The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-20 00:00:00

MONDAY EVENING,

•METROPOLITAN INTERMENTS

BILL.

Two meetings have lately taken place en the sub-
ject of the Metropolitan Interments Bill, which ,have
shown something more of the animus of the opposition
to that measure than was, perhap., intended to he re- '
vealed. The first of the eccasiens to which we allude
was last Friday's sitting of the Common Council—
s sufficiently decent and:dull affair when compared with
the second, which was the meeting held, on Monday
night, at the Whittington Club. At the Common
Council, the objectors contented themselves with
making foolish speeches and quietly voting against
the Government scheme; but at the Whittington Club
heads were broken, women were terrified and injured,
and a scene was enacted fitter for a set of savages to
have played than for the inhabitants of a civilizsd
metropolis—all because it had been proposed to abolish
a foul, disgusting practice, pernicious to the health
and offensive to the feelings of our citizens. The op-
position came from two parties—from the parochial
and civic authorities, who fear the extinction of
their powers, and from certain undertakers,
who tremble for their profits. Exlmine it on
every side, and no other motive is discoverable.
To the first class of objectors we can say but little
—and that little will be very general. Vested rights
and local interests must, doubtless, be regarded, and
parochial authority must be maintained, if possible.
To these obvious propositions we cordially assent.
But when a question arises between the continuance
of such a practice as that of intramural interments,
and the intact preservation of local and parochial
powers, we are bound to prefer the greater good to the
less, and not to sacrifice the end to the means. Legal
privileges, when opposed to general well-being, must
be given up, with such compensation as the nature
of the case requires and allows. Intramural burials
have been proved to be highly injurious to the public
health. The putrescent gases which are evolved
from the decomposing animal matter of the 52,000
corpses that are annually laid in metropolitan grave-
yards—" the slightest inspection," says Dr. Lyon
Playfair, " showing that they are not thoroughly
absorbed by the soil lying over the bodies"—are
dangerous to health at all times, and are fatal to
life when breathed in any considerable quantity.
Instances have occurred in which frightful diseases
have been generated—in some cases, instant death has
ensued—when men have rashly or ignorantly delved
into graves before time has shrivelled up the putrid
remains into mere dry bones. Yet these pestilential
gases are daily and hourly diffusing themselves
throughout London, from the myriads of corpses
festering in her graveyards. And not only the air,
but also the water of the metropolis becomes thus
impregnated with offensive and deleterious matter.
What is not evolved into the atmosphere percolates
through the earth into the neighbouring wells and
springs. Nor is the evil confined to those wells
which are quite close to the churchyards. At a dis-
tance of 30 feet from St. Pancras graveyard, the
odour of the sewer was found to be "peculiarly offen-
sive, and was known to arise from the decomposition of
the bodies"—so active, wide-spreading, and penetrat-
ing are these horrible gases. Dr. Sutherland, and
other medical authorities, have expressed the most
decided opinions on the injurious effects of so many
bodies being interred in the midst of human habi-
tations. The greater virulence of the cholera in lo-
calities contiguous to graveyards, and the constant
presence of typhoid fevers and dysenteric disorders in
certain districts, where the walls of the houses are
damp and wet, oozing with the very matter of decom-
position, bear out this conclusion. In fact, none but
men endowed with the extraordinary amount of men-
tal inertia which Mr. Lawrence possesses, would ever
dream of denying the positive proofs which have been
adduced of the extreme injuriousness of this custom.
When a Bill, therefore, is introduced to do away with
such an abominations is it worthy of humanity to begin
wrangling about its details, and to offer to a proposed
national benefit an opposition founded on the selfish
claims of prescriptive authority ? As regards the
actual pecuniary rights of individuals and classes,
Government has offered what it could in the way of
compensation ; and the common instincts of huma
nity—the common decencies of civilization—ought
to teach men to forego any fancied interest that
they may have in :the preservation of a brutalizing
and filthy custom. Those undertakers who seem to
have been the chief performers in the disgraceful
scene at the Whittington Club have acted in a man-
ner alike wrong and foolish. They clamour for com-
pensation before they know that they will lose a half-
penny of profit. We must have undertakers, whether
the gravediggers are paid by the parish or by the
Government ; and it is not very likely that any at-
tempt will be made to introduce sumptuary laws for-
bidding a man to spend as much as he likes on the
burial of his relative. We hope, indeed, to see even-
tually a better state of feeling established with re-
ference to this subject than that which now exists—
we hope to find the public gradually and voluntarily
growing out of their present belief that expense is
respectability. This is among our greatest social
curses. In every grade there is the same struggle to
maintain a costly expenditure—the same sacrifice cf
utility and common sense to appearances. We would
not, however, interfere with the undertakers' bills
if people choose to pay them; but we would
teach all classes that a " decent burial" is not
one which necessarily causes the temporary—
and perhaps the permanent—pecuniary embarrass-
ment of the survivors. It is one where quiet, so
lemnity, and order are observed—where respect is
paid to the dead, and where all the decencies are
maintained which a healthy natural instinct dictates
—not where there are hearse, plumes, sweeping
cloaks, useless hatbands, and a large display of hired
grief. All this may be what is called "respectability,"
but it is not the genuine expression of human reve-
rence to the remains of those we loved. When we
remember that the surviving relatives of the dead,
dwelling round the metropolitan churchyards, are
often smitten, as with a plague, by the foul emana-
tions of those charnel-houses—when we think of the
corpses that are daily dug up to make room for new
corners, and of the hacked limbs and scattered bones
that strew the ground when we reflect on the
outrages which are offered to every human
feeling and to every instinct of affection and
delicacy —we cannot but regard the op-
position to a removal of these disgusting
abominations, on the ground of sentimental re-
gard for the "feelings of relatives," as alike puerile,
mischievous, and insincere. And yet this is made
part of the " cry" against the Metropolitan Inter-
ments Bill. To the poor, this Bill, with its provi-
sions for lessening the expense of funerals, would be
invaluable. The existing cemeteries are, compara-
tively, of little use to them, for they cannot trans-
port
inconvenience thr e deadand
outlay—andthither
e are heavy
for them already. Many a family is obliged to keep
its dead in the common living-room of eight or ten
peopleperhaps for weeks—before it can find funds
for the costly ceremony of interment. If,
then, the higher classes would set an example
of simplicity and unostentatious decorum, they
would naturally be followed by those beneath
them, and much private misery would be
thereby prevented. Without pausing to discuss the
details of this measure, we hope to, see the great
principle of extramural burial at once adopted by
the Legislature. At present the health of the living
and the reverence due to the dead are violated in the
crowded metropolitan graveyards. Hundreds have
died from the pestilence thence disseminated through
the atmosphere—hundreds have sickened in their
houses which the rank charnel vapour has filled ; and
yet " focus of contagion" is the term deliberately ap-
plied to the proposed extramural cemetery, and we
are expected to believe that the feelings of survivors
will be outraged if their dead are laid decently in
quiet and retirement. It is inconceivable that such
an opposition to a measure imperatively called for by
every moral and sanitary consideration can. either
enlist the sympathies of the public or influence the
deliberations of the Legislature.—Morning Chronicle

