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Title: A supplementary report on the results of a special inquiry into
the practice of interment in towns.

Author: Edwin Chadwick

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A
SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT ON THE RESULTS OF A SPECIAL
INQUIRY INTO THE PRACTICE OF INTERMENT IN TOWNS. ***

REPORT ON THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE LABOURING
POPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN.

A
SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT

ON THE RESULTS OF A SPECIAL INQUIRY INTO

THE

PRACTICE OF INTERMENT IN
TOWNS.

MADE

AT THE REQUEST OF HER MAJESTY’S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE

HOME DEPARTMENT,

BY

EDWIN CHADWICK, Esq.
BARRISTER AT LAW.

Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by Command of Her Majesty.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
FOR HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE.

1843.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Sources of information on which the Report is founded, § 1 1

Grounds of exception to the admitted necessities of the abolition
of intra-mural interment examined, § 1 2

The evidence as to the innocuousness of emanations from human
remains: negative evidence, § 2 4

The facts in respect to such alleged innocuousness incompletely
stated, § 3 7

Positive evidence of the propagation of acute disease from putrid
emanations, §§ 5 and 6 10

Specific disease communicated from human remains—positive
instances of, §§ 8 and 10 14

Distinct effects produced by emanations from bodies in a state of
decay and from bodies in a state of putrefaction, § 10 21

Summary of the evidence in respect to the sanitary question as to
the essentially injurious nature of such emanations, &c., § 11 23

Difficulty of tracing distinctly the specific effects of emanations
from burial-grounds in crowded towns, amidst complications
of other emanations, § 13 23

Tainting of wells by emanations from burial-grounds, § 14 24

Danger of injurious escapes of putrid emanations not obviated by
deep burial, § 21 28

General conclusions that all interments in churches or in towns
are essentially of an injurious and dangerous tendency, § 23 30

Injuries to the Health of Survivors occasioned by the delay of
Interments.

The greatest proportion of deaths occur in the single rooms in
which families live and sleep, § 25 31

Instances of the common circumstances of their deaths; and of
the deleterious effects of the prolonged retention of the body in
the living and sleeping room, from the western districts of the
metropolis, § 26—from the eastern districts, §§ 27 and 28—
from Leeds, § 34 31

Numbers of deaths from epidemic, endemic, and contagious
disease; and consequent extent of dangers from the undue
retention of the body amidst the living, § 38 43

Moral evils produced by the practice, §§ 41 and 42 45

The delay of Interments amongst the Labouring Classes in part
ascribable to the difficulty of raising excessive Funeral
Expenses, § 40 45

Evidence of undertakers on the funeral expenses and modes of
conducting the funerals of different classes of society, §§ 43
and 44 46

Specific effects of excessive Funeral Expenses on the economy of
the Labouring Classes.

Extent of pecuniary provision made in savings’ banks and benefit
societies for funeral expenses, §§ 53 and 55—Abuse of the
popular feeling of anxiety in respect to interments; and waste
and distress occasioned to them, §§ 56 and 57 55

Demoralizing effect of multiplied insurances for large payments
for funeral expenses on the occurrence of deaths, §§ 60 and 61
—Illegality of the practice. § 66—Case for interference for the
prevention of crime, and measures for the reduction of the
excessive expenses, §§ 69 and 71 63

Aggregate Expenses of Funerals to the Public.

Small proportion of clerical burial dues to the undertaker’s
expenses, § 74 69

Heavy proportion of funeral expenses in unhealthy districts, § 75
—Efficient sanitary measures the most efficient means of
diminishing the miseries of frequent interments, § 81 71

Failure of the objects of excessive expenditure on funerals—
solemnity or proportionate impressiveness not obtained, § 84
—and unattainable in crowded and busy districts, § 85—
Increasing desertion of intra-mural burial-grounds, § 89 79

Means of diminishing the evil of the prolonged retention of the
Dead amidst the Living.

