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. THE
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 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 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 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 extraniural 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 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 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-
chased do not in any degree interfere with the general
economy of your plan. Barring any question of this
kind, it comes before you simply as a question of finance.
A precaution, however, 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 temporary tenure ; that no portion of
this space should, under any circumstances, 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 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, such quan-
tities of ground as may be desired in freehold, either for
the purposes of family interment, generation after gene-
ration, or for the fiction of perpetual tenure by some
single occupant. In thus selling portions of your land
for private and privileged employment, you would be sa-
tisfying what has become a habit, and may be considered
a legitimate claim of the wealthier classes. Beyond this
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, by varying your
fees according to circumstances, either, on the one hand,
to diminish, and almost prohibit, the frequency of ap-
plicationsfor exceptional interment, or, on the other
hand, to attract such applications. Even if you thought
l
itlasses desirable, you might admit purchasers from other
tcheamnettheroyse; hianvisnhgotrht:
you
rightmoifghbut
managerialinyour
ito cramu..
cipa
for cover-
merciallY, with a view to profit, looking to its proceeds
covering many expenses of the general establish-
roundpe üblit to the ordinary arrangement of your
g for pc purposes, and the distribution of
burials therein, you may estimate that, taking one grave
with another, and allowiwngillfosrutphpoosmarginal
o spacesground to
beo
laid
ueach, the average size of a grave will be 28 square feet.
Forillustration
in
plots—say
o t s
would
sake,usla d I
yconta the third of an acre in extent.
Each in 400 single graves mixed
o stplot—o
adult and young, with what
footpaths_ might be requi-
site for approaching them.
The
the ordinary mortality of 20
1 e
might years (assuming this period to be ordinary leasehold
of a grave) he reckoned at 64,000 deaths, for the
160 plots of the above-mentioned size—say 54 acres of
accommodation of which number there would be Wanted
and infant graves should, as
every such place, adult
I and that, instead of
ground. I would propoltse that, throughout each line of
together, at
filling all the graves stated periods
far as possible,
(say every twenty years),
semiperiod, say every
at each
alter-
nately, should be filled
half the complement
ten years. By this arrangement
lie
alternately
of them, taken
had
the decomposition of the preceding I
hal
complementcerned ; and
finished itself so far as putrefaction is cox?
occur
of burials would take place in each plo_t at a time when
whatever contamination
Mit) Wilialli
under the best considered sanitary arranger°.
• tion of air might be liable to

certainly be reduced to the lowest conceivable amount.
Or, as an alternative equal to this arrangement for the
purposes of health, yon might adopt the plan of filling,
in 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 considerable 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 even
• the aspect of death. By the judicious introduction of
; 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 and planting, to enhance the native solemnity of
the spot. Amid such ornamental portions of your
ground might be scattered irregularly the various sites
of exceptional 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,
for 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
some milesfrom their previous'residence can notbut 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 !s 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 conveyancee
the dead, and thus virtually rendering them responsiblF,
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, 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
a view to economy, that the undertaker's responsibility
for a funeral should terminate at the railway terminus,
up to which he would have conducted it, and that its
reception at the distal station should be entrusted to
servants of your cemetery, who would then fulfil all re-
maining duties in respect of it.
Arrangements to the above effect would be much
simplified in working, and their general adoption much
promoted, if all disbursements for funeral tickets and for
such other facilitations of conveyance as I have adverted
to, were made by your burial board, their cost to be
included in an uniform cemetery fee, so that the friends
of the deceased, after paying for his grave, should, with-
out further payment, be entitled, if they desired it, to
claim conveyance for his coffin from home to the ceme-
tery, and for themselves (in stated numbers) by a fune-
ral ticket, at least for the railway portion of their tran-
sit. Thus to have one single and inclusive price for all
that belongs to the new system, for the extramural
grave, namely, and for conveyance thereto, which would
enable your burial board to maintain its total cost at a
level within the reach of the poorer classes and probably
below that of existing prices.
In addition to what I have here suggested, there are
many other steps which might be taken, if unforeseen
circumstances should render them necessary, to ditni-
tohpienrka, ion finding o f
appropriate
system
cures.
; and
f
dimi-
nish the pressure of new burial charges on the poor.
Time will develop better than one can foretel the exact
tin
csouuchidit b
e Nor or
incon-
veniences as it may bring, you will have no difficulty, I
otherwise than easy, if you thought it desirable, to ex-
tend to the comparatively few funerals of the wealthier

