"Section 2 is subdivided into three parts: "First, the maison mortuaire and its decorations, in which the corpse is laid out in state, drapery, candlesticks, candles, crosses, &c. "Second, the decorations and hangings of the church or chapel. 66 Third, the funeral cortège: the arrangement and cost of which for the third class, the one generally used by respectable people, I subjoin :— Hearse with two horses, harness with plumes and silver Francs. 120 For each carriage with mourning drapery 15 francs, the num- For each varnished mourning-coach 12 francs, the number 48 A master of ceremonies Two "officiers en manteau,' "to carry the "pièces d'hon- Two embroidered cushions, with crape to receive them 8 825 60 12 24 20 64 36 Francs 384 "The third section, relating to anniversary services, is subdivided into— "Personnel, comprehending the services of the clergy, masses, &c.; and 66 Matériel, such as candles, decorations, &c. "The following abstract of the amount paid for each class under the several heads mentioned, will give an idea of the relative expenses incurred :— 3,662 3, 073 1,812 1,006 75 659 50 250 0 101 59 1975 The next part of the Report is taken up with exposing the iniquities of the cemetery companies. Our readers will not need this: we shall merely quote one or two passages. "The directors of the General Cemetery Company,' they say in the Report, p. 8, knowing the difficulty as well as the expense of obtaining ground for burial (as a cemetery always depreciates the property around), and contemplating that a Bill may pass to prohibit burials in the crowded Metropolis, offer seven acres of their ground at Kensal-green, adjoining the cemetery, for the burial of the poor, under such regulations as may be thought advisable.' "It has been found,' they add, that seven acres will contain about 133,500 graves; each grave will receive ten coffins; thus accommodation may be provided for 1,335,000 deceased paupers.' "Here it is proposed to inter ten coffins in one grave, and to bury 1,335,000 bodies in seven acres of land—a proposition which, to say the least, indicates no improvement beyond the double graves of the metropolitan parish burialground, or the grave-pits of Liverpool and Manchester." Again, Mr. Whatley, a cemetery company director, says:— "The interests of joint-stock companies and the interests of the public are now, and, so far as any practical remedy that I can suggest, ever will be, at variance on the following points : "1st. Public health requires that cemeteries should be reasonably distant from dwellings. "2nd. Sanatory as well as social interests require that graves should not be too deep; separate interments and inhumation in preference to entombment. "3rd. All classes, and the poor especially, require aid and protection against all needless delay and cost in the burial of the dead." "Private interests require them as near as possible where there is competition, and as far as possible where there is none. "Whether with or without competition, the greatest profit will accrue from burying ten to twenty in one deep grave, and in selling the soil itself rather than the use of it. "The undertakers, against whom this protection is required, may become the owners, and are always the patrons, of joint-stock cemeteries." We must not now stop to dwell on some very curious facts stated at length; such as that, when corpses are buried too closely together, instead of decomposition, transcomposition takes place; and again, the beneficial influence of trees in hastening the return of dust to dust. The proposal of the Commissioners is, 1. To purchase, at a valuation, the existing Metropolitan cemeteries: i.e. to enlarge Kensal-green, making it the Western cemetery: while for the Eastern, a site (said to be at Erith) is pointed out. "It is abbey-land, and has been consecrated ground for many centuries. It rises by a gradual ascent from the river-bank to the height of eighty-feet above high-water mark. The surface is moderately irregular, being here and there a good deal broken, but consisting, for the greater part, of gentle undulations and slopes. It comprises an ample extent of land, in a tract of gravelly and firm sandy soil over chalk. Immediately beneath the gravel is a bed of sand from seventy to eighty feet in depth, so firm that when cut with the spade it stands perpendicularly, requiring no shoring." The access to be both by railway and by steamers, with lich-houses along the side of the river. "Again it is proposed that to secure the proper decencies of burial, and to put an end to the injurious influence to health occasioned by the careless and unchecked disposal of bodies, it be, with the exceptions above referred to, unlawful to inter in any other place than the public burial-grounds within the prescribed precincts." "That it be unlawful to inter more than one corpse in one grave.”