The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-26 00:00:00

PitOrnitthis

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1846,

Yesterday we commented upon one of those great
measures of social reformation to effect which the
Prime Minister of England pledged himself upon the
hustings of Guildhall. Yesterday we remarked upon
the necessity for some comprehensive scheme of
national education. To-day we would remark upon
the equally enormous necessity for some comprehen-
sive scheme of sanatory legislation. Our attention
was re-called to the former exigency by a meeting,
at which Lord MOEPETH presided. Our attention is
now re-called to the latter by a meeting, of which
Lord ASHLEY was the chairman. In Wednes-
day's report of the Health of Towns' Asso-
ciation the pernicious effects of our present
system of interment was illustrated by a cor-
respondence of a very remarkable character,
The inferences which are deducible from that corre-
spondence are, to our thinking, conclusive and un-
answerable. They form, however, merely an additional
link in a long chain of evidence; they only corrobo-
rate those opinions to which we, as honest journalists,
have felt ourselves frequently compelled to give utter-
ance. That a vast accumulation of animal matter in a
state of the worst decomposition must act prejudi-
cially _upon the health of those living in its immediate
neighbourhood, one would scarcely expect to be
denied. Yet the assertion has been incredu-
lously disregarded ; sometimes, indeed, attempts
have been made to disprove the deduction.
What was obvious to the plainest intellect when un-
warped by prejudice, has been treated as a frivolous
misapprehension by those whose pecuniary interests
were implicated therein. Men have had the stupidity
to contemn the most overwhelming statistical argu-
ments ; men have had the stolid audacity to discard
the unanimous arguments of science. With the most
violent epidemics raging periodically in the vicinity
of these pestilential churchyards, with a visible glut
of corpses, with a visible exudation of prurient matter
from the graves,with a visible malariareeking from the
contaminated soil, before their eyes continually, these
dissentients have insisted upon the innocuous nature
of a system which to every impartial observer was
increasing the mortality of the kingdom frightfully
The data derived from chemical analysis, the declare.
tions of experienced physicians, the remonstrances a
the local authorities, are all to no purpose. Our fore-
fathers were interred in Saint Paul's, Covent-garden,
our forefathers were satisfied with decent sepulture
in Spafields Burial-ground, our forefathers were
contented with their six feet of earth in the
churchyard at Drury-lane why should not
we be contented in like manner ? That is
their description of logic. They forget that it is the
very "circumstance of our ancestors having been in-
terred, generation after generation, in St. Paul's,
Covent-garden, and elsewhere, that renders it unad-
visable to continue adding to those surcharged pits of
corruption. They forget that sepulture might—years
ago—have been decent in Spafields, but that now it
is most indecent, most immoral, and most unchristian
They forget that where the full measure of six fee.
was allowable in the days of eur predecessors, it is
an impossibility now-a-days. They altogether forget
these things, or, we suspect, they wittingly distort
them for their own venal purposes, out of their own
cupidity, from a desire to extend their odious and
execrable emolument.
The correspondence to which we have referred as
having been submitted to the Health of Towns' Asso-
ciation originated out of certain occurrences in Min-
chinhampton—occurrences that go far to attest the
baneful consequences of these over-stocked burial-
grounds. They prove that even in a little country
town, where the ventilation and drainage are excel-
lent, and in which, during a period of fourteen years,
previous to 1843, not a single case of Idiopathic fever
had come to the knowledge of an experienced resident
practitioner, contagious diseases have, since that period,
ravaged the population at intervals—and this
because the parish graveyard had been literally sur-
feited with dead bodies. Beyond this, moreover, the
soil of that graveyard had been actually carried away
to the extent of several hundred loads, for the purpose
of fertilizing the adjacent meadows, though that soil
was so impregnated with animal matter that its colour
was pecu:iarly darkened. Can anything more be
wanting after this to prove the necessity for some
strenuous interference on the part of the Legislature ?
Can any additional reason be required to enforce the
annual motion of Mr. MACKAINNON ? Is it not
sufficiently manifest that the present system of sepul-
ture is prejudicial to the health of the quick, as well
as derogatory to the sanctity of the dead ; that it is
a violation of all decency; that it is injurious to the
morality of the people ; that it is opposed to some of
the holiest principles of Christianity ? Is there not
something pagan in the sawing in two of coffins, in
the " hand-picking " of human bones, in the burning
of ragged shrouds and partially-decayed flesh? Is
there not something brutalizing in the ma-
nuring of our fields with the remains of
men sanctified by death and consecrated by the
solemn language of Christian burial ? While we
shudder at the pestilence which is inevitable from
such masses of putrefaction, may we not with justice
shudder at the evils of a moral character, which are
no less inevitable ? The heart may mourn and the
eyes may weep for the memory of departed humanity,
but if its inanimate form be treated habitually with

