The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-27 00:00:00

CITY LyTERMENTS.

Thai.°flowing is the introductory report by the Officer
of Health :

TO THE IMPROVEMENT COMMITTEE OF THE HON. THE
COMMISSIONERS OE' SEWERS OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
Gentlemen,—Tinder the several clauses of the Maro-
politan Burials Act, and under certain clauses of the City
Sewers-Act, 1848, the Commissioners of Sewers, acting
as &burial board.for the City of London, will be subject
to the followin, r,Sponsibilities

~ ,~.-

1144 ri,;n ~f
Secondly,—That the facilities of tran'it convey-
awl() to suPl! burial place be commensurate with the pur-
poses for which it is estallishe-1.
- ev:; no :c.crlie to the health of
the City "froni u,:neoesary delays of interment, or from
the keeping of dead bolies io the dwelling-rooms of the
poor. To increa,e the ufficiency of a burial place, one
must know for what tioni.:er, of population it is intended
to suffice. Burial boards, under the new act, are
obliged to provide accommodation for all parishioners
or inhabitants of the several parishes within their juris-
diction.

Under the term " parishioners," as relating to the
City, there may be included, I am told, an indefinite
number of non-resident ratepayers ; and although, at
first, interment might not be claimed under the latter
head to any considerable extent, yet, with the comple-
tion and success of your cemetery, the applications might
year by year become triere numerous. From the nature
of the case, such elai'mants would, in most instances, be
of the I,v-mithi,:r classes ; and might, cmisequently, be
expected to apply for special allotments of ground. It
seems, therefore, desirable that you should have some
knowledge of the number for whom you may thus be
required to provide.
would,, accordingly, suggest as expedient, that a legal
opinion should be obtained on your exact liabilities under
the. law referred to, and especially as to whether the
rigEt'of burial possessed by nun-resident ratepayers does
lik..ewise extend to the non-resident householders of such
ratepayers.
In the meantime I will leave this set of claimants out
or my argument, assuming that, whenever you have
reckoned their number, you will be able on their account
to add to your general estimate, according to a fixed
proportion, the assessment of whatever additional accom-
modation they may legally require.
The number of deaths belonging to the inhabitants of
the city of London may be more precisely given. It
would probably lie as an average within 3,200 per
annum.

In attempting to fix the extent of ground required for
bring
before purpose, in respect of this mortality, I must
before you some preliminary considerations.
I. As regards the minimum accommodation to be given
in your cemetery, I assume that every person buried
there, however humble his previous station of life, may
in death claim a grave to himself. It has been the op-
probrium of our previous system that in the poorer
classes of interments many bodies have been huddled to-
gether into a single pit. Probably you will think, as
regards your future burial place, that no consideration
of cheapness can justify this indecency ; probably you
will be unwilling that, in a presence which confounds
all social comparisons, there should be drawn, with your
sanction, between rich and poor, any so disrespectful
distinction. But, at all events, on similar grounds I
feel bound to assure you that these multiple burials are
quite inadmissible. With such concentration of organic
remains in very narrow compass the soil grows utterly
fcetid, and it becomes impossible to guard against dan-
ger to those who are occupied in digging and tending
the ground. These evils, indeed, as so glaring, and the
indecorum of crowded interment has long been so noto-
rious, that nothing could have given them continuance,
except the necessities of our narrow accommodation
under the system of intramural burial ; and it would of
course be without excuse to perpetuate them under the
changed circumstances of extramural cemeteries, where
space can so readily be obtained for all legitimate re-
quirements of the public. So far as the experience of
other countries may help to determine your judgment
in this matter, I may inform you that in every foreign
interment system which can deserve to be considered an
establishment of public authority, the right of single
burial is universally recognised.
Next, as regards the succession of interments. Ac-
cording to the burial usage of modern times, no public
cemetery with fixed limits can be permanently useful
except on a full recognition of the fact that it is a de-
caying-place for the dead, not a place for their em-
balment or mummification. For hence it follows that
ground once used for burial becomes equally fitted
for a second use whenever, by gradual decomposition,
the bodies first interred there have thoroughly vanished
from the soil.