Obstacles to the early removal of the dead examined, § 89—
Grounds for the apprehension of interment before life is
extinct. § 90—Institution for the reception and care of the dead
previous to interment formed in Germany, § 96—Success of, in
abating the apprehensions of survivors, § 97—Practical
evidence of the necessity of some such institution, and
increasing use of inferior places for the same purpose in this
country, §§ 101 and 10 84

Proposed Remedies by the extension of separate Parochial
Establishments in Suburban Districts examined.

Claims of the suburbs to protection from the undue multiplication
of inferior burial-places in them, § 105 97

Instance of the trial of suburban parochial burial-grounds for the
parishes of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St. James,
Westminster, §§ 166 and 108 97

Objections to the management of parochial boards stated by the
Rev. William Stone, of Spitalfields, and others, § 109 100

Increased expense from numerous small and inefficient
establishments, § 110 104

Unavoidable inefficiency of management by, § 111 105

Grounds for the conclusion that such establishments would
ultimately rather extend than abate the evil, § 112 106

Practicability of ensuring for the Public superior Interments at
reduced Expenses.

Evidence of undertakers as to the practicable reductions in the
expenses of funerals without any reduction in proper
solemnity, §§ 113 and 115 to 120 107

Necessity of the provision of trustworthy responsible information
to the survivors at the time of deaths as to what is necessary
and proper, §§ 121, 122, 123, and 124 113

Objections to the abandonment of the necessities of the
population in respect to burial as a source of profit to private
and irresponsible trading associations, § 126 114

Examples of successful Legislation for the improvement of the
practice of Interment.

In America, § 127—in Germany, § 128—Mode of protecting the
public from extortionate charges in Prussia, § 129—
Regulations of funerals and application of the proceeds to
public purposes, § 131—Excessive numbers of deaths and
funerals consequent on the low sanitary condition of the
Parisian population, § 133 119

Agency of superior officers of public health employed to 125
superintend interments in America, § 135—in Germany, § 136
—Example of the inefficiency of the agency employed at Paris,

§ 137—Consequences of mixing up private practice with
public duties, § 138

Experience in respect to the Sites of Places of Burial and
Sanitary Precautions necessary in respect to them.

In regard to sites, § 140—to the time of the natural decay of
bodies, § 143—to the depth of graves, § 144—to the space for
graves; and the greater extent of space requisite for the same
numbers of a depressed town population than for a healthy
rural population, § 145—Data for the spaces requisite for the
burials arising from the deaths in the metropolis, § 146 to §
150 127

Why careful planting requisite for cemeteries, §§ 151 and 152 131

Extent of Burial-grounds existing in the Metropolis.

Summary of the extent of the burials by the chief religious
communities, § 155—Disclaimer of private burial-grounds, §
156—Extent of cemetery companies’ estimates for burials, §§
157 and 158—Diminution of public demand for burials in lead
and in catacombs, § 160—Dangers to the living of ill-regulated
burials, and legislation on, § 162—Improvements in all
existing material arrangements for burials practicable. § 164—
Defective arrangements in private cemeteries, §§ 165 and 166
—Examples of improved ceremonial arrangements, §§ 169 and
171 133

Moral influence of seclusion from thronged places, and of
Decorative Improvements in National Cemeteries.

Statement by Mr. Wordsworth of the loss of salutary influence by
burial in towns, § 172—Effects of careful visible arrangements
on the mental associations of the population stated, § 173—
Examples of the influence of cemeteries on the continent, §§
174 and 175—Sir Christopher Wren’s plan for the exclusion of
intra-mural burying places on the rebuilding of the City of
London, § 176—Practice of the primitive Christians to bury
outside cities, § 177 172

Superior agency of the clerici employed in burial: and a special
agency of public officers of health instituted in the east, § 177 148

Opinion of the Rev. H. H. Milman on the means of the re-
investment of the funeral services with religious influences 150

Dispositions manifested in this respect amongst the lower classes,
§ 178 to 181 153

The duties in respect to honouring the dead, as stated by Jeremy
Taylor 157

Necessity and nature of the superior Agency requisite for private
and public protection in respect to Interments.