classes, which occur from within the City of London,
those same arrangements which I have here deemed it
requisite to consider only in their relation to the poor.
For the latter, it has seemed indispensable that your
scheme should provide assistance equivalent, at least,
to the difficulty which its adoption must occasion them.
Beyond this, I believe you would wish to disturb as
little as possible the ordinary routine of interment ; and
I have aimed, therefore, at suggesting assistance only in
such kind and in such degree as may least interfere with
any interests of trade, least derange any established ha-
bits, least offend any prejudices of the people.
111. There is no part of the subject which I have con-
sidered with more anxiety than that which relates to
delays of interment, and to the prolonged keeping up of
dead bodies in the rooms of their living kindred.
Evils arising from this source are unknown to the
rich. Soldered in its leaden coffin, on tressels in some
separate and spacious room, a corpse may await the
convenience of survivors with little detriment to their
atmosphere.
Not so in the poor man's dwelling. The sides of a
wooden coffin, often imperfectly joined are at best all
that divide the decomposition of the dead from the re-
spiration of the living. A room tenanted night and day
by the family of mourners likewise contains the remains
of the dead. For some days the coffin is unclosed.
The bare corpse lies there amid the living—beside them
in their sleep, before them at their meals.
The death, perhaps, has occurred on a Wednesday or
Thursday ; the next Sunday is thought too early for the
funeral ; the body remains unburied till the Sunday week.
Summer or winter makes little difference to this deten-
tion ; nor is there sufficient knowledge on the subject
among the poorer population for alarm to be excited
even by the concurrence of infectious disease in a room
so hurtfully occupied.
I have no means of telling you with statistical preci-
sion in how many of your annual deaths the corpse is
detained in dangerous proximity to the living. But I
have already quoted an official classification of deaths, by
which it would appear that more than two-thirds of
your deaths are of the artisan class or below it. Among
them, at least, it would be exceptional for the corpse to
have a room to itself. On an average, then, there would
probably be lying within the City at any moment from
30 to 40 dead bodies in rooms tenanted by living
persons.
This very serious evil is well known to all persons who
have taken an interest in the sanitary advancement of
the poor; and ineffectual endeavours have been made
for its diminution. The law does, indeed, empower your
officer of health, under certain circumstances, to order
the removal of a corpse from any inhabited room ; and
under the Nuisances Removal Act, the General Board
of Health may be authorised, during times of epidemic
disease, to issue directions and regulations for the speedy
interment of the dead. Both laws have remained inope-
rative, and are likely to remain so.
If one were starting anew—legislating for a people
with unformed habits—nothing might be easier than to
devise regulations of a perfect kind with regard to the
sanitary management of the dead. The evils against
which we have to contend are among the deepliest-rooted
habits of the country. In defence of what exists there
are many stupid and ignorant prejudices ; but inter-
woven with these are feelings of tenderness and affection
to which all consideration and reverence are due—feel-
ings which would be shocked and outraged by any
abrupt endeavour to reduce the care of the dead to a
system 3f fixed regulations.
For myself, having the deepest sense of the evil in
question, and having officially the power to order re-
moval o' the dead, I may repeat that I have never yet
exercised my authority. Practically speaking, I can
hardly conceive an instance in which I should attempt
to do so. It would require the strongest case that could
be shown of actual mischief in progress—of disease and
death multiplied day by day, through the presence of
some particular dead body, to justify interference even
in that dngle instance. Nothing like the operation of
a general law would be tolerated—nothing like including
the dead in a compulsory plan of hygienic police.
After very careful consideration of the subject, I may
confess myself even more impressed with its difficulties
than when I first began to give in my attention ; and in
the few suggestions which follow I cannot pretend to do
more than intimate where, in my opinion, a beginning
may usefilly be made towards an improvement which
will take many years to accomplish.
Legislative remedies proposed for the evils which I
am bringing under your notice have been of two kinds,
viz., first, to restrict the time during which it should be
lawful to keep a body unburied ; secondly, to promote
the use of reception houses (as they have been called),
whither bodies might be removed from within all dwell-
ing places, and be kept under certain regulations during
the days preceding their interment.
As regards the first point, there are many foreign
countries, and even some parts of the United Kingdom,
where either law or custom has made it imperative to
bury within two, or three, or four days after death.
Our habit, unfortunately, is to keep the corpse unburied
for twice as long. A week may probably be considered
our medium interval between death and interment, and
with this delay, I need hardly tell you, the body becomes
putrid, sometimes intensely so, before the time for its
removal arrives.

