The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE M9II2,HNG PAPERS OF Tills .DAY.
TIMES.—The resolute attack of the' Board of
Health on the dangerous and revolting practice of ,
intramural sepulture meets, as was to be expected,
with an equally determined opposition on the part of
the local authorities, whose traditional jealousy of cen-
tralized control is enhanced in the present case by ,
their anticipation of direct pecuniary loss from the •
closure of the obnoxious graveyards. At a recent
meeting of the St. Saviour's vestry, when it was re-
solved by a large majority to keep open the Cross-bones
burying-ground, notwithstanding the prohibition of
the Board of Health, the chief arguments employed
were, that the rich would lose the sums paid for
family vaults, and the poor find their burial fees
doubled if, yielding to a " meddlesome and imperti-
neat" interference, they gave up a burial-place
which they had enjoyed for 200 years, before an-
other equ Illy cheap and accessible should be pointed
out. As for the complaints of offensive tffluvium
preferred by persons residing in the vicinity of the
ground, they were stigmatized by the chairman as
exaggerated and false, seeing that the coffins were
of It-ad and airtight; and the smell, even in the
public vault, not offensive, but only " close, damp,
and earthy." Setting .aside the average intermixture
of prejudice and passion in all discussions which in-
volve conflicting interests, the objectixis urged by the
Warden of St. Saviour's are not without au ap-
pea ance of weight, and are such as plain men of
business, accustomed to compute their OA n interests,
and to manage their own local affairs, on rigorously
economical principles, might, at the first blush of
the proposition, very reasonably maintain. _Much,
therefore, as we deplore the spectacle of an acrimo
nious conflict between rival sanitary authorities, in
the midst of a pestilence, requiring for its effectual
encounter the heartiest and must energetic co-opera-
tion, we shall, on the present occasion, refrain from
pronouncing a censure which would probably but
aggravate existing animosities, and address ourselves
to the practical elucidation of the questions at issue.
'The first point to be decided is, whether deleterious
effluvia really escape from graveyards, or whether, as
the chairman of the St. Saviour's vestry alleges, the
gases resulting from the decomposition of the dead
are retained in the "leaden, airtight" coffins? Upon
this subject it is first to be observed that the bodies of
the pot.rer classes are not buried in lead, hut in
' coffins made of boards, often very slightly nailed to-
gether. Moreover, even in the leaden coffins it is
customary to make a number of holes underneath the
coffin-plate, to give egress to the pees, which would
else, by their accumulation, first bulge and then burst
the coffin. When this precaution is neglected con-
siderable danger ensues to the gravediggers who
have on many occasions been seized with asphyxia,
or even killed on the spot, by the poisonous
gases emitted from a suddenly burst coffin.
To escape these hazards they not unfre-
quently "tap" the coffins, and let out a jet
of gas, which, being ignited, burns from ten
minutes to half an hour. These are perfectly
well-known facts, as any man may convince himself
by inquiry amongst the undertakers and sextons.
The gases which thus escape are partly absorbed into
the earth which surrounds the coffins, and partly
ascend into the air above the graveyard, from which,
by the law of the diffusion of gases, they rapidly
spread through the entire mass of the air of London.
;In old graveyards the earth becomes so saturated
that it can take up no more gas ; the whole of which,
therefore, is emitted into the atmosphere, and may,
indeed, in hot, close weather, be observed rising in a
sort of steam out of the ground. Thus, during the
last century, have the two millions and a quarter of
corpses buried in the merropolis within that period
ascended into the air, and been inhaled by the sur-
vivors ; a species of gaseous anthropophagy, or
aerial cannibalism, hardly less loathsome to our sense
than the consumption of the same fl.sh, in its solid
form, as practised by the bowling savages. The
next question raised by the advocates of intra-
mural burial is, whether these effluvia, admitting
them to be evolved, are in reality the cause of epi-
demic disease. In Paris tl-ey argue there are
neither graveyards nor slaughterhouses, yet the cholera
at each visitation has raysged Paris with greater
severity than London. What reason, then, is there
for anticipating any sanitary advantage from the
establishment of extramural cemeteries and abattoirs,

like those of Paris, around our metropolis ? This
argument is plausible, but founded partly on igno-
rance, partly on misrepresentation of facts. In Paris,
though there are no graveyards, there are large cess-
pools under all the houses. Each of these cesspools
is made of sufficient dimensions to contain the whole
ordures of the establishment beneath which it is
placed for twelve months ; the object being to avoid
paying the vidangeur's charbe (100 francs) more
than once a year. Now, the gas which accumulates
in these cesspools is identical in its nature and proper-
ties with that which accumulates in our learlen coffins.
So deadly is it that the vidangeur whose duty it is to
raise the stone covering of the t4nk with his crowbar
rushes back the moment he perceives a chink, in order
to escape the first outgush of gas, which, if inhaled,
causes a man to fall dead, as if shot with a
musket-ball. The Parisians, therefore, are in

this repect nearly as ill-off as the inhabit-
ants of those Eastern towns where they bury
'their dead underneath their houses; for it is ob-
viously unimportant, so far as the production of dis-
ease is concerned, whether the putrescent g..is be
generated from one kind ofanitnal remains or another.
If we add to this the fact that the lower class of