Price.

Price

Price.

1155

FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE.
OF FRIDAY.
DIVIDENDS.
At the Court, Basinghall-street.
W. J. Haddan, Tottenham, Middlesex, brewer, June
27 aat
i rto
neel e"n—Au
us:a Sophia Tipper, Upper Thames-
street, and Horton Mills, Buckinghamshire, wholesale
stationer, at half-past eleven—ll. Southgate
and W. M. Robertson, Fleet-street, auctioneers, June
7, at one—J. Haly, Surrey-szreet,' Strand, merchant,
June 10, at half-past one—W. Dicken, Brentford-end,
Isleworth, grocer, June 10, at half past eleven—J. Ford,
Richmond, Surrey, licensed victualler, June 10, at
twelve—M. Cowles, Nine Elms, Vauxhall, and York
road, Lambeth, livery-stable keeper, June 10, at eleven
—J. Gilbert, St. Luke's, ironfounder, June 10, at ciee—
W. Solomon, Union-street, Southwark, and High Hol-
born, tea dealer. June 6, at half-past eleven—J. S.
Story, St. 'Alban's, banker, June 6, at one—B. G. Ward
and J. Perry, Nowgate- market, and Gilbert-street, Ox.
ford street, butchers, June 6, at twelve—R.
Lime-street, merchant, June 7, at eleven.—A. Brown,
Mount-street, Wbitechafel, draper, June 7, at twelve
H. W. Hewes, Co'chester. baker, June 7, at half-past
eleven—J. Searle and S. B. Searle, Saffron Walden,
Essex, bankers, June 6, at twelve—D. 0. Myth, Col-
ehe•ter, merchant, June 7, at twelve—T. Hunt and R.
Hunt, Bread- street, and Nottingham, wholesale hosiers,
June 6, at half-past twelve—J. Montefore and J. B.
Montefiore, Nicholas-lane, merchants, June 8, at one—
Harbidge, Islip, Oxfordshire, miller, June 6, at
eleven—D. James, Dartford, banker, June 6, at
J. Lloyd, New Oxford street, hosier, June 6, at e 1

In the Country.
D. James, Cardigan, licensed victualler, June 7, at
eleven, at the Court, Bristol—T. Williams, Weaveihatn,
Cheshirt, innk, eper, June 20, t eleven, at the Court,
Liverpool—W, Hardy, Manchester, drysalter, June 7, at
twelve, at the Court, Manchester—J. Edwards, Man
chester, manufacturer. June 7, at eleven, at the Court,
Manchester—fl. Wilcox, Manchester, tailor, June 11, at
twelve, at the Court, Alanch‘st, r—J. Jackson, Chfl,rd,
Herefordshire, farmer, Juno 13, at twelve, at the Court,
Birmingham.