The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-21 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN INTERMENT ACT.

On Saturday the award of the referee or umpire,
Mr. Barnes Peacock, Queen's Counsel, proposed as
umpire on behalf of the directors of two of the metro-
politan trading cemeteries, and accepted by the Ge•
neral Board of Health, was officially announced by
his determining the compensation to be paid on be-
half of the public for taking possession of two of the
largest metropolitan trading cemeteries for use or
closing, namely, the cemetery at Brompten, Middle-
sex, and the cemetery which was established at Nun-
head, about a mile from the Bricklayers' Arms, in
Surrey, by the same company, which opened another
trading cemetery at Highgate.
The awards were the first of a proceeding under
the Metropolitan Interment Act, which authorised
the General Board of Health to take compuhory pos-
session of the whole of the trading cemeteries, even-
tually closing them until other, and, as the Board of
Health deem it, more suitable places of extramural
sepulture can be provided, on the plan set forth in
their report on a scheme of interment submitted to
Parliament in pursuance of a provision to that effect
in the Diseases Prevention Act. _ .

The proceedings for the determination of the corn
pensations in these cases have been pending for some
weeks past, and have been pursued chiefly in sittings
before the arbitrators, Mr. Rawlinson, the engineer
in behalf of the General Board of Health ; and Mr.
Alderman Farebrother, on behalf of the Nunhead
Cemetery Company; and Mr. Hardwick, the archi-
tect, in behalf of the company owning the Brompton
Cemetery. B. Peacock, Esq., Q C., acting as umpire.
The case in behalf of the General Board of Health
was conducted by Sir F. Thesiger; that in behalf of
the Nunhead Cemetery Company by Mr. Crowder;
and that in behalf of the Brompton Company by Sir
Fitzroy Kelly.
The evidence heard before the arbitrators was
almost exclusively professions!, of architects and
others, as to the value of the sites, and the expense
and construction of buildings. For the Brompton
Cemetery, the sum claimed as compensation by the
company was 168,7624 12s. Bd.; the sum offered in
behalf of the public by the General Board of Health
was 43,836/. For the Nunhead Cemetery the sum
claimed was 99,349/. ; the sum offered was 39,871/.
On the part of the Brompton Cemetery Company
evidence was given to prove the actual expenditure of
107,0001. for works, and proof was given that 63,000/.
had been actually expended on the Nunhead Ceme-
tery. Both companies claimed compensation for pro-
spective profits on the discontinuance of the practice of
intramural interment, and also compensation for com-
pulsory purchase.
In respect to the prospective profits, it was ad-
vanced on behalf of the companies that they relied,
as sources of profit, upon the continuance of " pit
burial" for the poorer persons—that is, of piling cof-
fins upon one another in common graves twenty feet
deep ; and as to the middle and higher classes, the
rates of vaults and tombs. On the part of the Gene-
ral Board of Health, professional witnesses were in
attendance to prove that the outlays for works had
been mismanaged. Among the witnesses were Sir
Joseph Paxton, who, it appeared, had been consulted
in relation to the preparation of a national cemetery,
and was ready to give evidence that superior cemete-
ries, of the same size, might at any time have been
constructed and laid out at far less than the companies
stated that they had expended upon them. Various
medical witnesses were in attendance, prepared, it
was stated, to substantiate the Board's condemnation
on the sanitary grounds set forth in their report of
the practice of burial in pits or in vaults. But Sir
Frederick Thesiger declined cal!ieg any witnesses,
and rested his case on the evidence elicited in the
course of the cross-examination, that the companies,
though established many years, paid only small divi-
dends; and that the real test of the value of the works
proposed to he taken, and the compensation to be given,
was not what they cost, but what they would sell for
in the market ; in short, the sale price of the shares
up to the time when it was proposed to discontinue
the practice of intramural interment, and
before the
Act was passed.
The award of the umpire, Mr. Barnes Peacock, now
officially notified, was, tor the two :
.C.
As compensation for the Brompton Cemee
try, for which 168,7621. 12s. Bd. was
claimed by the company, and 43,8361.
offered on behalf of the public ...... • 74,921 14
For the Nunhead Cemetry, for which
99,349/. was claimed by the conepanA
and 39,871/. offered by the Boara
...... 42,153 13
Health on behalf of the public
.1••••••••••••••••••••.

Total .......... 117,075 7
being 151,0361. ss. Bd. less than was claimed, and
coming within the rate of the estimate presented by
the General Board of Health to Parliam.ent.
So far as these two cages go companiese in accordance
with the view that the trading have no
claims to prospective profits, founded on the assump-
tion that intramural intern
would be discontinued
any provision for the public, and that
without making
it is not the amount which may have been expended,
whether wastefully. or otherwise, which is to form a
basis for compensation, but the actual worth of the
property, as shown by the dividend and the pri •
ces of
shares at the time the change was proposed.—Sunday
Paper.