Functions of an officer of health exemplified in respect to the
verification of the fact and cause of death, §§ 184 to 190—
Nature of his intervention and aid to the survivors, and the
reduction of the expenses of funerals, § 191—For the
protection of the survivors on the occurrence of deaths from
infectious or contagious disease, §§ 193 to 200—Evidence of
the acceptability of the visits of such officers to the houses of
the labouring classes for the purpose of mortuary registration,
§ 201 163

Jurisprudential value of the appointment of officers of health in
the prevention of murders and secret deaths, §§ 202 to 204 171

Service in supplying the want of coroners’ inquests in Scotland, 174

Advantages to science from the improvement of the mortuary
registration, § 209—to medical science from bringing classes
of cases, or common effects from common causes, under one
view, §§ 212 to 215 179

Proximate Estimate of the Reductions in Funeral Expenses
practicable under National arrangements.

Total expenses of funerals in the metropolis, § 219—Economy of
few large and inefficient as compared with many small and
efficient establishments, §§ 221 and 222—Expenses of an
adequate staff’ of officers of health, §223 185

Daily number of deaths and funerals in the metropolis and in
provincial towns, § 224 189

Claims of existing interests to compensation, §§ 228, 229, and
230 191

Why payment of fees and expenses at the time of the funerals
proposed to be retained, §§ 233 and 234 193

Applicability of conclusions from the metropolis to the provincial
towns, § 235 195

Summary of conclusions:—

1. As to the evils which require remedies, § 237 197

2. As to the means available for the prevention or mitigation
of these evils, § 248 199

APPENDIX.

PAGE

1. Regulations for the establishment of officers for the care of
the dead and for conducting funerals at Franckfort, with
plans of the houses of reception 205

2. Regulations for the examination and care of the dead at
Munich 218

3. Examination of Mr. Abrahams, surgeon, registrar of
deaths, on the defective arrangements for the
verification, and on the effects produced on the physical
and moral condition of children by the undue pressure of
the causes of disease and death 223

4. Examination of Mr. Blencarne, medical officer of the City
of London Union, on the extent to which the proportions
of deaths are preventive by sanitary measures 226

5,
Extracts from the testimony of Dr. Wray, Mr. Porter, and
6,
Mr. Paul, medical officers of the city of London, on the
& 229–
same subjects
7. 32

8. Extract from Dr. La Chaise’s account of population in the
badly lighted and ventilated and badly cleansed districts
of Paris 233

9. Note on the probable effects producible on the
proportionate mortality and numbers of burials, of
structural arrangements, such as those designed for the
City of London by Sir Christopher Wren 234

10. Letter from the superintendent registrar of Stockport on
cases of infanticides committed partly for the sake of
burial money 235

11. Returns of the proportion of deaths to the population in
each registrar’s district in the metropolis in the year
1839, the excess in number of deaths and funerals
beyond a healthy standard, the average age of death of
gentry, tradesmen, and artisans, and average years of life
lost by premature deaths in each district, according to
the Carlisle table of life insurance, and the proportion of
deaths from epidemics, and the registrars’ returns of the
chief causes of death in the lower districts 239

12. Examples of ordinary undertakers’ bills in the metropolis 267

Lord Stowell’s exposition of the law of England in respect
to perpetuities in burial-grounds 269

13. View of the extent of intra-mural burial-ground provided
as compared with the extent of extra-mural burial-
ground required for the metropolis; and the comparative
proportions of space occupied for the burial of persons
of different religious denominations, and as trading
burial-grounds 272

Return of the amount of burial fees received in some of the
larger parishes in the metropolis 273

Returns of the number of burials in each of the burial-
grounds in the metropolis 274

SANITARY REPORT.—SUPPLEMENT.

INTERMENTS IN TOWNS.

To the Right Honourable Sir James Graham, Bart.,
&c., &c., &c.

Sir,

In compliance with the request which I have had the honour to receive from you, that I would
examine the evidence on the practice of interment, and the means of its improvement, and prepare for
consideration a Report thereon, I now submit the facts and conclusions following:—
It has been remarked, as a defect in the General Report on the evidence as to the sanitary condition of
the labouring population, that it did not comprise any examination of the evidence as to the effects
produced on the public health, by the practice of interring the dead amidst the habitations of the town
population. I wish here to explain that the omission arose from the subject being too great in its
extent, and too special in its nature, to allow of the completion at that time, of any satisfactory
investigation in relation to it even if it had not then been under examination by a Committee of the
House of Commons, whose Report is now before the public.

