Cemetery; I assume that every person buried there, however humble his
previous station in life, may in death claim a grave to himself. It has
been the opprobrium of our previous system that, in the poorer classes
of interments, many bodies have been huddled together into a single pit.
Probably you will think, as regards your future burial-place, that no
consideration of cheapness can justify this indecency: probably you will
be unwilling that, in a presence which confounds all social comparisons,
there should be drawn, with your sanction, between rich and poor any so
disrespectful distinction. But at all events, on sanitary grounds, I
feel bound to assure you that these multiple burials are quite
inadmissible. With such concentration of organic remains in very narrow
compass, the soil grows utterly fœtid; and it becomes impossible to
guard against nuisance arising to the public, or against danger to those
who are occupied in digging and tending the ground. These evils, indeed,
are so glaring, and the indecorum of crowded interment has long been so
notorious, that nothing could have given them continuance except the
necessities of our narrow accommodation under the system of intramural
burial: and it would of course be without excuse to perpetuate them
under the changed circumstances of extramural Cemeteries, where space
can so readily be obtained for all legitimate requirements of the
public. So far as the experience of other countries may help to
determine your judgment in this matter, I may inform you that, in every
foreign interment system which can deserve to be considered an
establishment of public authority, the right of single burial is
universally recognised.
Next--as regards the _succession of interments_; according to the
burial-usages of modern times, no public Cemetery with fixed limits can
be permanently useful, except on a full recognition of the fact that it
is a decaying place for the dead, not a place for their embalmment or
mummification. For hence it follows, that ground once used for burial
becomes equally fitted for a second use, whenever by gradual
decomposition the bodies first interred there have thoroughly vanished
from the soil.
This principle has given the common rule of burial; and for obvious
reasons. Under any other plan, the entire area allotted for interment
would presently be in holding. No portion, however remote the date of
its first occupation, could be resumed for a second series of
interments; and the provision of a new Cemetery would be indispensable.
Pushed to its extreme consequences, such a system must eventually
convert the entire country into its burial-ground.
Under the practice of intramural interments--that practice which the new
law supersedes, the principle of temporary tenure has been made to cover
all manner of brutal abuses. Graves have been disturbed--within
metropolitan churchyards and other burying-grounds, in which the
transformations of decay had not half accomplished themselves; and
public decency has been outraged--here, in the centre of civilisation,
by the spectacle of human remains being tossed about like offal. It is
one chief advantage of extramural sepulture, that, while the inevitable
decay of the dead will be removed from the vicinity of the living, and
the latter will no longer have their atmosphere tainted by this hideous
contamination; so likewise for the dead--however humble, that in this
new resting-place, room will be allotted them with no indecent stint;
that the dwellings and market-places of the living will no longer hem
them in, grudging their narrow requirements; that their return to dust
will be respected, as beseems the last phase of mortal existence; and
that, against any desecration of their repose, there will be given every
security which piety and affection can demand.
There may be difference of opinion as to the precise time when a grave
can with truth and decency be thought to have become distenanted. The
rapidity of decay varies in so extraordinary a degree according to soil,
that some inhumations are almost equivalent to embalming; while, in
other cases, the process is comparatively rapid. Only experience of a
particular soil will enable you to know with precision, what length of
tenure is needed there for the purposes of interment to accomplish
themselves; but on general principles one can approximate pretty nearly
to the truth. Assuming the site of your Cemetery to have been selected
with due regard to those qualities of soil which determine the
differences adverted to, I think it unlikely that any adult grave can
properly be re-opened within twenty years[93] of the time when interment
shall last have occurred in it. Very long within this time, however, all
soft textures of the body would have completed their decay. Remains of
the coffin and of the skeleton--materials insusceptible of putrefaction,
would alone occupy the grave, and with gradual crumbling blend
themselves in the soil. Not till this final disintegration of the
skeleton is complete--not till the identity of its different elements is
destroyed, can the first occupant of a grave be fairly deemed to have
abdicated his tenure. From this time only, can his interest in it be
held as having reverted to the public, for whoever next may claim a
similar usufruct of the ground.
[93] Twenty years would probably represent at least four times the
average period during which the bodies of the poor have been left at
rest in many grave-yards of the metropolis. Yet I would willingly
advocate a longer term of years as the personal tenure of a grave, if
public opinion would sanction the heavier expense which must thus be
entailed on the living.
Taken for granted that, as regards the general public, your Cemetery
will be established on the principle of a temporary tenure of graves, it
remains for you to determine to what extent you will permit wealthier
applicants to purchase exemption from this rule, and obtain a freehold
interest in particular portions of your ground. I have little to say on
this point, because it is of no sanitary importance, provided that
privileges so purchased do not in any degree interfere with the general
economy of your plan. Barring any risk of this kind, it comes before you
simply as a question of finance.