— According to the practice of the Church, exception was always made in the case of husband and wife. "8. That in every cemetery there be a part consecrated and a part unconsecrated, and that in the consecrated part there be erected a church adapted to the purpose, and fitted also for full services according to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England; and that in the unconsecrated part there be erected a commodious chapel. "9. That the new consecrated grounds be under the same ecclesiastical jurisdiction in matters spiritual, and in respect to the performance of the service and the superintendence of the Chaplains, as the parochial burialgrounds for which they are to serve as substitutes now are; that the inhabitants retain the same right of sepulture as they would have had in their respective burial-grounds, subject to the general provisions which may be necessary for the public health and the convenience of sepulture; and that the incumbents have the right of performing the burial-service for any of their parishioners in the public cemetery, subject to the regulations established for the same." This last regulation we consider especially excellent. The whole of the funeral regulations, tariffs, &c., would be under government inspection, a commission of five persons being instituted for the purpose. We cannot help quoting the following in favour of lich-houses. We are sorry to find them called reception houses in the report: a vague, unmeaning, and un-English term. It completely bears out our assertions on the baneful effects of keeping corpses in the houses of the poor. 666 "Nearly the whole of the labouring population in my district,' says Mr. John Liddle, Medical officer of the Whitechapel Union, 'have only one room; the corpse is therefore necessarily kept in that one room, where the inmates sleep and have their meals; the corpse being sometimes stretched on the bed, the bed and bed-clothes being taken off, and the wife and family lying on the floor; at other times the corpse is stretched on a board, which is placed on chairs: when children die, they are frequently laid out on a table. Other deaths often follow the first death in the same family, especially in an epidemic season.'' Again : "In respect to decomposition, there is sometimes much liquid, and the coffin is tapped to let it out; has known them keep the corpse after the coffin has been tapped twice. This liquid generates animal life very rapidly ; and within six hours after a coffin has been tapped, if the liquid escapes, maggots, or a sort of animalcules, are seen crawling about: I have frequently seen them crawling about the floor of a room inhabited by the labouring classes, and about the tressels on which the tapped coffin is sustained. In such rooms the children are frequently left whilst the widow is out making arrangements connected with the funeral, and the widow herself lives there with her children. I frequently find them all together in a small room with a large fire.” And this as to the absolute necessity of biers. Dr. Milroy states: "That among the poorer classes, the corpses are often kept far too long before burial. If a person dies on Thursday or Friday, the body is seldom buried before the second Sunday following. He has been repeatedly obliged to forbid the coffin being taken into the church, to the great offence and grief of the mourners, in consequence of the horrible effluvia often perceptible many yards off. He has on such occasions seen the sleeves of the bearers quite dripping with the sanies that leaked from the coffin. How the men can stand the disgusting employment, walking as they often have to do, for a mile or more under a pall all the while, and this too generally in warm weather, (for the occurrence is most frequent then,) is indeed surprising. No wonder that they usually drink to excess after such work. 66 He has repeatedly seen the putrid discharge from the coffin dripping down along the clothes of the undertaker's men who carried it, so that the whole line of the funeral procession from the gate to the grave might be traced by the drippings on the ground! This is a monstrous evil that cannot be too quickly put a stop to.' The expense of funerals is thus stated: "The cost to the gentry for each funeral of an adult is £100, the estimated cost under the proposed system of interments is £38 10s., being a saving of nearly two-thirds. First-class tradesmen under the present system, £50; under the proposed system £16 10s., being a saving of more than two-thirds. Second-class tradesmen under the present system, £29 10s. ; under the proposed system £9 9s., being a saving of more than two-thirds. Artizans under the present system, £5: under the improved system £2 10s., being a saving of one-half. The total annual saving upon the whole of the interments of the metropolis may be estimated in round numbers at £350,000.” Next, after some nonsense (quoted with approbation from Dr. Sutherland, who should have remembered the ne sutor,) about "denominational" liberality abroad, (a clear exception, we are glad to see, is made in the case of Jews,) we are glad to read what follows: "The religious authorities with whom we have consulted, have represented to us their sense of the importance of providing means for the celebration of funeral rites, under circumstances which will naturally revive and strengthen the impressions and feelings associated with the usual performance of Divine service. They therefore deem it desirable that in the consecrated part of the eastern cemetery a church should be erected of sufficient magnitude to obtain the effect of solemnity and impressiveness that may be derived from appropriate architecture, and they are of opinion that, however the design and execution of such an edifice may fulfil this object, the end will be still more completely attained by the appropriation of the building as a church in which, especially on the Sundays, the usual services of that day may be performed. They have expressed their conviction that many would attend those services with peculiar interest, from the consciousness of their nearness at that moment to all that remains on earth of the objects of their affections, and that there would be no difficulty in rendering the celebration of funeral rites in a church thus doubly suggestive of the most touching associations, incomparably more solemn and imposing than has hitherto been effected in this country, excepting, perhaps, in some rare instances, as on the occasion of the interment of royal persons, or of men whom the country has endeavoured to honour by the expression of national gratitude for national services. It might be very practicable to secure also the impressive accompaniment of music, whether by the performance of a single voluntary, or by some form of choral service, and it is conceived that there are many on whom the compositions of our great masters would, on such an occasion, have an elevating and consoling effect; but these details must be confided to those who may be charged with the direction of this service in communication with ecclesiastical authorities." We need not stop to observe how very far short this stops of what we should have; that the great means of consolation is omitted. But it is a step and a long one too in the right direction. And here, most reluctantly, we must end. Our readers will scarcely fail to observe how strongly all we have said on the subject of funerals is corroborated by this report. We can assure them that, notwithstanding the length of this article, we have been compelled to omit much that we could have desired to quote. We earnestly hope that such as have practical acquaintance with the subject, will not rest till they have studied the report for themselves. We do not forget that the present number of the Ecclesiologist will appear on Easter Eve. At the season when we are taught how, and by Whom, the grave was hallowed, the foregoing observations seem more peculiarly applicable. And though most of our readers will not receive them till they have entered on their Paschal joy, the season of the Resurrection should, of all others, so teach us to endeavour to secure the repose of the faithful, that "Jam non sit causa flere Qui rite viam flexit Si Christus Resurrexit: ECCLESIOLOGICAL LATE CAMBRIDGE CAMDEN SOCIETY. A COMMITTEE meeting was held on March 5, 1850, Mr. Hope, M.P., in the chair, and was attended by Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Chambers, Rev. G. H. Hodson, Mr. Forbes, Sir C. Anderson, Mr. Gordon, Rev. T. Helmore, Rev. B. Webb, Mr. France, Mr. Wegg-Prosser, M.P. J. Hopkins, Esq., architect, of Worcester, was elected an ordinary member. It was agreed that the plates for No. II. of the Second Series of Instrumenta Ecclesiastica should comprise longitudinal and transverse sections of the Lichhouse, given in Part I., besides designs for plain chancel-stalls, low chancel-screens, in stone and wood, a moveable metal desk for occasional offices, and a weathercock and cross. It was agreed to collect the various papers that have appeared in the Ecclesiologist on the subject of funerals, cemeteries, &c., and to publish them as a tract, with any necessary revisions or additions. The Spicilegium Solesmense, now preparing for the press by Dom Pitra, a Benedictine, was brought under the notice of the Committee, as containing the earliest known treatise on the symbolism of churches and church ornaments; and it was resolved to notice the work in the next number of the Ecclesiologist. An answer from the Commission appointed to preside over the great Exhibition of works of art and industry, in the year 1851, was read, and a report drawn up so as to embrace various suggestions made to the Commission by the Committee of the Ecclesiological Society, was |