To obtain the information on which the following report is founded, I have consulted, as extensively
as the time allowed and my opportunities would permit, ministers of religion who are called upon to
perform funereal rites in the poorer districts: I have made inquiries of persons of the labouring
classes, and of secretaries and officers of benefit societies and burial clubs, in the metropolis and in
several provincial towns in the United Kingdom, on the practice of interments in relation to those
classes, and on the alterations and improvements that would be most in accordance with their
feelings: I have questioned persons following the occupation of undertaker, and more especially
those who are chiefly engaged in the interment of the dead of the labouring classes, on the
improvements which they deem practicable in the modes of performing that service: I have consulted
foreigners resident in the metropolis, on the various modes of interment in their own countries: I have
examined the chief administrative regulations thereon in Germany, France, and the United States: and
I have consulted several eminent physiologists as to the effects produced on the health of the living,
by emanations from human remains in a state of decomposition. I need scarcely premise that the
moral as well as the physical facts developed in the course of this inquiry are often exceedingly
loathsome; but general conclusions can only be distinctly made out from the various classes of
particular facts, and the object being the suggestion of remedies and preventives, it were obviously as
unbecoming to yield to disgusts or to evade the examination and calm consideration of those facts, as
it would be in the physician or the surgeon, in the performance of his duty with the like object, to
shrink from the investigation of the most offensive manifestations of disease.
§ 1. It appears that the necessity of removing interments from the midst of towns is very generally
admitted on various considerations, independently of those founded on the presumed injurious effects
arising from the practice to the public health. I believe an alteration of the practice is strongly desired

by many clergymen of the established church, whose incomes, even with the probable compensation
for the loss of burial dues, might be expected to be diminished by the discontinuance of intra-mural
interments. Exemptions from a general prohibition of such interments are, however, claimed in
favour of particular burial-grounds, situate within populous districts, of which grounds it is stated
that they are not over-crowded with bodies, and of which it is further alleged that they have not been
known, and cannot be proved, to be injurious to the public health.
The statements as to the innocuousness of particular graveyards are supported by reference to the
general testimony of a number of medical witnesses of high professional position, by whom it is
alleged that the emanations from decomposing human remains do not produce specific disease, and,
further, that they are not generally injurious. The practical consequences of these doctrines extend
beyond the present question, and are so important in their effects on the sanitary economy of all
towns, as apparently to require that no opportunity should be lost of examining the statements of
facts on which they are founded.
The medical evidence of this class has generally been given in answer to complaints made by the
public, of the offensiveness, and the danger to health which arises from the practice of dissection in
schools of anatomy amidst crowded populations. The chief fact alleged to prove the innocuousness of
emanations from the dead is that professors of anatomy experience no injury from them. Thus, Dr.
Warren, of Boston, in a paper cited by M. Parent Duchâtelet, states, that he has been accustomed all
his life to dissecting-rooms, in which he has been engaged night and day. “It has sometimes
happened to me,” he observes, “after having dissected bodies in a state of putrefaction, to have
experienced a sort of weakness and the loss of appetite; but the phenomena were never otherwise
than transient. During the year 1829, the weather being excessively hot, decomposition advanced
with a degree of rapidity such as I have rarely witnessed: at that season the emanations became so
irritating, that they paralyzed the hands, producing small pustules and an excessive itching, and yet
my general health was in nowise affected.”
Again, whilst it is stated by M. Duchâtelet that students who attend the dissecting-rooms are
sometimes seriously injured, and even killed by pricks and cuts with the instruments of dissection,
yet it is denied that they are subject to any illness from the emanations from the remains “other than a
nausea and a dysentery for two or three days at the commencement of their studies.” Fevers the
students of medicine are confessedly liable to, but he says it is only when they are in attendance on
the living patients in the fever wards.
Sir Benjamin Brodie pointed out to me, that from the precautions taken, by the removal of such
portions of the viscera as might be in an advanced state of decomposition, and from the ventilation of
dissecting-rooms being much improved, the emanations from the bodies dissected are not so great as
might be supposed; nevertheless, he observes:—
There is no doubt that there are few persons who during the anatomical season are engaged for many hours daily in a dissecting-room
for a considerable time, whose health is not affected in a greater or less degree; and there are some whose health suffers considerably. I
have known several young men who have not been able to prosecute their studies in the dissecting-room for more than three or four
weeks at a time, without being compelled to leave them and go into the country. The great majority, however, do not suffer to that
extent, nor in such a way as to cause interruption to their studies; and, altogether, the evil is not on a sufficiently large scale to attract
much notice, even among the students themselves.