A precaution, however, which I would suggest, is, that, first of all,
you should provide a cemeterial space sufficient for the interment
purposes of your population, on the principle of temporary tenure; that
no portion of this space should, under any circumstances, be alienated
from its public destination; that the whole of it should remain in
perpetuity the common burying-ground of the City of London. This prime
necessity of your plan being secured, it will be competent for you to
include in your purchase a certain redundant number of acres; and out of
these you can allot, at your discretion, such quantities of ground as
may be desired in freehold, either for the purposes of family interment,
generation after generation, or for the fiction of perpetual tenure by
some single occupant.[94]
[94] In regard of these exceptional burials, it will be requisite to
fix certain regulations; especially for the construction of family
graves, wherein it will be desired that many who during life have been
united, shall after death have their ashes mingled together in the
soil. A frequent custom in private Cemeteries for fulfilling this
purpose has been, for graves to be dug to a considerable
depth--sometimes such that twelve coffins could be piled there, one on
the other; and these deep pits have commonly been provided with brick
walls. Now, for the same reason as determined my opinion against the
multiple burial of the poor, I would argue against this arrangement,
as one which might occasion excessive accumulation in single spots of
your Cemetery, and as being in principle bad. In preference, I would
venture to recommend the endeavour to introduce an interment-custom,
which is prevalent abroad, of _family plots of ground instead of
family pits_. Under ordinary circumstances, all the accommodation
heretofore sought in the one arrangement would be found superiorly in
the other; and in a well-projected suburban Cemetery the larger
superficial extent could probably be afforded at much less cost than
is usually paid for the pit. Persons familiar with the details of
Cemetery-burial would easily devise an arrangement of such plots,
whereby they should be separate and secluded, admitting of appropriate
decoration, and altogether likely to prove more acceptable to public
opinion than many existing arrangements. In regard of such plots, too,
there might be conceded a privilege which I believe has not been
allowed in private Cemeteries; namely, an hereditary right to refill
the ground for any successive number of times, subject only to such
restrictions as will determine the succession of interments in other
parts of the Cemetery.
In thus selling portions of your land for private and privileged
employment, you would be satisfying what has become a habit, and may be
considered a legitimate claim of the wealthier classes. Beyond this, it
is also evident, that you would virtually be competing with the ordinary
Cemetery-companies of the metropolis, in the most lucrative department
of their trade. It would probably be easy for you, by varying your fees
according to circumstances, either on the one hand to diminish, and
almost prohibit, the frequency of applications for exceptional
interments; or, on the other hand, to attract such applications. Even,
if you thought it desirable, you might admit purchasers from other
classes than those having right of burial in your municipal
Cemetery;--in short, you might manage it commercially, with a view to
profit, looking to its proceeds for covering many expenses of the
general establishment.
With respect to the ordinary arrangement of your ground for public
purposes, and the distribution of burials therein, you may estimate
that, taking one grave with another, and allowing for the marginal
spaces of each, the average size of a grave will be twenty-eight square
feet. For illustration’s sake, I will suppose the ground to be laid out
in plots--say the third of an acre in extent. Each such plot would
contain four hundred single graves, mixed adult and young, with what
foot-paths might be requisite for approaching them. The City mortality
of twenty years (assuming this period to be the ordinary leasehold of a
grave) might be reckoned at sixty-four thousand deaths; for the
accommodation of which number there would be wanted one hundred and
sixty plots of the above-mentioned size--say fifty-four acres of ground.
I would propose that throughout each line of every such space, adult and
infant graves should, as far as possible, lie alternately; and that,
instead of filling all the graves together at stated periods (say every
twenty years) half of them, taken alternately, should be filled at each
semi-period--say every ten years. By this arrangement, half the
complement of burials would take place in each plot, at a time when the
decomposition of the preceding half-complement had finished itself, so
far as putrefaction is concerned; and whatever contamination of air
might be liable to occur under the best-considered sanitary arrangement,
would certainly be reduced to the lowest conceivable amount. Or, as an
alternative equal to this arrangement for the purposes of health, you
might adopt the plan of filling in immediate succession all the
burial-spaces of a plot; provided the surface could then at once be
devoted to the growth of appropriate vegetation.
Fifty-four acres being then the quantity of ground which would suffice,
on sound principles, for the ordinary interment of your entire annual
mortality during a period of twenty years; at the expiration of which
time (assuming your soil to be appropriate) one may reasonably expect
that the ground will admit of a second similar occupation; and so forth
in perpetuity: it will be requisite to add a considerable allowance of
space for other accessory purposes.
