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

CITY INTERMENTS.

The following is the introductory report by the Officer
of Health :

TO THE IMPROVEMENT COMMITTEE OF THE HON. TIM

COMMISSIONERS OF SEWERS OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
Gentlemen,—Under the several clauses of the Metro-
politan Burials Act, and under certain clauses of the City
Sewers Act, 1848, the Commissioners of Sewers, acting
as a burial board for the City of London, will be subject
to the following responsibilities :
First,—That a sufficient extramural burial place be
provided for those classes of persons who have heretofore
had right of interment within the City.
Secondly,—That the facilities of transit and convey.
ance to such burial place be commensurate with the pur-
poses for which it is established.
Thirdly,—That evil no longer accrue to the health of
the City from unnecessary delays of interment, or from
the keeping of dead bodies in the dwelling-rooms of the
poor. To increase the sufficiency of a burial place, one
must know for what numbers 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 • • jUrlS-
diction.

tinder the term " parishionersi" as relating to the
City, there may be included, I am told, an indefinite
number of non-resident ratepayers ; and although, at
first, interment ¶night 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 more numerous. From the nature
of the case, such claimants would, in most instances, be
of the wealthier classes ; and might, consequently, 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.
I 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
right of burial possessed by non-resident ratepayers does
likewise extend to the non-resident householders of such
ratepayers.
In the meantime I will leave this set of claimants out
of 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
your purpose, in respect of this mortality, I must bring
before you some preliminary considerations.
I. As regards the minimum accommodation tobegiven
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
foetid, and it becomes impossible to guard against clan-
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 or 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 ground., 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-
cise 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 theprinciple
ofa
temporary tenure of graves, it remains for you to deter-
mine to what extent you will permit wealthier
cants to purchase exemption from this rule, and obtain
a 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-
eehcoaaneodmydoonf yorotoinanly degree interfere with the general
Baprlryi nags
aacinuye
sti
o il questionoffi
no
af
otohei .
however, s kind, it comes beforep you.
si
mply ira
A precaution, which I would suggest, is that,
first of all, you should provide a cemeterial space suffi-
cient for the interment purposes of your population, on
the principle of ternor tenure ; that no portion of
this space should, oupderay
any circumstances, be alienated
from its public destinationnY that the whole of it should
remain in perpetuity the
common burying ground of the
City of London. This prime necessity of your plan
being secured, it will be competent for you to include in
your purchase a certain redundant number of acres ; and
out of these you can allot, at your discretion,
oi oun
would
your
oe ur
rig
lee
an
ne quan-
titiesd-
of ground as may be desired in freeholds,aufeeihther for
interment, genera;
the purposes of family
ration, or for the fiction of perpetual tenure by some
single occupant. In thus selling portions of
for private and privileged employment,
tisfying what has become a habit, and may be considered
a legitimate claim of the wealthier classes. Beyond t\l7_
it is also evident that you would virtually be competing
s
with the ordinary cemetery companies of the metropolis
in the most lucrative department of their trade.
It would probably be easy for you, by varying your
fees according to circumstances, either, on the one hand,
to diminish, and almost prohibit, the frequency of ap.
plications for exceptional interment, or, on the other
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 your mu-
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
160 plots of the above-mentioned size—say 54 acres of I
ground. I would propose that,. throughout each line of
every such place, adult and' infant graves should, as
;
far as possible, lie alternatelytogether, and that, instead of
filling all the gravesat stated periods
(say every twenty years), i half of them, taken alter-
nately, 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 of the preceding complement
finished itself so far as putrefaction isconcerned
whatever contamination of air might be liable to occur and
under the best considered sanitary would
arrangement,