Among the wealthier classes, as I have said, this delay
is practically unimportant, except so far as every repeti-
tion maintains the pernicious custom. Scarcely on ac-
count of any risk arising to themselves in emanations
from the dead, but mainly for the sake of influence and
example, would one wish the educated classes of the
community to adopt the usage of earlier burial. Our
present practice is upheld by no law of necessity ; nor,
for the most part, does it represent any extravagance of
grief, or fond reluctance of separation. Chiefly, it sub-
sists by our indolent acquiescence in a habit which
former prejudices and former exigencies established.
Fears of premature interment, which had much to do
with it, are now seldom spoken of but with a smile.
The longer interval once rightly insisted on as neces-

sary for the gathering of distant friends, has now, in
the progress of events, become absurdly excessive : in a
vast majority of cases, all whose presence is need-
ed live within an extemely narrow circle, and the
more distant mourner who, 50 years ago, would have
spent several days in coming from Paris or Edinburgh,
can finish his journey in 12 hours. It is much to be
wished that, under these changed circumstances, an
altered practise might ensue, in the upper classes of
society fixing their time of burial within three or four
days of death. Such example of wealthier neighbours,
aided by greater enlightment and education among them-
selves, would greatly tend to detach the poor from many
observances and delays in relation to the dead, which,
in their narrow dwellings, cannot continue with im-
punity.
But, as regards these poorer classes, cannot anything
be done in connexion with your new arrangements to
abridge the period of delay ? As for any positive regu-
lation limiting the time during which it should be
allowed to retain dead bodies in certain dwelling-houses,
such could only be. enforced by an extensive organisa-
tion of sanitary police, which you would have to call
into existence for the purpose, and which, in the present
state of public opinion, would encounter insurmountable
difficulties on every occasion of its authorative inter-
ference. It is by indirect means and inducements alone
that I can hope at present to effect the desired altera-
tion ; and by them I think something can be ensued
towards shortening the delays of interment.
First, I believe that everything which cheapens the
cost of burial will conduce to such a result, for among
the poor one considerable cause of procastination must
often be the immediate absence of money. The plan of
conveyance and payment which I have suggested would
at least ensure you against any increase of this diffi-
culty, and might readily be applied to diminish it. For
under such a system of single payment for grave and
conveyance it would be practicable, and I think most
advantageous to fix two prices, with a difference of at
least five shillings between them—to charge the lower
fee whenever the funeral should occur within 80 hours
after death ; the higher whenever this period should be
exceeded. If, by the general adoption of the former
alternative, the cemetery receipts should be diminished,
in respect of artisan funerals, even to the utmost extent
—say five or six hundred pounds per annum—this money
or much more would have been advantageously ex-
pended in purchasing so great a reform. If, on the
contrary, the immediate option of the working classes
should be in favour of continuing a system so injurious
to themselves and to their neighbours, there would be
no injustice in leaving them the incumbrance of a cost
from which it would require only their own will to
escape. The difference of price would soon be recog- I
nised as a municipal tax on delays of interment—a tax
rendered legitimate by the public evil which it is de-
signed to correct, and guarded against remonstrance,
because any man may avoid it who will. And since the
delays in question often arise in a passive habit of the
people, founded on no deliberate intention or reason, I
cannot but believe that a well-marked difference of fee
would, as it were, startle the poor into considering the
question, which would come to be of daily argument in
their houses, "Is it worth while that our funeral cost
should be increased by the amount of one or two days'
wages in order that we may retain within our dwelling-
rooms four days longer that which every one tells us is
hurtful to ourselves and to others?"

It has been suggested to me that many delays occur
owing to Sunday being considered specially as a funeral
day among the labouring classes ; that an equal distri-
bution of burials over the week would not involve wait-
ing for a particular clay ; and that the closure of your
cemetery on Sundays might occasionally be beneficial
for the purposes under consideration. Many arguments
will doubtless occur to you both for and against the pro-
hibition of Sunday interments, but this probably may
be regarded as a point of detail more fitly to be con-
sidered when your scheme is complete, and even when
it has actually given you some experience of its opera-
tion.

As regards the second point adverted to—the estab-
lishment of special reception houses for the dead—l do
not hesitate to say that, if they could be brought into
general use, their institution would confer great advan-
tages on the poor. But against this event, at least as
an immediate one, I grieve to see strong probabilities.
A first proposal made to some mourning household
that they should trust to strangers' hands the custody
of their unburied dead would, in most instances, greatly
and suddenly clash with their customs, and prejudices,
and affections.