This principle has given the common rule of burial,
and for obvious reasons. Under any other plan the
entire area allotted for interment would presently be in
holding. No portion, however remote the date of its
first occupation, could be resumed for a second series
of interments, and the provision of a new cemetery would
be indispensable. Pushed to extreme consequences, such
a system must eventually convert the entire country
into its burial ground.
Under the practice of intramural interments—that
practice which the new law supersedes—the principle of
temporary tenure has been made to cover all manner
of brutal abuses. Graves have been disturbed within
metropolitan churchyards and other burying grounds, in
which the transformations of decay had not half ac-
complished themselves ; and public decency has been
outraged here in the centre of civilisation by the spec-
tacle of human remains being tossed about like offal.
It is one chief advantage of extramural sepulture, that
while the inevitable decay of the dead will be removed
from the vicinity of the living, and the latter will no
longer have their atmosphere tainted by this hideous
contamination, so likewise for the dead, however hum-
ble, that in this new resting place room will be
allotted them with no indecent stint ; that the dwell-
ing and market places of the living will no longer
harm them in grudging their narrow requirements ;
that their return to dust will be respected as beseems
the last phase of mortal existence ; and that against
any desecration of their repose there will be given
every security which piety and affection can demand.
There may be difference of opinion as to the pre-
uise time when a grave can, with truth and decency,
be thought to have become distenanted. The rapidity
of decay varies in so extraordinary a degree, accord-
ing to soil, that some inhumations are almost equiva-
lent to embalming, while in other cases the process is
comparatively rapid. Only experience of a particular
soil will enable you to know with precision what length
of tenure is needed there for the purposes of interment
to accomplish themselves ; but on general principles one
can approximate pretty nearly to the truth. Assuming
the site of your cemetry to have been selected with due
.regard to those qualities of soil which determine the
differences adverted to, I think it unlikely that any
adult grave can properly be re-opened within 20 years
of the time when interment shall last have occurred
in it. Very long within this time, however, all soft
textures of the body would have completed their decay.
Remains of the coffin and of the skeleton- -materials
unsusceptible of putrefaction—would alone occupy the
grave, and, with gradual crumbling, blend themselves in
the soil. Not till this final disintegration of the skeleton
is complete—not till the identity of its different elements
is destroyed—can the first occupant of a grave be fairly
deemed to have abdicated his tenure. From this time
only can his interest in it be held as having reverted to
the public, for whoever next may claim a similar usufruct
of the ground.
Taken for granted that, as regards the general public,
your cemetry will be established on the principle of a
temporary tenure of graves, it remains for you to deter-
mine to what extent you will permit wealthier appli-
cants to purchase exemption front this rule, and obtain
41, freehold interest in particular portions of your ground.
I have little to say on this point, because it is of no
sanitary importance, provided that privileges so pur-
chased do not in any degree interfere with the general
economy of your plan. Barring any question
of this
kind, it comes
should
you simply as a question of finance.
A precaution,
rouelvder, which I would suggest, is that,
first of all, you h
provide a cemeterial space suffi-
-cient for the interment
ary purposestenure
of your population, on
the principle of temporenure ; that no portion of
this space should, under any circumstances,
htances, be alienated
from its public destination ; that the whole of it should
remain in perpetuity the common burying ground of the
''•. City of London. This Prime necessity
of y
being secured, it will be competent for you to inouclrudern
• your purchase a certain redundant number of acres ; and
out of these you can allot, at your discretion, such gu n
tities of ground as may be desired in freehold, a
either for
the purposes of family interment, generation after gene-
ration, or for the fiction of
selling
tenure by some
single occupant. In thus portions of your land
you would b
for private and privileged
sa-
tisfying what has become employment,nhait, and may beßconsi4:ed-
eyond this
a legitimate claim of the wealthier, classes.
it is also evident that you would virtually be competing
with the ordinary cemetery companies of the metropolis
in the most lucrative department of their trade.
It would probably be easy for you
fees according to circumstances, either, by varying your
ofrnthneenooneohfanapd,.
to diminish, and almost prohibit, t ,
frequency
e other
plications for exceptional interment,be
hand, to attract such applications. Even if you thought
It desirable, you might admit purchasers from other
'classes than those having the right of burial in y
nicipal cemetery ; in short, you might manage it com-
mercially, with a view to profit, looking to its proceeds
for covering many expenses of the general establish-
ment.
With respect to the ordinary arrangement of
your
ground for public purposes, and the distribution of
burials therein, you may estimate that, taking one grave
with another, and allowing for the marginal spaces of
each, the average size of a grave will be 28 square feet.
For illustration's sake, I will suppose the ground to be
laid out in plots—say the third of an acre in extent.
Each such plot would contain 400 single graves, mixed
adult and young, with what footpaths might be requi-
site for approaching them. The City mortality of 20
years (assuming this period to be the ordinary leasehold
of a grave) might be reckoned at 64,000 deaths, for the
accommodation of which number there would be wanted j
160 plots of the above-mentioned size—say 54 acres of
ground. I would propose that, throughout each line of
every such place, adult and infant graves should, as
far as possible, lie alternately ; and that, instead of
filling all the graves toe-'ether, at stated periods
. (say every twenty years), half of them, taken alter-
siately, should be filled at each semi period, say every
ten years. By this arrangement half the complement
of burials would take place in each plot at a time when
the decomposition gS the,preceding half complement had
tnished itself so far as putrefaction is concerned; and
whatever contamination of air might be liable to occur
t under the best considered sanitary arrangement, would

f ".