I cannot allow the subject of a mortuary to pass without a brief
reference, and an expression of my great regret that the parish is still
unprovided with one. As I have stated in former reports, the burials, at
the public expense, of poor persons, occupants in life of single rooms,
are reckoned by hundreds every year; and I cannot doubt that in a large
proportion of these cases the survivors would avail themselves of the
privilege of depositing their dead in a public mortuary of suitable
construction, and in a suitable locality. Poor persons in somewhat
similar circumstances, but above the pauper class, would, in all
probability, also use the mortuary. The law provides for the removal of
the bodies of those who have died of an infectious disease, viz., on
medical certificate and by Justice’s order. Bodies of persons found dead
or accidentally killed, and not identified, would be received as a matter
of course. A properly-designed mortuary would embrace a room for
conducting _post-mortem_ examinations, which are now often made under
painful and distressing circumstances, to say nothing of the
inconvenience to which the operator is put—and there were 154 such
examinations last year by coroner’s order. It should also embrace a
suitable Court for the due and proper execution of the coroner’s office.
No progress in this matter has been made since my last report, a
conference with a Committee of the Board of Guardians, with a view to the
appropriation of a portion of the stone yard at the Dispensary Buildings,
Mary Place, Potteries, having proved abortive. I cannot say I regret
this result, as I do not consider the site a desirable one. The mortuary
should be quite distinct from any association with pauperism, and though
privacy of site is desirable, I hold that it should be placed in the most
respectable and the most central locality that can be obtained, in order
to ensure its being used. I am still of opinion that the