A writer on public health, Dr. Dunglison, maintains that “we have no satisfactory proof that malaria
ever arises from animal putrefaction singly;” and as evidence of this position he adduces the alleged
fact of the numbers of students who pass through their education without injury; yet he admits—
In stating the opinion that putrefaction singly does not occasion malarious disease, we do not mean to affirm that air highly charged
with putrid miasmata may not, in some cases, powerfully impress the nervous system so as to induce syncope and high nervous
disorder; or that, when such miasmata are absorbed by the lungs in a concentrated state, they may not excite putrid disorders, or
dispose the frame to unhealthy erysipelatous affections. On the contrary, experiment seems to have shown that they are deleterious
when injected; and cases are detailed in which, when exhaled from the dead body, they have excited serious mischief in those exposed

to their action. According to Percy, a Dr. Chambon was required by the Dean of the Faculté de Médecine of Paris to demonstrate the
liver and its appendages before the faculty on applying for his licence. The decomposition of the subject given him for the
demonstration was so far advanced, that Chambon drew the attention of the Dean to it, but he was required to go on. One of the four
candidates, Corion, struck by the putrid emanations which escaped from the body as soon as it was opened, fainted, was carried home,
and died in seventy hours; another, the celebrated Fourcroy, was attacked with a burning exanthematous eruption; and two others,
Laguerenne and Dufresnoy, remained a long time feeble, and the latter never completely recovered. “As for Chambon,” says M.
Londe, “indignant at the obstinacy of the Dean, he remained firm in his place, finished his lecture in the midst of the Commissioners,
who inundated their handkerchiefs with essences, and, doubtless, owed his safety to his cerebral excitement, which during the night,
after a slight febrile attack, gave occasion to a profuse cutaneous exhalation.”