Thus, room would be required for the various buildings that belong to
the institution of a Cemetery: partly for the dwelling of such officers
as you may require to be there resident, partly for the temporary
accommodation of persons resorting thither for the burial of their
friends, partly for the religious services of different
congregations.[95]
[95] The distinction of the ground into a consecrated and an
unconsecrated portion, as required by the Act of Parliament, will
require no addition to its total area; and therefore the proportion
which these parts should bear to one another need not now be
discussed.
Something likewise must be added for such mainways as will be wanted
along various lines of the burial-ground, for the carriage traffic which
belongs to funeral ceremonies among the richer classes of society, and
for other like purposes.
Further, I dare say you would think it inexpedient that your Cemetery
should be entirely without decoration and elegance. Fifty-four acres of
head-and-foot stones, or the same extent of bare mounds, might vulgarise
even the aspect of death. By the judicious introduction of trees and
turf and shrubs, of bends and undulations, you would probably seek to
interrupt the long perspective of so many tombs, and, by these
artificial resources of planning and planting, to enhance the native
solemnity of the spot. Amid such ornamental portions of your ground
might be scattered irregularly the various sites of exceptional
interment,--family graves, personal graves in perpetuity, long leasehold
graves, and the like; and the interposition of these large portions of
comparatively un-occupied soil, with as much appropriate vegetation as
could conveniently be introduced, might not only allow much tasteful
decoration of the ground, but would likewise conduce to the healthful
accomplishment of those purposes for which the Cemetery is established.
In respect of these and many other details of your plan, you will
doubtless be guided by the direct and responsible advice of men
specially skilled in the subject. I have, therefore, confined myself to
the mention of those points which may determine your judgment merely as
to the quantity of land required for your purpose.
Without offering any opinion as to the possible claims of non-resident
parishioners, on which liability I would again suggest your obtaining a
legal opinion; and without pretending to advise what allowance should be
made for purely decorative purposes; I may yet conclude from such
information as I have collected, that, with a hundred acres of suitable
soil at your disposal, you would be amply able to meet all legitimate
burial-requirements of your population in perpetuity, and would likewise
(for many years at least) have a considerable excess which might be
applied to the uses of ornamental arrangement.
From what I have said on the influence of soil, in determining the
period after which burying-grounds may be resumed for a second series of
interments, it will be obvious to you that this condition is an
important element in deciding the sufficiency of any area for given
burial purposes. And the site of your Cemetery might be such as somewhat
to lessen, or greatly to increase, the suggested extent of your
estimate. It would be fruitless, however, now to detain you with any
endeavour to trace the several influences which different soils exert
over animal decay. Such remarks, at the present time, could only be
addressed to hypothetical cases, or stated in the most general form.
Therefore, instead of attempting this anticipative argument on the
subject, I hold myself ready to report to you, specifically, on the
suitableness of whatever soil may be proposed to you for the purposes of
your Cemetery.[96]
[96] For similar reasons, I defer any discussion of the depth at which
bodies may most properly be deposited in the ground. The thickness of
superjacent soil, which will deodorise, before their escape, the
gaseous products of any given decomposing mass, or which will retain
these gases more or less permanently in combination, varies most
importantly with certain chemical and mechanical qualities of the
soil: and on these it would be useless to dwell by anticipation. For
accurate results, it may be necessary, after the selection of a site
and during its preparation, to institute experiments on the subject.
There is yet one other consideration which may affect the extent of your
purchase. The law restricts you from approaching within 200 yards of any
dwelling-house, without the previous written consent of its owner,
lessee, and occupier. But there is no law restricting the nearness
within which any builder may approach your wall with his design for new
habitations; and it might easily occur to you, within a short time of
establishing your Cemetery, to find a new town growing in close
proximity around it. If there be any meaning and value in the clause,
which forbids your undue approach to inhabited houses--if it truly
represent that this approach would be a sanitary evil, then obviously
the law is deficient in the respect adverted to. It would be in your
power to guarantee the continuance of a belt of unoccupied ground, as an
immediate circuit to your Cemetery, in either of two ways:--either,
namely, you might purchase a considerable extent of ground beyond the
actual requirements of your Cemetery, might devote its central hundred
acres to interment, and might let its remaining circumference for
agricultural purposes; or, if you were fortunate enough to be treating
for the central portion of some considerable estate, you might
stipulate, as a condition of purchase, that no building should be reared
within such distance of the wall of your Cemetery, as you, on due
consideration, may deem fit.
* * * * *
II. In the provision of a Cemetery, it is required by the Act of
Parliament, that ‘the Burial-Board shall have reference to the
convenience of access thereto from the Parish or Parishes for which the
same is provided;’ and it is legalised, that ‘any Burial-Board may make
such arrangements as they may from time to time think fit, for
facilitating the conveyance of the Bodies of the Dead from the Parish,
or the place of Death, to the Burial-ground which shall be provided.’
