The Sun.
London, England, 1849-11-10 00:00:00

Choning

SA.TURPAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1849.

Every laudable exertion continues to be made by
the most practical and indefatigable of all our sanitary
reformers, Mr. GEoadaE ALFRED WALKER, the chair-
man of the National Association for the Abolition of
Intramural Interment. Thanks to the truly disin-
tprested and energetic proceedings of this gentleman,
there is at lengh some probability that one of the most
horrible, if not the most horrible of all our public evils
will, before long, be entirely dissipated. Already his
efforts have aroused the attention of the people—have
led to the formation of a society to carry the objects
he himself has been mainly instrumental in re-
vealing, and have secured, moreover, the pros-
pective co-operation of the Commissioners at Gwydyr
House, and the support of several of the prin-
cipal members of the Administration. To have
accomplished so much, even if no more were attempted,
would redound to the honour of any private indivi-
dual. But to remember the loathsome nature of the
particulars which Mr. WALKER has had personally to
investigate, to bear in recollection the difficulties he
has hai to overcome almost without any assistance
whatever, and to know that all the good which he
has up to the present time effected is considered
by him as only a first step towards a ge-
neral amelioration, afford sufficient reason, we
conceive, for the earnest consideration of his
labours by the inhabitants of the United
Kingdom. For ourselves we shall not cease to com-
ment upon the toils of this eminent public benefactor
until such time as they are crowned with that success
which in the end is inevitable.

It was very admirably and forcibly remarked by
Mr. WALKER, on the occasion of the last meeting of
the Society for the Abolition of Burials in Towns,
namely, on Tuesday the Gth instant, that it was
essential that there should not be " the slightest re-
laxation of the exertions of those who desired to con-
serve their own lives and protect the remains of the
dead from desecration." That sentence condenses
into an epigrammatic compass the feelings out of
which the whole movement against the system of
intramural interment has emanated. The aspirations
of the advocates of this beneficent movement are two-
fold, relating to the quick and to the dead—to the
salubrity of the air inspired by the living, and to the
decency of the precincts hallowed by the presence of
the deceased. The arguments against the prevailing
system indeed are not only the arguments of common
sense, but of religion, not only the arguments of
matters-of-fact, but the arguments of the gentlest
and holicst sentiments, those tender and elevating
sc reitnents which are among the noblest preroga-
tives of hmssanity. In calling upon the multitude to
prevent the continuance of a practice which tends
so very materially to enhance the amount of the
general mortality, the aspirants for extramural inter-
ment are also entreating them to bear better in re-
membrance:the divine dogmas of Christianity. For,
according to tia= existing custom, we bury our dead
more like dogs doomed to a godless annihilation than
like the remains of beings destined for resurrection
and immortality. But, according to the plan pro-
pounded by the Chairman of the Extramural Inter-
ment Association, the bodies of our departed brethren
would receive that decent sepulture which is surely
the most agreeable to the feelings of the population,
and which is assuredly the most consistent with the
sublime teachings of Revelation.
It was among the most beautiful aspirations of a
poet of America that he should be buried where the
sunshine might warm the verdure of the grass, and
kindle the richest hues in the bells and blooms of the
wild-fl )were, so that those who loved him might
sometimes be tempted to tarry near his resting place
when they came to muse over his memory. All
such thoughts are dissipated by the repulsive and
bvs.i.,l aspect of our city graveyards—the only
emotions inspired by them being emotions
of horror, shame, and loathing. With a suburban
cemetery it is otherwise. There affection may
ling ?r without any hideous recognition of the
violation and desecration of the last solemn sanctuary
of those who have passed through the shadows of
dissolution. And it was felicitously shown on Tues-
day evening by an ingenious inhabitant of Brighton,
that. the project of a general system of extramural in-
terment was in no measure incompatible with the
notions of economy. The plan submitted by him to
the meeting at Bridge-street, Blackfriars, was
one of a proposed pyramidal cemetery, cal-
culated to contain within a very limited
area, corpses to the enormous number of 6,000,000.
How far such a scheme as this may be deemed re-
(llllAte is tolerably clear from the very disgusting
details recorded by several of the gentlemen who ad-
dressed the assembly on Tuesday. One gave the
folluwi,pg frightful description of Lock burial-
rolled in Southwark :

"Luck I:urial-grcund," ho said, " corepoted a third
of an ,Aers, in which four hurdred bodies were buried on
?veri,ty in a year, and duriug the cholera bet"e
yc„ty :nilceiry were buried a month. Of thirteen
'll
sp
ou.?:es cle,e to It nino were unoccupied, and the hinmates
(A ?Le tAl:er houses bane notice fc quit. In three houses
six ,lied c':.:::!.lcra. &unit of the caseLi were of a moat
frightful char..cter. One matt left behind him a widow
an I six children. Iu 1847, a grave-digger smashed in a
from which as arilprotruded, which he cut off
from the sho&der. When rrawnstratcd with for such
Lrutality, Le replied, that if he did not (,:hop up the
bo•liea he conid not get ro6m to bury a cat."
Another speeker mentioned that in St. (idea's
Cemetery, Camden Town, no less than 1,000 bc,,dies
bad been buried in a single year, while he very
justly alluded to St. George's graveyard, Hanover-
sertlre, as a " consecrated cesepool." A third recorded
certain circumstances in reference to the little church
yard at the Essex village of Grays quite enough of
itself to require the instant interposition of the autho-

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