An eminent surgeon, who expressed to me his belief that no injury resulted from emanations from
decomposing remains, for he had suffered none, mentioned an instance where he had conducted the
post mortem examination of the corpse of a person of celebrity which was in a dreadful state of
decomposition, without sustaining any injury; yet he admitted, as a casual incident which did not
strike him as militating against the conclusion, that his assistant was immediately after taken ill, and
had an exanthematous eruption, and had been compelled to go to the sea side, but had not yet
recovered. Another surgeon who had lived for many years near a churchyard in the metropolis, and
had never observed any effluvia from it, neither did he perceive any effects of such emanations at
church or anywhere else; yet he admitted that his wife perceived the openings of vaults when she
went to the church to which the graveyard belonged, and after respiring the air there, would say,
“they have opened a vault,” and on inquiry, the fact proved to be so. He admitted also, that formerly
in the school of anatomy which he attended, pupils were sometimes attacked with fever, which was
called “the dissecting-room fever,” which, since better regulations were adopted, was now unknown.
§ 2. In proof of the position that the emanations from decomposing remains are not injurious to
health at any time, reference is commonly made to the statements in the papers of Parent Duchâtelet,
wherein he cites instances of the exhumation of bodies in an advanced stage of decomposition
without any injurious consequences being experienced by the persons engaged in conducting them.
At the conclusion of this inquiry, and whilst engaged in the preparation of the report, I was favoured
by Dr. Forbes with the copy of a report by Dr. V. A. Riecke, of Stuttgart. “On the Influence of
Putrefactive Emanations on the Health of Man,” &c., in which the medical evidence of this class is
closely investigated. In reference to the statements of Parent Duchâtelet on this question, Dr. Riecke
observes—
When Parent Duchâtelet appeals to and gives such prominence to the instance of the disinterments from the churchyard of St.
Innocens, and states that they took place without any injurious consequences, although at last all precautions in the mode of
disinterring were thrown aside, and that it occurred during the hottest season of the year, and therefore that the putrid emanations might
be believed to be in their most powerful and injurious state, I would reply to this by asking the simple question, what occasion was
there for the disinterment? Parent Duchâtelet maintains complete silence on this point; but to me the following notices appear worthy
of attention. In the year 1554, Houlier and Fernel, and in the year 1738, Lemery, Geoffroy, and Hunaud, raised many complaints of this
churchyard; and the two first had asserted that, during the plague, the disease had lingered longest in the neighbourhood of the
Cimetière de la Trinité, and that there the greatest number had fallen a sacrifice. In the years 1737 and 1746 the inhabitants of the
houses round the churchyard of St. Innocens complained loudly of the revolting stench to which they were exposed. In the year 1755
the matter again came into notice: the inspector who was intrusted with the inquiry, himself saw the vapour rising from a large
common grave, and convinced himself of the injurious effects of this vapour on the inhabitants of the neighbouring house.[1] “Often,”
says the author of a paper which we have before often alluded to, “the complexions of the young people who remain in this
neighbourhood grow pale. Meat sooner becomes putrid there than elsewhere, and many persons cannot get accustomed to these
houses.” In the year 1779, in a cemetery which yearly received from 2000 to 3000 corpses, they dug an immense common grave near
to that part of the cemetery which touches upon the Rue de la Lingerie. The grave was 50 feet deep, and made to receive from 1500 to
1600 bodies. But in February, 1780, the whole of the cellars in the street were no longer fit to use. Candles were extinguished by the air
in these cellars; and those who only approached the apertures were immediately seized with the most alarming attacks. The evil was
only diminished on the bodies being covered with half a foot of lime, and all further interments forbidden. But even that must have
been found insufficient, as, after some years, the great work of disinterring the bodies from this churchyard was determined upon. This
undertaking, according to Thouret’s report, was carried on from December, 1785, to May, 1786; from December, 1786, to February,
1787; and in August and October of the same year: and it is not unimportant to quote this passage, as it clearly shows how little correct
Parent Duchâtelet was in his general statement, that those disinterments took place in the hottest seasons of the year. It is very clear that
it was exactly the coldest seasons of the year which were chosen for the work; and though in the year 1787 there occurs the exception
of the work having been again begun in August, I think it may be assumed that the weather of this month was unusually cold, and it
was therefore thought the work might be carried on without injurious effects. It does not, however, appear to have been considered safe
to continue the work at that season, since the report goes on to state that the operations were again discontinued in September.

Against those statements of Parent Duchâtelet, as to the innocuousness of the frequent disinterments in Père La Chaise, statements
which are supported by the testimony of Orfila and Ollivier, in regard to their experience of disinterments, I would here place positive
facts, which are not to be rejected. “I,” also remarks Duvergie, “have undertaken judicial disinterments, and must declare that, during
one of these disinterments at which M. Piedagnel was present with me, we were attacked with an illness, although it was conducted
under the shade of a tent, through which there was passing a strong current of wind, and although we used chloride of lime in
abundance, M. Piedagnel was confined to his room for six weeks.” Apparently, Duvergie is not far wrong when he states his opinion
that Orfila had allowed himself to be misled by his praiseworthy zeal for the more general recognition of the use of disinterments for
judicial purposes, to understate the dangers attending them, as doubtless he had used all the precautions during the disinterments which
such researches demand: and to these precautions (which Orfila himself recommended) may be attributed the few injurious effects of
these disinterments. It, however, deserves mentioning, that, if Orfila did undertake disinterments during the heat of summer, it must
have been only very rarely; at least, amongst the numerous special cases which he gives, we find only two which took place in July or
August, most of the cases occurred in the coldest season of the year. I cannot refrain from giving, also, the information which Fourcroy
gained from the grave-diggers of the churchyard of St. Innocens. Generally they did not seem to rate the danger of displacing the
corpses very high: they remarked, however, that some days after the disinterment of the corpses the abdomen would swell, owing to
the great development of gas; and that if an opening forced itself at the navel, or anywhere in the region of the belly, there issued forth
the most horribly smelling liquid and a mephitic gas; and of the latter they had the greatest fear, as it produced sudden insensibility and
faintings. Fourcroy wished much to make further researches into the nature of this gas, but he could not find any grave-digger who
could be induced by an offered reward to assist him by finding a body which was in a fit state to produce the gas. They stated, that, at a
certain distance, this gas only produced a slight giddiness, a feeling of nausea, languor, and debility. These attacks lasted several hours,
and were followed by loss of appetite, weakness, and trembling. “Is it not very probable,” says Fourcroy, “that a poison so terrible that
when in a concentrated state, it produced sudden death, should, even when diluted and diffused through the atmosphere, still possess a
power sufficient to produce depression of the nervous energy and an entire disorder of their functions? Let any one witness the terror of
these grave-diggers, and also see the cadaverous appearance of the greatest number, and all the other signs of the influence of a slow
poison, and they will no longer doubt of the dangerous effects of the air from churchyards on the inmates of neighbouring houses.”