It cannot but be obvious to you, that the choice of a site for your
Cemetery might be such as to interpose very serious obstacles in the way
of interment, even for the richest classes; and under the most favorable
circumstances, the removal of the dead to a distance of some miles from
their previous residence, cannot but threaten serious difficulty to the
poor. Assuming--what various conditions of the Act of Parliament render
almost inevitable, that your Cemetery must be distant at least six miles
from the centre of the City, the present funeral charges can hardly be
maintained without increase, if the traffic is to be conducted on the
same principles as heretofore. The price for which an artisan could
procure a decent funeral for his wife or child, within a stone’s throw
of his door, will unavoidably be augmented by every mile you add to the
distance, if the conveyance is still to depend on the old means and
arrangements.
When I consider the classes of persons likely, as inhabitants of the
City, to claim interment in your Cemetery--classes, among which the
predominance of narrow, if not necessitous, circumstances will be
frequent; when, for instance, in a year’s official returns, I see that
artisans and paupers make more than two-thirds of your entire classified
mortality; I cannot but think this aspect of the matter a very important
one. From some years’ experience of your death-register, I should say
that, of City funerals, there would not be one in ten where the friends
could afford to disregard an additional expenditure of half a guinea;
and, in the majority of instances, I am persuaded that a smaller
addition would be enough to cause inconvenience and distress. It
therefore seems to me certain, that your plan for extramural sepulture,
however perfect at all other points, might either entirely fail of its
purpose, or become cruelly oppressive to the poor, by the simple
expensiveness of approaching the burial-place. And I suppose it was in
anticipation of the difficulties here adverted to, that the framers of
the Metropolitan Burials Act introduced the permissive clause, which I
just quoted, empowering Burial-Boards ‘to facilitate the conveyance’ of
the dead, and thus virtually rendering them responsible, so far as the
poorer classes are concerned, for the cheapness and efficiency of such
conveyance.
I would therefore submit, that in your decision as to the site of your
Cemetery, so soon as the indispensable conditions of appropriate soil
are given, the first point to examine is accessibility; that the spot to
be chosen should have, in addition to its carriage roads, the utmost
facility of railway approach; and that, for those with whom small
differences of price are an important consideration, you should be able
to guarantee a rate of transport for coffin and mourners, not in excess
of existing charges.
From observation of arrangements which have lately been made with
Railway-Companies by the Directors of Cemeteries, and from inquiry of
persons engaged in such undertakings, I entertain little doubt that you
might make a contract to the following effect with the authorities of
any line convenient for your purpose--viz., that every day, at a fixed
hour, there should be a train, or some portion of a train, exclusively
adapted to the funeral purposes of the poorer classes; that for this
train there should be issued funeral tickets, franking the conveyance of
a coffin with some stated number of mourners, who should also be
entitled to return; that the introduction of funeral traffic should be
by a special entrance, and its exit at a special terminus.
Such contract supposed,--in connexion with this funeral train, you might
further arrange to maintain public hearses; which, at the option of
persons concerned, and on due requisition being made, should convey any
coffin from its former home to the railway terminus; and which again, if
necessary, at the distal station, should complete its conveyance to the
grave. This facility might even be extended, if the distances were
considerable, to the similar conveyance of a certain number of
mourners, with the undertaker in charge of their procession.
Also, if desirable, it could no doubt be arranged, with a view to
economy, that the undertaker’s responsibility for a funeral should
terminate at the railway terminus, up to which he would have conducted
it; and that its reception at the distal station should be entrusted to
servants of your Cemetery, who would then fulfil all remaining duties in
respect of it.
Arrangements to the above effect would be much simplified in working,
and their general adoption much promoted, if all disbursements for
funeral tickets, and for such other facilitations of conveyance as I
have adverted to, were made by your Burial-Board,--their cost to be
included in an uniform Cemetery fee; so that the friends of the
deceased, after paying for his grave, should, without further payment,
be entitled, if they desired it, to claim conveyance for his coffin from
home to the Cemetery, and for themselves (in stated number) by a funeral
ticket, at least for the railway portion of their transit. Thus to have
one single and inclusive price for all that belongs to the new
system--for the extramural grave, namely, and for conveyance thereto,
would enable your Burial-Board to maintain its total cost at a level
within reach of the poorer classes, and probably below that of existing
prices.
In addition to what I have here suggested, there are many other steps
which might be taken, if unforeseen circumstances should render them
necessary, to diminish the pressure of new burial-charges on the poor.
Time will develop, better than one can foretell, the exact operation of
our reformed system; and for such inconveniences as it may bring, you
will have no difficulty, I think, in finding appropriate cures. Nor
could it be otherwise than easy, if you thought it desirable, to extend
to the comparatively few funerals of wealthier classes which occur from
within the City of London, those same arrangements for facilitating
conveyance, which I have here deemed it requisite to consider only in
their relation to the poor.