The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-10 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN • INTERMENTS

ACT AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

PARISH OF ST. JAMES'S WESTMINSTER.
Yesterday a special meeting of the board of vestry
was held in the Vestry-room of St. James's, West-
minster, the Rev. John Jackson, Rector, in the chair,
to receive the report of the committee upon a letter
from the Board of Health, requiring the vestry to
decide whether they would transfer to the board all
power over the present parochial burial-grounds,
upon being indemnified from all encumbrances attached
to those places of sepulture.
The Vestry- clerk read the report, which recom-
mended the transfer of those burial-grounds to the
lioard of Health, upon the parish being indemnified.
Mr. LEWIN moved, and Mr. GREEN seconded the
reception of the report.
Mr. NELSON tnoved the adoption of the report, and
said that he hoped that at once and for ever, the dis-
gusting and dangerous practice of burying the dead
not only in cities and towns in open graveyards,
would be discontinued, but that, also, the vaults under
churches would be closed.—(Hear, hear.) Through
the labours and exposures of George Alfred Walker,
the Board of Health ordered, in 1849, the closure
of metropolitan burial grounds and vaults ; but
the Commissioners under the Interments Act,
instead of supporting the Board of Health,
allowed grounds that were closed to be re-
opened ; and hence at that very time twenty-five
and thirty bodies were buried in deep gravas with
scarcely any earth between them, and but little co-
vering the surface.— (Shame.) It was further ar-
ranged that the compensation to be paid would be
calculated according to the preceding five years, re-
ceipts; so that the deep grave system was closely
followed to enhance the value of the ground. And
a,me owners of burial-grounds offered sepulture at a
reduced rate to increase their trade in death and their
own revenue.—(Hear, hear.) Was that the course
that should be pursued ?—(No, no.) If grave-yarn's
were closed in 1849, what inconvenience would arise
from their being closed now? The Vestry-Clerk of
St. Andrew's, Holborn, acknowledged that the
churchyard was re-opened to maintain their right for
compensation. Were the people to be sacrificed to
that paltry, unworthy object ?—(No, no.) Mr. Nelson
enumerated the several over-crowded churchyards,
vaults, and grave-yards in the metropolis, and called
upon the parish of St. James to lead the van in put-
ting down those nuisances, which were as disgraceful
to the country as they were destructive of morality
and life.
Mr. Churchwarden GEESEN seconded the motion.
He felt that jobbery was in all matters which Govern-
ment took in hand. Ho had hoped that the Interments
Act would have enabled the city and liberties of
Westminster to have their own burial-ground, but
instead of that the Act included the cities of London
and Westminster and the borough of Southwark; so
that the clause might as well have designated the
division as including the two cities, the county of
Middlesex, and the county of Surrey.—(Hear, hear.)
He also complained that Government gave the power
over burial-grounds to a corporate body, instead of
allowing the several parishes to provide their own
burial places. But (continued Mr. Geesen) what
confidence could the people have in a Government'that
in its appointments threw overboard George Alfred
Walker—(Hear, hear)—who sacrificed purse, person,
and profession during twelve years, while he exposed
the abomination and proved its fatal effects ?—(Hear,
hear.) Why were not his suggestions acted upon ?
(Hear' hear.) Why was not he called to the councils
of the Board of Health ?—(Hear, bear.) Because be
was too honest and was beyond purchase.—(Hear,
hear.) What bad Government done ? Nothing.
Instead of purchasing ground, they allowed private
speculators to anticipate and forestall them. He
trusted that the parish of St. James would act for
itself by purchasing its burial-ground, and placing it
under the control of an efficient committee.—(Hear,
hear.) And he also hoped that Mr. Walker right
himself before the public by disavowing the Interments
Bill, which gave general, and he might add, unquali-
fied dissatisfaction.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. G. A. WALKER felt highly flattered by the
kindness with which his name had been mentioned
by the preceding speakers. He assured the vestry
that, far from being a party to the Bill, the labour of
his life was dedicated more to the production of facts
than of a remedy. As far back as 1839 he thus
wrote in his " Gatherings from Graveyards :"—" I
em, nevertheless, so fully convinced of the necessity
for legislative interference to destroy the present dan-
gerous system of inhumation, that I hesitate not to
express my opinion that the Government of the
country will ultimately be driven to the adoption of
means for enforcing the prohibition of interments in
the vicinity of the living."—(Hear, hear.) That pre-
diction was fulfilled in 1850. In many respects the
Bill, is objectionable ; but the whole matter was in a
nut-shell—cheap land and a cheaper mode of transit.
But although common land could be cheaply and