I certainly be reduced to the lowest conceivable amount. '
Or, as an alternative equal to this arrangement for the
1 purposes of health, you might adopt the plan of filling,
lin immediate succession, all the burial spaces of a plot,
provided the surface could then at once be devoted to
the growth of appropriate vegetation.
Fifty-four acres being, then, the quantity of ground
which would suffice on sound principles for the ordinary
interment of your entire annual mortality during a
period of 20 years, at the expiration of which time (as-
suming your soil to be appropriated), you may reason-
ably expect that the ground will admit of a second simi-
lar occupation, and so forth in perpetuity. It will be
requisite to add a cnnsiderable allowance of space for
other accessory purposes.
Thus room would be required for the various build-
ings that belong to the institution of a cemetery ; partly
for the dwellings of such officers as you may require to
be there resident ; partly for the temporary accommo-
dation of persons resorting thither for the burial of their
friends ; partly for the religious services of different con-
gregations.
Something likewise must be added for such main ways
as will be wanted, along various lines of the burial
ground, for the carriage traffic which belongs to funeral
ceremonies among the richer classes of society and for
other like purposes.
Further, I dare say you would think it inexpedient
that your cemetery should be entirely without decora-
tion and elegance. 54 acres of head and foot stones or
the same extent of bare mound, might vulgarise eve
t
the aspect of death. By the judicious introduction ofi
trees, turf, and shrubs, of bends and undulations, you
would probably seek to interrupt the long perspective of
so many tombs, and, by these artificial resources of
.plan-
ning
panotd. plaAnmtinidg,
stuochenhoarnncaemetnhtealnaptiovretiosnosle mofnlyt);uorf
ground might be scattered irregularly the various sites
of exceptiovl interment—family graves, personal graves
in perpetuity, long leasehold graves, and the like ; and
the interposition of those large portions of comparatively
unoccupied soil with as much appropriate vegetation as
could conveniently be introduced—might not only allow
much tasteful decoration of the ground, but would also
conduce to the healthful accomplishment of those pur-
poses for which the cemetery is established.
In respect of these, and many other details of your
plan, you will doubtless be guided by the direct and re-
sponsible advice of men specially skilled in the subject.
I have, therefore, confined myself to the mention of
those points which may determine your judgment merely
as to quantity of land required for your purpose.
Without offering any opinion as to the public claims
of non-resident parishioners, on which liability I would
again suggest your obtaining a legal opinion ; and with-
out pretending to advise what allowance should be made
for purely decorative purposes, I may yet conclude,
from such information as I have collected, that with
100 acres of suitable soil at your disposal, you would
be amply able to meet all legitimate burial requirements
of your population in perpetuity, and would likewise
(for many years at least) have a considerable excess,
which might be applied to the uses of ornamental
arrangement.
From what I have said on the influence of soil in de-
termining the period after which burying grounds may
be resumed for a second series of interments, it will be
obvious to you that this condition is an important ele-
ment in deciding the sufficiency of any area for given
burial purposes. And the site of your cemetry might
be such as somewhat to lessen, or greatly to increase,
the suggested extent of your estimate. It would be
fruitless, however, to detain you with any endeavour to
trace the several influences which different soils exert
over animal decay. Such remarks, at the present time,
could only be addressed to hypothetical cases, or stated
in the most general form. Therefore, instead of at-
tempting this anticipative argument on the subject, I
hold myself ready to report to you specifically on the
suitableness of whatever soil may be proposed to you
for the purposes of your cemetry.
There is yet one other consideration which may affect
the extent of your purchase. The law restricts you from
approaching within 200 yards of any dwelling house
without the previous written consent of its owner, lessee,
and occupier. But there is no law restricting the near-
ness within which any builder may approach your wall
with his design for new habitations ; and it might easily
occur to you, within a short time of establishing your
cemetry, to find a new town growing in close proxi-
mity around it. If there be any meaning and value
in the clause which forbids your undue approach to
inhabited houses, if it truly represent that this ap-
proach to inhabited houses, if it truly represent that
proach would be a sanitary evil, then obviously
the law is deficient in the respect adverted to. It would
be in your power to guarantee the continuance of a belt
of unoccupied ground as an immediate circuit to your
cemetery, in either of two ways—either, namely, you
might purchase a considerable extent of ground beyond
the actual requirements of your cemetery, might devote
its central 100 acres to interment, and might let its
remaining circumference for agricultural purposes ; or,
if you were fortunate enough to be treating for the
central portion of some considerable estate, you might
stipulate as a condition of purchase that no building
should be reared within such distance of the wall of
your cemetery as you, on due consideration may deem fit.
11. In the provision of a cemetery it is required by
the act of Parliament that " the burial board shall have
reference to the convenience or access thereto from the '
parish or parishes for which the same is provided ;" and
it is legalised that " any burial board may make such
arrangements as they may from time to time think fit,
far facilitating the conveyance of the bodies of the dead
from the parish or the place of death to the burial
ground which shall be provided."
It cannot but be obvious to you that the choice of a
site for your cemetery might be such as to interpose
very serious obstacles in the way of interment even for
the richest classes ; and, under the most favourable
circumstances, the removal of the dead to a distance of
so me milesfrom their previouiresidence cannotbut threaten
serious difficulties to the poor. Assuming, what various
conditions of the act of Parliament render almost in-
evitable, that your cemetery must be distant at least six
miles from the centre of the city, the present funeral
charges can hardly be maintained without increase, if
the traffic is to be conducted on the same principles as
heretofore. The price for which an artisan could pro-
cure the decent funeral of his wife, or child, within a
stone's throw of his door, will invariably be augmented
by every mile you add to the distance, if the conveyance
is still to depend on the old means and arrangements.
When I consider the class of persons likely, as inha-
bitants of the City, to claim interment in your cemetery
—classes among which the predominance of narrow, if
not necessitious circumstances, will be frequent ; when,
for instance, in a year's official returns, I see the arti-
sans and paupers make more than two-thirds of your
entire classified mortality, I cannot but think this
aspect of the matter a very important one. From some
years' experience of your death register, I should say
that, of City funerals, there would not be two in ten
where the friends could afford to disregard an addi-
tional expenditure of half a sovereign ; and in the ma•
jority of instances I am persuaded that a much smaller
addition would be enough to cause inconvenience and
distress. It therefore seems to me certain that your
plan of extramural sepulture, however perfect at all
other points, might either entirely fail of its purpose, or
become cruelly oppressive to the poor, by the simple ex-
pensiveness of approaching the burial place. And I sup-
pose it was in anticipation of the difficulties here adverted
to, that the framers of the Metropolitan Burials Act in-
troduced the permissive clause which I have just quoted,
empowering burial boards to facilitate the conveyance of
the dead, and thus virtually rendering them responsible,
as far as the poorer classes are concerned, for the cheap-
ness and efficiency of such conveyance.
I would, therefore, submit that, in your decision as to
the site of your cemetery, so soon as the indispensable
conditions of appropriate soil are given, the first point to
examine is accessibility ; that the spot to be chosen
should have, in addition to its carriage roads, the utmost
facility of railway approach ; and that, for those with
whom small differences of price are an important consi-
deration, you should be able to guarantee a rate of trans-
port for coffin and mourners not in excess of existing
charges.
.._. _

