The Sun.
London, England, 1850-02-25 00:00:00

... 400,000

£700,000

35,000

77,000

Totsl annual amount of expenses of cemeteries X 112,000
ADVANTAGES OF THE PROPOSED PLAN.

They then proceed:—" We have, in conclusion, to
call attention to some of the uses which may be expected
to be fulfilled by the adoption of this plan of sepulture.
"1. It wilt put an end to intramural interment with
all its attendant evils.

2. It will obviate any injurious effects on the public
health from the practice of extramural intament.
" If its principles are acted on, in any use that may
be made of existing cemeteries care will be taken to inter-
pose between the spots where interments take place and
neighbouring houses a sufficient space for the safety of
the inhabitants; while the cite contemplated for a na-
tional cemetery is so remote from the metropolis as to
render it highly improbable that it can ever be ap-
proachel by a suburban population.
" From the concurrent testimony of grave-diggers,
sextons, and others employed in churchyards, it appears
that decomposition invariably goes on more rapidly near
the roots cf trees than in any, other Flirts of the burial
ground; that the earth is always much drier near the
roots of tree.; than elsewhere; that the fibres of the roots
are drawn towards the site of the grave, and are often
observed to penetrate right through the decayed wood
of the coffin lid. It is probable, therefore, that these
roots are actively and uncEa3ingly at work absorbing the
products of decomposition as they are evolved, and thus
preventing their escape to the surface, and consequently
their pernicious effects.
"In this manner, by arresting these noxious matters
in their course, the plant, instead of allowing them to go
forth on an errand of destruction, retains them at the
moment when they are about to be resolved into their
physical elements, within the sphere of life, to recom-
mence a new cycle of organic, healthful, and useful ex-

" It is report3d by Dr. Sutherland, that he found the
great utility of vegetation in shortening the period of
decay fully recognised abroad ; and that it was stated
to him at Paris, as a reason for bur,ying only one body
in a grave, that the quantity of vegetation which could
be placed on the grave could dispose most readily of the
gaseous matters of one body and shorten the period of
interment by eating out the nutritious mater of the soil,
but this was not the case where more than one body had
bean buries, and that the quantity of organic matter was
found to be much larger when the ground was reopened
in such cases.

" The action of vegetation in arresting the products of
decomposition, and preventing them from reaching the
surface, by recombining them into living and healthful
♦egetable structure", would afford a "imple and effectual
means of putting an end to any further injury to the
public health from the existing buria!-grounds, if, ofLer
they have been finally closed, they were, wherever prac-
ticable, planted with tree.", and still preerved as surcd
opoti.

" By prober regulations as to the number of interments
and the depth of the graves in suitable sitiations and
soils, and by the aid of an abundant and healthy vegeta-
tion (which, however, it is impossible to obtain in
crowded cities), the noxious matters evolved from ntt-
tural decomposition in the earth may probably be so
diluted and dispersed se to remove almost entirely, if not
entirely, any injurious influence from this source.
" Since, therefore," they conclude, " it is practicable
to remove all physical objections to burial—since its
expense may be S 9 reduced as to obviate all ground of
objection to it on the score of economy—and since moral
considerations also are in favour of the practice, bearing
in mind the universal fe3litigs of the population at the
present time in all countries—it appears that, upon the
whole, this is the most eligible and natural mode of dis-
posing of the dead.
"3. By the regulation if the price of funerals at cer-
tain fixed scales of charges, and the payment of the
whole cost of the funeral in one sum, it will relieve
families, at the moment when they are the least capable
of attention to such matters, from care or trouble, and
from die possibility of extortion.
4. By the saving of expense, which will be effected by
the whole if the interments being performed on ono
system and under one direction, it will render the cost
of burial moderate to all classes, and give to the poor
the advantage of extramural interment at a reduction of
the price which they at present pay for burial in the
parochial grave) &rd.
" 5. By the appointment of officers of health, and the
establishment of houses of reception, it will diminish or
remove the physical and moral evils which result from
the long retention of the corpse in single living and
sleeping rooms, and thus, for all these reasons, it will
fulfil the primary object of the change, namely, the re-
moval of the whole of the sanitary evils which arise from
the present practice of interment.
" 6. It will greatly diminish the practice now so com-
mon of funeral processions in crowded streets. The body
will be conveyed respectfully, but silently and unobtru-
sively, to the cemetery; and within the precincts of the
cemetery only will the funeral procession be formed.
Here there will be no noise or bustle, none of the dis-
cordant and inappropriate sounds and sights that meet
the ear and eye in the busy city; no intrusion of the
spirit and pursuit of traffic and gain; no persons will he
present but those who are called there to take part in
the solemn scene, and most of whom will have personal
sympathy with it; while all the objects that meet the
senses and that call up associations in the minds of the
real mourners, will be in harmony with their thoughts
and feelings, and will tend to soothe them, as far as
thing external can at such a moment exereiseasoaontyh--
leg influence.
7. It will increase the solemnity and impressiveness
of burial. The peculiar observance and rites calculated
to produce this effect must of course be different in dif-
ferent persons and classes, according to different modes
and habits of thought and feeling, and different views of
religion. But the ecclesiastical authorities will have it
in their power to adopt the means which they may deem
the best calculated for the performance of this last duty
to the dead in the manner the most appropriate to the
wishes and feelings of their respec iva religious commu-
nities.

" The religious authorities with whom we have con-
sulted have represented to us their sense of the import-
ance of providing means for the celebration of funeral
rites under circumstances which will naturally revive
and strengthen the impressions and f:elings associa'el
with the usual performance of divine service. They
therefore deemit desirable that in the consecrated cart
of the eastern cemetery a church should be erected of
;sufficient magnitude to obtain the effect of solemnity and
improsetTeneis flit may be derived from ap- '