Whatever success you might have in conquering this
difficulty would of necessity be slow ; and my practical
familiarity with the poorer classes makes me so little
hopeful of their immediate acquiescence in the plan,
that I should hardly feel justified in urging you to incur
any very large expense, or to embarass yourselves at
starting with any elaborate machinery, for the sake of
so scanty an expectation.
The reception houses of Germany, as you probably
know, are founded with a double intention ; partly for
the purpose which I am here chiefly considering—that
the dead may be removed from an injurious contiguity
to the living; partly, also, that the bodies may be vigi•

lantly observed in case of suspended animation. With
the latter view, many of them are specially furnished
and specially officered. In that at Frankfort, for in-
stance, each body is placed in a separate warmed and
ventilated cell ; cords are attached to the fingers in such
manner that the slightest movement occasions the ring-
ing of an alarm. Night and day watch is kept in a
central apartment, which looks into each cell, and has
the several alarum bells hung round it. Adjacent is a
room designed for acts of resuscitation, with bath, gal-
vanic apparatus, and the like, always in readiness for
constant use ; and, so long as any corpse lies within the
reception house, the medical superintendent of the es-
tablishment never goes beyond its walls. Dr. Suther-
land, whose report to the General Board of Health is
full of interesting information on the burial institutions
of the continent, praises the completeness and ingenuity
of these contrivances, adding, however, that "after
careful inquiry at all the cities where he found them to
exist, he could not learn that any case of resuscitation
had as yet occurred." I may add, too, as regards my
own personal experience in this country, that with ex-
tensive opportunities it has never happened to me either
to see any case of suspended animation, where doubts of
death and question of interment could arise, nor to hear
in professional circles of any such occurrence. I there-
fore think it quite unnecessary to recommend any ar-
rangement of reception houses with reference to the
resuscitation of persons apparently dead. The object
for which I would desire their institution, is exclusively
that of receiving dead bodies out of the houses of the
poor, in order to mitigate those evils which arise in pro-
longed retention of the corpse. That this object is in
itself very desirable, and that, under the prevalence of
epidemic disease, its accomplishment might be of urgent
necessity, you will not doubt ; and the responsibility for
fulfilling it, or at least for giving all facilities to its ful-
filment, is so distinctly imposed on you by the letter
and spirit of the law, that you will probably wish to
take measures accordingly. The extent, then, to
which my information on the subject would lead me
to recommend provisions to be made, is this—l would
advise that accommodation of an appropriate character
(savouring in style rather of an ecclesiastical construc-
tion, than of the workhouse or dissecting room) be ar-
ranged for the reception of 50 coffins. For this purpose
I would suggest, not the building of several separate
reception houses within the city of Condon, in order to
their being respectively adjacent to the portions of popu-
lation which might use them ; but rather the establish-
ment of one only, and that on the site of your cemetary.
Thus the conveyance of bodies, which would take place
under your auspices, might be made with greater
economy, since it could work into the plan I have already
suggested. The advantage of having only a single edi-
fice (especially since its use is likely to be limited), and
of including its superintendence in the general organisa-
tion of your cemetary, cannot be questioned. And it
seems to me, likewise, that a building designed for the
reception of so many dead bodies cannot conveniently be
established in the heart of the city.
I would of course recommend that the use of this
building should be entirely optional with the poor, and
that its advantages should be allowed gratuitously to
persons burying in your ground, so that any one, who,
in respect of his cemetery fee, would be entitled to have
a corpse conveyed thither for funeral purposes, might
claim this conveyance as soon as he chose after the oc-
currence of death, and might have the coffin kept, with
all proper formalities, in the reception-house till the
moment fixed for its interment.

On further particulars connected with this part of
your arrangements, I do not think it requisite at present
to dwell, especially because, while I regard the establish-
ment of a reception house to be quite indispensable to
the complete fulfilment of your new responsibilities, I
still look upon it as an institution to be gradually deve-
loped in the course of years, and according to circum-
stances yet undetermined, rather as something which
ought at once to assume its permanent character and
proportions.