From observation of arrangements which have lately
been made with railway companies by the directors of
cemeteries, and from inquiry of persons engaged in such
undertakings, I entertain little doubt that you might
make a contract to the following effect, with the autho-
rities of any line convenient for your purpose, viz., that
every day, at a fixed hour, there should be a train, or
some portion of a train, exclusively adapted to the fune-
ral purposes of the poorer classes ; that for this train
there should be issued funeral tickets, franking the con-
veyance of a coffin with some stated number of mourn-
ers, who should also be entitled to return ; that the in-
troduction of funeral traffic should be by a special en-
trance, and its exit at a special entrance.
Such contract supposed, in connection with this fune-
ral train, you might further arrange to maintain public
hearses, which, at the option of persons concerned, and
on due requisition being made, should convey any coffin
from its former home to the railway terminus • and
which again, if necessary at the distal station, should
complete its conveyance to the grave. This facility
might even be extended, if the distances were consider-
able,j to the similar conveyance of a certain number of
mourners, with the undertaker in charge of their proces-
sion.
Also, if desirable, it could no doubt be arranged, with
for a economy,funeral should a view to '
that the undertaker's responsibility
ruepcetpotwiohnichat dolile•minate at the railway terminus,
h©
ewodistal station should be entrusted to
have conducted it, and that its
servants of your cemetery, would then fulfil all re-
maining
rahg m dutiese n t inrespect
cj'ft
A above effect would be much
Arrangements
t o
(oi)nuf ottlhufuedretdh deceased,ei nr
a n
e m s e l v e s
simplified in working, and their general adoption much
promoted, if all disbursements for funeral tickets and for
so that the friends
such other facilitations of conveyance as I have adverted
to. were made by your burial board, their cost to be
uniformafterpayne cemetery fee,
gntfiotlehdis'grave, should, with-
payment, .be _ if they desired it, to
e for his coffin from home to the cerne-
(in stated numbers) by a fune-
ral claim conveyance
the railway portion of their t -and inclusive price sor-l-
teryt,icaknedt,faotr
-,it. Thus to have one single for the extramural
grave, that belongs to the
new
system,
nce thereto, which would.
leastt for
grave, namely, and for conveyance
poorer classes and probably
level within the reach of the
enable your burial board to maintainya its total cost at a,
below that of existing prices.
In addition to what I have here suggested,f unforeseen
circumstances should render them
be taken,
many other steps which might i
dirni-
necessary, to
there are
f etel the exact
foretel nish the pressure of new burial charges on the poor.
Time will develop better than one can
operation of our reformed system ; and for such ineon
could it be
think, in finding appropriate cures. Nor
veniences as it may bring, you will have no difficulty, I
tend to the comparatively few funerals of the wealthier
otherwise than easy, if you thought it desirable, to et-
tend