The Sun.
London, England, 1851-07-15 00:00:00

instituted in regard to existing abuses arose eut of
the circumstance that the Town Council of that bo-
rough and the resident clergymen have for some time
been at issue as to the cemeterial provision necessary
for the increased mortality of a gradually increased
and increasing population. Efforts, for instance, have
again and again been made by the Town Council
and those efforts have as frequently been rendered
futile by the obstructions thrown in the way of the
desired reform by the clergymen. Finding them-
, selves thus impeded by the clerical faction, the muni-
cipal authorities of Leeds have consequently been
induced at length to issue a voluminous report illus-
trative of their humane though ineffectual endeavours
—a report formally drawn up by their own Burial-
ground Committee. We shall content ourselves with
making one extract from this very lengthened docu-
ment, being a brief but suggestive paragraph
excerpted from a letter written on the 12 h ultimo,
by Mr. WILLIAM WHITanaAD, one of the ex-church-
wardens of the parish of Leeds. He says, " I have
satisfactory evidence to show that on Monday, the
26th of May last, the remains of an adult were dug
up in St. Peter's churchyard to make room for an
interment. I have the evidence of not less than four
witnesses, in addition to what I saw myself, as to
the digging up of human remains in another grave in
St. Peter's churchyard, on Saturday, the 31st of May
last, to make room for an interment. In the latter
case the remains of at least two adults were dug up,
to say nothing of the body of a child in a coffin par-
tially decayed, that was taken up and placed on the
top of the grave. Persons standing on the grave
side were told they bad no right to be there, and
must go about their business; a large portion of the
remains of the adults were put into a sack ; I saw
part of them. One of my witnesses says, the grave-
digger had had plenty of beer ! Such
scrims as these are sickening are horrible ;
but so long as interments are permitted
to take place in these grave-yards they cannot be
avoided." Such are among the revelations contained
in the report of the Leeds Burial Ground Commit-
tee, and these abominations are tuleratbd in the nine-
teenth century, and under a Christian dispensation.
Talk of the " repose of death" forsooth It is nothing
beMer than solemn and melancholy illusion. Added
to terrible facts here given, we would direct the at-
tention of the public to a declaration made ou the 26th
ult., at a vestry meeting of the parish of St. Anne's,
Soho, by Mr. JOSEPH GEORGE, one of the
churchwardens, when he said, that "in reference to
the intramural interments, he had been induced to
ascertain the number of burials which had taken place,
in consequence of a communication from the Board of
Health, and he found that in the course of the last 160
years there had been 1,920 leaden coffins deposited in
the vaults, of which there remained now only 490,
while 110,240 bodies in the same period had been
buried in the burial ground of the church, or 689
every year, that being at the rate of 1,000
to the acre, instead of 110, the number calculated as
proper." These facts we leave to the consideration of
the public without any comment whatsoever, satisfied
that the truths they contain must illustrate with only
too dreadful a vividness the necessity of immediately
establishing a system of interment in extramural
cemeteries.