Here, too, in concluding this introductory report, I
may observe that I have endeavoured, as far as possible,
to avoid encumbering it with detail. For myself, in its
construction I have thought it indispensable to pursue
the subject into minuter ramifications, to consider a vast
number of circumstances here scarcely mentioned, to
make myself acquainted with the burial customs of other
countries, to review a great variety of opinions and
arguments which have been advanced on the several
matters alluded to, and to consult with persons practi-
cally versed in them. But to have brought all this mate-
rial before you would have prolonged my report to an
inconvenient extent, and with no proportionate utility.
Further, as regards the details of the subject, there are
many parts on which I cannot address you with the con-
fidence that belongs to personal knowledge. The general
principles which I have set before you do indeed lie
within range of my official and professional observation.
But the next stage of your inquiry relates to matters of
special pursuit, with which I am only indirectly conver-
sant ; and whatever information I may have compiled
for myself from other sources you will probably best
obtain at first hand. Practical experience in the con-
struction and working of cemeteries has now for many
years been the growing knowledge of persons connected
with their administration by ties of business or by official
appointment. In many instances it has been dearly pur-
chased, and notorious failures have arisen from its ab-
sence. Regard being had to the magnitude of your un-
dertaking, hitherto unprecedented in the country, and to
the immense interests involved in your success, I cannot
but earnestly hope that such experience may be made
available for your information.
At an early period you will have to determine what
appointments will be requisite with a view to the archi-
tectural and other designs of your cemetery, to its eco-
nomical planning and decorations, to the superintendence
of its daily working, to its financial management, to the
conveyance of bodies, and to all intramural organisation
connected therewith. Minute details will be best con-
sidered when these appointments are made, and when.
you will naturally have the benefit of such practical ex-
perience as may best assist your deliberations ; for the
task on which you are engaged extends, I need hardly
say, far beyond the purchase of certain acres for your
burial ground. It implies, for its completion, that you
shall possess an adequate plan on which the interment of
your population may be managed during many succeed-
ing generations—a plan constructed, first of all, with
entire regard to the general good of the public, and
next, with as little violence as may be to those habits,
prejudices, and interests which are involved in the pre-
sent system of interment.

The construction of such a plan constitutes a very large
question of municipal policy—one which, because of its
solemn subject, and because of the degree in which
human feelings and affections are involved in it—re-
quires to be hand led with peculiar discretion and delicacy,
but which not the less requires to be contemplated in a
large and comprehensive manner.
I have, therefore, thought I should best fulfil the ob-
ject of your reference by bringing before you those
general principles which lie at theroot of all minute con-
siderations ; in order that—having first determined on
them, and having taken one collective view of the sub-
ject—you may better know at what time, and in what
order, and to what extent you would wish the minor
details to be developedfor your information.—l have the
honour to remain, gentlemen, your obedient faithful
servant, JOHN SIMON.

REPORT OP THE OLMUTZ CONFERENCE.

(Front the Press.)
(By our Special Telegraph.)

(A chamber at Olmutz. The Emperor of Austria
is seated on a low couch, smoking a cigarette.
The Czar of Russia is striding about the room.
A large map of Europe hangs against the wall.)

Czar (impatiently)--My dear brother, there is one
word which I cannot get you Germans to utter or to un-
derstand.

Emperor (languidly)—Ah ! What's that ?
Czar—The word Now. This is what I have been
trying to impress upon you all the morning. And when
I think I have made the case clear you light a fresh
cigar, and ask me in which opera Grisi made the great-
est impression in Petersburg. Nobody likes singers
and dancers better than I do—in their place—but, young
as you are, you must feel that there is such a thing as
business.
Emperor—Don't I feel it ? Ask Buol.

Czar—See ! There never was such an opportunity—l
may say there never was such a necessity—for us to un-
derstand one another. A bold united front now, and
you, my dear brother, may sit down in peace, and en-
joy your music, and your tobacco, and your charming
female society for the rest of your life.

Emperor—Do you believe that ? Because, to speak
the truth, I would really as soon be at peace as at war.
Our people here like peace.
Czar—Our people like—what I like. But I do not
blame you for consulting, as far as you properly can,
the prejudices of your subjects. What I propose to you
seems to me the course they would desire. For what
on earth but a disturbance must follow if Austria takes
part with England and France against me ?
Emperor—lt is not against you, my dear brother ;
but, after all, there hangs the map, and we do not want
to make a new edition necessary.
Czar—Don't be offended if I remind you that Kossuth
would have made a new edition necessary some time
ago but for a friend of yours.
Emperor—l have not forgotten it. Have we not just
—discovered—the regalia of Hungary, providentially in
perfect preservation, and not a jewel lost ?
Czar—Dear me ! I did hear that the Crown jewels
of Hungary were in America.
Emperor—The Court jewellers will give you any cer-
tificate you please to the contrary. They are most up-
right tradesmen. I hope you are satisfied with their
assurance that these are the original articles.
Czar—Heaven forbid that I should doubt a Court
tradesman. But, if you should ever happen to lose them
again, the same number of men, or more if necessary,
shall always be ready to assist in the recovery. Re-
member that. Ido not know whether France or Eng.
land makes you the same offer.
Emperor—You know my feeling towards both. As
for France—but I suppose we have both the same reve-
rence for parvenus. As for England—
Czar—Aberdeen, I assure you, is a good man, a wor-
thy man, and one who thoroughly understands and
trusts me.