no more respect than that evinced towards the car.

case of a dead dog, the holiness of that memory
%%ill be first diminished, and ultimately forgotten.

Christianity has invested death with an ineffable

grandeur. By the genius of that religion the dead

man is beatified, and his body becomes, consequently,
encompassed by a multitude of pathetic and sublime

associations. The effect of our present system of
intermural interment is to-destroy those associations,
to render their sublimity a mockery, and their pathos
a derision, to fill the popular mind with a heathenish
abhorrence for the grave, and a loathing of its silent
habitants.

In one of his little romances, we remember
VOLTAIRE casts his inimitable sarcasms at the abuses of
the tomb. It is in his "Babouc ou le monde cognize
it va." After conducting Babouc into a cathedral
in Persepolis, the writer describes a ceremony per-
formed by the worshippers. They removed a large
stone, he says, and having thrown out some earth,
which exhaled "flue odeur empestee," they laid a
(lead body in the hole and reclosed the aperture.
" Quoi ! s•ecria Babouc, ces peuples enterrent leurs
mores dans les me'ines ou ils adorent la diriniti

The committee of the Irish landlords, appointed at
he
,meeting of the 14th instant, to which we have
already alluded, have commenced their useful labours.
It has been decided that they are to meet twice a
week, for the purpose of taking into their consideration
the several =titters coming peculiarly within the
sphere of their duties. The honorary secretaries are
all gentlemen of the highest respectability and intel-
ligence, and may be looked upon as the representatives
of large properties, and of various political feelings.
The first on the list, Mr. MONSELL, of Tervoe, is him-
self the proprietor of a considerable estate in the
county of Liimerick, and is also the son-in-law of the
Earl of DUISDIAVEN. He formerly contested the re-
presentation of his native county on Conservative
principles, bat was defeated. He is a gentleman of
great intelligE nce and excellent private character, a
kind and liberal landlord, a judicious and improving
agriculturist.. He made himself particularly active in
pointing out the defects of the Labour-rate Act and
the means by -which they might be corrected ; he has
been one ofthetarliest ad vocates for works of a beneficial
and reproductive character ; the suggestions he has here-
tofore put for-ward have been very valuable, and he
has earned for himself the respect of mea of all classes
of political feeling. The committee could scarcely have
made a better selection, or one that would more entirely
merit and receive the public approbation than that of
Mr. MONSBY.I.. The other three gentlemen are
barristers. Mr. AloNca is the nephew and, we
believe, heir presumptive of the Earl of RATUDOWNr.,
and Mr. BotnixE is the nephew of the Earl of MAYO.
Sir COLMAN O'Losnum it is well known is the
eldest son anxi successor of the late revered Master of
the Rolls. He has, although barely of six years'
standing at the bar, attained for himself, by his learn-
ing and ability, a position in his profession as high
as was, perhaps, ever attained by any person within
the same period. If anything could be wished for in
the selection of the secretaries, it would be that every
shade of politics had been represented. The three
first-named gentlemen are all high Conservatives;
the last, a Liberal and Repealer. 'We hope and trust
that no question will arise of a nature to engender
disputes and differences in the committee It would,