western boundary of the graveyard, complain of offensive effluvia from the ground, especially when the graves are dug close to the wall: that is, nearest to their dwellings. The officiating clergyman, the Rev. James Hearsnep, admitted that these foul smells were often perceptible from the open graves in this situation; but stated that, in his opinion, the smells were attributable not so much to the decomposition of the bodies that were therein deposited, as to the escape underneath the intervening wall of the contents of the privies of those houses into the graves.

He himself had good reason to suspect that this had been the case on more than one occasion."

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It will be understood that in all these cases no burial can take place without the previous employment of the borer :-and when this accursed instrument goes down without encountering any particular obstacle, the grave is dug and if the end of a coffin, or the leg, or arms, or head of a corpse has to be chopped off, it cannot be helped. But all this does not make room. In New Bunhill-fields cemetery, Islington, one witness states that such has been the nearness to the surface at which bodies are laid, that he has kicked against coffins while walking. And during the dark nights, between the hours of 12 and 3 A.M., he is in the habit of hearing the sound of work in various parts of the ground, and [seeing] a light moving about: but during moonlight nights nothing of the kind was heard." In the burial-ground, Butler's Place, Horsley Down,-by which the South-Eastern Railway passes, a schoolmaster, residing in the neighbourhood, takes upon himself the duty of reading the burial service." Surely this assumpby a layman of the sacerdotal character, for the purpose of getting fees, amounts to obtaining money under false pretences :-or, if it cannot be brought under this head, it should surely be made a misdemeanor, punishable at common law. Only a few days ago a friend of ours, happening to be in one of the city churches, overheard a conversation between the clerk, who is an undertaker, and a gentleman who was arranging a funeral. It was to be in Bunhill-fields. But," said the gentleman, some of the friends belong to the Church of England, and I am afraid, will not like the service unless it be read by a clergyman.”"Nothing easier, Sir," said the clerk : 'I will borrow a surplice, and one of my men shall wear it."

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From cemeteries, we proceed to vaults.-"That of S. Mary-at-Hill is in a condition that is a disgrace to any civilized nation. There are placed some hundred and fifty coffins, in all possible positions, piled one above another, the lower crushed by the weight of those above. The great majority are broken and decayed; the remnants of mortality falling out between the rows of coffins. In the two further corners, large collections of bones are piled together without order or decency, -a most revolting sight." At S. Peter's, Cornhill, and S. Mildred in the Poultry, no one dares to enter the vaults till the large trap doors have been opened for many hours.-Again; it appears that, in many vaults, a periodical clearing out takes place.-In S. Paul's, Covent Garden, the old leaden coffins used to be removed during the night, and the lead sold.-At S. Andrew Undershaft, the last clearing was made about twenty years ago. "Everything above a hundred years old was then turned out. Many of the coffins were crushed quite flat. I do not know how many coffins were thus removed, but there must have been a great many, as it took a week to do. The contents of the coffins were buried in the churchyard.-I do not know what was done with the lead." Well may the Commissioners say, "There has evidently been much reprehensible laxity in the guardianship of these places generally throughout the metropolis. Even at the present day, in many instances, the keys are kept by the sexton or sextoness, and

the churchwarden knows little or nothing of the condition or contents of the vaults.

"From this state of things, and the notion that obtains among many persons, that the remains once deposited in these receptacles are not always sacred, but are removed at intervals, to make room for fresh deposits, has arisen the custom of purchasing private vaults. These consist sometimes of small portions of the public vault, partitioned off from the rest by brick walls, with an iron or wooden gate, the key of which is kept by the owners of the vault. At other times, strong iron chains are suspended from the roof, and pass completely round the pile of coffins, which are thus separated from the rest. Large sums are paid for this seclusion, varying from £50 to £200, in addition to the usual fees charged for vault funerals."

We said, in our last number, how little we could sympathise with a leaden coffin. Here we find that "in wooden coffins decomposition

goes on much more rapidly, three or four years generally sufficing to re- 1

duce the contents to a dry powdery bony skeleton." Whereas, "in one instance a coffin that had been sixty-seven years in the vaults, contained nearly two gallons of a coffee-coloured ammoniacal fluid." The stone coffins of our ancestors are not cases in point, because they always, we believe, had a hole in the lower part, by which moisture might drain away.

Now, lest our country readers should think that London alone is to blame in this matter, we will take a few examples from other places.— Taunton S. Mary Magdalen:

"The quantity of human remains removed from the churchyard of S. Mary Magdalen and converted into manure is estimated much higher than 500 cart loads, by well-informed parties resident in the town; and it was stated to me on good authority, that such was the spectacle presented by the bones scattered over the fields, that in one instance they had to be gathered together and put into a hole."

Again :

"The_law requires that graves shall have 24 feet of earth over all; and an attempt has been made in Liverpool to limit the practice of burying in common graves and pits by compelling the covering of coffins with this depth of soil. The law is evaded in two instances in an ingenious manner.

"At S. Anthony's Chapel, Liverpool, a large box, capable of containing the requisite depth of earth is suspended from a windlass over the mouth of the pit, and this box is lowered till the surface of the earth which it contains is on a level with the soil in the churchyard. In another instance, a scaffolding is placed in the grave at the depth of 2 feet from the surface, and the space is filled in with earth, which, however, is removed for the next interments, and thrown on the surface. The scaffolding is then lifted out, and the bodies lowered, after which it is replaced and the earth filled in. In some instances it is customary to allow the grave to remain open till the whole day's burials have taken place, and then a layer of earth is strewn over the coffins."

It appears that the Roman Catholics are as guilty as ourselves.

"At S. Austin's Catholic chapel, Manchester, they bury four bodies in the same grave. In the burial-ground behind Livesay-street Catholic chapel,