Emperor—That we have never doubted. But he is
powerless.
Czar—Not so powerless. He can do nothing, except
one thing, which is better than if he did a great many
things. He has the gift of preventing stronger people
from doing anything. Aberdeen has, in his dull, sour,
obstructive way (for I admit he is not brilliant), done
me very good service all through this business. Per-
haps I know the English better than you. The islanders
place a great value on something which continentals care
little about— I mean public character. Now, my good
Aberdeen has not scrupled in his old age to sacrifice all
that remained to him of that article, for the sake of

conforming to my wishes. Do not, therefore, esteem
him lightly. He is at this moment the most unpopular
man in England for the part he has taken as regards me.
Emperor—Bah ! What are mob shouts in England ?
One day the people stone Wellington, and another they
gather in millions to attend his funeral.
Czar—But it is not the mob this time. It is the class
which has all the strength, the class that puts down mobs
with dragoons just as readily as you or I should. The rich,
the educated, and the well-born classes—all except a
few cotton jobbers—are full of bitter animosity against
Aberdeen, and one of these days he will be swept from
office by their indignation. All this he has incurred for
me, and the day I hear of his fall I shall send him a whole
batch of orders.

Emperor—You see, if England keeps on terms with
France—

Czar—Which she will. That maudit meddler, Malmes-
bury, contrived to lay so solid a basis for the union of
France and England, that even Aberdeen's crabbed in-
genuity could not shake it ; and Palmerston, if he comes
in, knows his business too well to run risks in that
quarter.

Emperor—Very well. Then suppose you march upon
Constantin ople—
Czar—Suppose nothing. Remember the motto of the
Golden Fleece—Ante fcrit Tiara ftamma, micct.
Emperor—lt appears to me that mystery is pretty well
exploded by this time. So we will suppose what I say.
You beat Omer Paella out of Schumla and march on
the capital. The English and French fleets burn Odessa
and bombard Sevastopol—
Czar—They will do nothing of the kind, my beloved
brother, nothing. At least not if we put on, as I said,
a hold and unite front. If you will join me, and, Ido
not say, repay any little service I have done you in the
Hungary business (for you may command a million or so
of my men at any time for such a trifle), but if you will
secure your own safety by joining with me against the
constitutional Powers, neither French nor English
powder will waken the echoes of the Black Sea. Russia
and Austria united, and Prussia— (whispers)—yes, that
at least—th,e others will see very good reasons for leav-
ing the Turks to settle their affairs with me, and for in-
terceding just when I desire it.

Emperor—l do not see the English papers.
Czar—But I do ; and you will be glad to hear that,
in anticipation of your seeing the force of my arguments
here at Olmutz, the leading English journal is already
advancing reasons why the Turks should be left to their
fate—because they are wicked Mahometans, because
they have in other times persecuted Christians, and be-
cause war costs blood and money. A sneaking Minister
has always a sneaking organ ; and you are wrong, my
dear brother, not to read the journals.
Emperor —Well, if that is so, I confess that the in-
terests of Austria and of Europe would seem to demand
that I should yield to my wishes and side with you.
Then, if a Mazzini outbreak in Italy, or a Kossuth affair
in Hungary, should occur—
Czar—Send me word, and I will do the whole work
for you, from the first shot to the last gallows.
Emperor—Then Buol had better see Nesselrode.
Now shall we go to the ladies ? I have invited—
(Smiles.)
. . _

Czar (laughs)-0, nothing I like better—in proper
time and place. Come along, mon cher frerc. One of
these days you must come and spend a fortnight with
me at Stamboul, and let me show you St. Sophia, and
the Seraglio, eh, jeune coquin,
Exeunt—[The Czar playfully poking the Emperor of
Austria in his Imperial ribs.