easily procured near London, 6001. and 7001. an
acre had been paid, for cemeterial ground.—(Hear.)
11r. Geesen asked him to throw out some suggestions.
He (Mr. Walker) had already done so, and printed
those suggestions, which he forwarded to every Mem-
ber of Parliament, every editor, and every corporate
body of the kingdom.—(Hear, hear.) Had Govern-
ment acted upon those suggestions tbey might at least
have treated for, if they would not purchase, land. As
Woking-common was spoken of, he might state that
ho understood that the South-Western Railway Com-
pany were willing to convey dead bodies for less than
sixpence a body, which removed all difficulty on that
head. He had intended to lay before them that day
a series of facts in a concentrated form ; but those
facts he would defer to another time. He hoped that
the active and intelligent members of their board
would lose no time in promptly and efficiently acting
upon any measures calculated to put down intramural
ourials. They should remember that they were on
the eve of the great national Exhibition (which he
trusted would be brilliant and successful), and that it
was a remarkable fact that such an over animalisa-
tion, or crowding of millions together, was generally
attended by the most deplorable results, producing
pestilence and death.—(Hear, hear.) It was a
terrible reflexion that within a century five
million of dead bodies had been buried in
our lanes, streets, thoroughfares, under our houses,
and our churches and chapels, where the living were
congregated to worship their God.—(A voice—" And
under the very room where we are.") That was a
sad reflection on their professing themselves to be
Christians.—(Hear, hear.) He would not impute
blame to the Board of Health, for he believed they
meant well. But there was a power behind them
which would, ere long, make the people speak out.
He hoped that power would not put them on their
mettle.—(Hear, hear.) lie also found fault with the
attempt of Government to interfere unfairly, as he
thought, with the trade of the undertaker. They
might as well make coffin plates as coffins.—(Hear,
hear.) Although they could not drive the plough-
share over whole blocks of houses, in which men,
women, and children vegetated, more like fungi than
that of human beings, yet they could prevent the de-
posit of so many tons of dead corpses, which were
heaped and stacked in pits like bricks without the
usual interposition of mortar, not a handful of earth
between them.—(Cries of " Shame, shame.") Mr.
Walker concluded with a brief description of his pro-
posed plans and operations for wholly removing the
depositaries of the dead from among the living.
Dr. LANCASTER highly eulogised Mr. Walker and
his labours. He advocated local self-government as
regarded burials, and declared that if Government did
not instantly and unconditionally suppress burials in
or near cities, towns, and human habitations, that they
would incur deep and everlasting disgrace ; and he
further expressed his conviction that Government was
bound to acknowledge in a proper and substantial
form the services of Mr. Walker, who had first ex-
posed
.the enormities of intra-mural sepulture.
Several other gentlemen having similarly expressed
themselves, and the motion having been carried,
Mr. NELSON rose, and as one of the deputation
explained the result of their interview with the Com-
missioners of Sewers, for the purpose of inducing
them to withdraw the special rate proposed by them
for the new sewers that were being formed in the
parish, which interview was anything but satisfac-
tory. He stated that although the parish paid in
twenty-two years 565,0001. sewers rates, that there
were in it 666 houses without drainage. In White-
chapel thirty-six courts and thirteen streets were
without sewers; and in St. Giles's nothing for
years had been done to the sewers until last month.
Church-lane, Carver-street, and St. George's-street,
in that parish, were also without sewers, and yet
sewers were built in Victoria-street, where the houses
were not finished.
Mr. GEESEN—Mr. Peto, M.P., I believe is inte-
rested in that street.—(A laugh.)
Mr. NELSON exposed the abuses of the Sewers'
Commissioners, under which one-half the sum laid
out in improvements were expended in its manage-
ment. If Government (said Mr. Nelson) were really
serious in their anxiety to promote sanitary measures,
they should abolish the present dilettanti mode of act-
ing followed by the Commissioners of Sewers. They
should give them local Acts, similar to those con-
tained in the Scotch 13W, brought forward last e!-
sion ; they should give them a new Buiidiny
of
they should give them an abundant supply f vatr,
repeal the window-tax, and abolish the duty on soap.
—(Hear.) In conclusion he exp essed his convic-
tion that the Commissioners of Sewers had not the
power to impose the special rate.
Messrs. Geesen, Jackson, and Dr. Lancaster, ad
dressed the vestry on the same subject; after which
thanks were voted to the Chairman, and the proceed-
ings terminated.

MAISCUEsTER, JAN. 9.—STATE OF TRADE.—
There is no change in the market since Thursday last.
Business is quiet, but prices are very firm. Inquiries are still
being made for the yarns suited for india, but are yet scarce
and dor._