Parisians drink a thin sour wine, in itself deleterious,
and rendered still more so by the adulterations prac-
tised in consequence of the heavy octroi duties levied
at the city gates, we shell be at no loss to understand
why Paris is more fatally ravaged by cholera than
London. Gases distilled from coffins in the church-
yard, and entering through our windows, reach us in
a more diluted form than when they are generated
under the house itself, as a chemist generates gas
under a bell-glass. Every other pretended exception
to the established law, that putrescent effluvia are
deleterious to man, and promote the spread of pesti-
lential epidemics, will be found to disappear in like
;nanner before an attentive examination. Science,
therefore, concurs with humanity in dictating the
removal from among us of animal residua,
whether contained in coffins or cesspools, and
whether 1) ing beneath or beside our dwellings.
But the Warden of St. Saviour's raises a question
of pounds, shillings, and pence. He reminds the
parishioners that those who have paid from 5 to 10
guineas for a family vault in the Cross-bones grave-
yard will require their money to be refunded if the
ground should be closed, whilst the poor, who only
pay a burial fee of 13s. at the Cross-bones ground,
will, if driven to the parish churchyard, be charged
265. for interment. To this we reply,
,that it is the
declared intention of the Legislature to deal tenderly
with all vested interests with which the proposed
changes may interfere, and the bona fide proprietors
of family vaults in intramural graveyards need not
tear uncompensated expropriation. With respect to
the burial fee charged to the poor, it forms hut a
small part of the cost of interment, which amounts on
an average, to from 4/. to 51. for a person of the
labJuring class. It is, moreover, in the power of the
clergy and the parochial authorities to reduce the
parish burial fees to a level with the means
of the poor; and, for the price now exacted
from working men for intramural sepul-
ture they , might procure equally decent
transmission, and far more decent and undisturbed
repose, in either of the suburban cemeteries. Indeed
the pecuniary side of the argument tells greatly
against the advocates of the intramural system. The
diseases promoted by graveyard gas cuts short many
lives at a period when they are profitable to the com-
munity I and prevent the repayment, in reproductive
labour, of the social debt incurred during helpless
infancy. The workmen destroyed in their prime by
the present epidemic have left many thousands of
wiJows and orphans, of whom a considerable pro-
pOrt:on will become chargeable on the funds of tht it
respec.`ive parishes. And the parochial expenditure
necessitated by the fever cases which are promoted by
the putrescent effluvia in question is immense. In
the Bethnal-green and Whitechapel Unions alone the
charge for the relief of fever cases during the first
quarter of 1838 was 6161. 195., or at the rate of
2,4671. 16s. per annum ! We invite the attention of
the ratepayers of London to these simple but signifi
cant computations, which, we think, go tar to prove
that intramural sepulture is as inconsistent with sound
parochial economy as it is dangerous to the public
welfare, and repugnant to the general sense of the
community.
HERALD.—The intelligence received from the
Cape colony will be read with much interest. We
were quite prepared for the news which we received
last week from this dependency. We knew that it
must soon come; and it came in the very shape that
all our knowledge of the Cape colonists led us con-
fidently to expect. We knew that they were a very
loyal people; and we knew that they had been
grossly injured. We had the utmost faith in their
attachment to the Crown. We believed that, strong
in the justice of their cause, they would not suffer
themselves to be betrayed into any violent, unconsti-
tutional excesses. But we were equally certain that
moral force would be exerted to the utmost for the
resistance of the Ministerial attempt to force ocurse,
n an
unwilling and protesting people a p g
from which they shrink with horror and dismay. We
ollutin
were equally certain that the Cape colonists, whilst
true to their Sovereign, would be true to themselves—
that they would not endure in patience the mighty
wrong which had been done to them—the violation of
their most cherished political rights, and the subver-
sion of their best social interests. The Cape colony
NM threatened with ruin and disgrace ; and almost,
it would seem, as one man, the colonists have
risen up in resistance of the injuries and in-
dignities which were about to overwhelm them.
The tidings which we received last week
assured us that they had resorted to no violence