After having strenuously asserted the general innocuousness of such emanations, and the absence of
foundation for the complaints against the anatomical schools, Parent Duchâtelet concludes by an
admission of their offensiveness, and a recommendation in the following terms:—
“Instead of retaining the ‘debris’ of dissection near the theatres of anatomy, it would certainly be better to remove them every day: but
as that is often impracticable, there ought, on a good system of ‘assainissement,’ to be considered the mode of retaining them without
incurring the risk of suffering from their infection.”

After describing the mode of removing the “debris,” he concludes—
“Thus will this part of the work be freed from the inconveniences which accompanied and formed one of the widest sources of
‘infection,’ and of the disgust which were complained of in the theatres of anatomy.”

§ 3. The statements of M. Duchâtelet respecting the innocuousness of emanations from decomposing
animal and vegetable remains, observed by him at the chantiers d’équarrissage, or receptacle for
dead horses, and the dépôts de vidange, or receptacle of night soil, &c., at Montfaucon, near Paris,
are cited in this country, and on the continent, as leading evidence to sustain the general doctrine; but
as it is with his statements of the direct effects of the emanations from the grave-yards, so it is with
relation to his statements as to the effects of similar emanations on the health of the population; the
facts appear to have been imperfectly observed by him even in his own field of observation. In the
Medical Review, conducted by Dr. Forbes, reference is made to the accounts given by Caillard of the
epidemic which occurred in the vicinity of the Canal de l'Ourcq near Paris in 1810 and subsequent
years:—
In the route from Paris to Pantin (says he), exposed on the one side to the miasmatic emanations of the canal, and on the other, to the
putrid effluvia of the voiries, the diseases were numerous, almost all serious and obstinate. This disastrous effect of the union of putrid
effluvia with marsh miasmata, was especially evident in one part of this route, termed the Petit Pont hamlet, inhabited by a currier and
a gut-spinner, the putrid waters from whose operations are prevented from escaping by the banks of the canal, and exposed before the
draining to the emanations of a large marsh. This hamlet was so unhealthy, that of five-and-twenty or thirty inhabitants I visited about
twenty were seriously affected, of whom five died.

In the carefully prepared report on the progress of cholera at Paris, made by the commission of
medical men, of which Parent Duchâtelet was a member, it is mentioned, as a singular incident, that
in those places where putrid emanations prevailed, “le cholera ne s'est montré ni plus redoutable ni
plus meurtrier que dans autres localities.” Yet the testimony cited as to this point is that of the Maire,
“whose zeal equalled his intelligence,” and he alleges the occurrence of the fact of the liability to
fevers which M. Duchâtelet elsewhere denies.

“I have also made some observations which seem to destroy the opinions received at this time, as to the sanitary effect of these kinds of
receptacles; for,
“1st. The inhabitants of the houses situated the nearest to the depôt, and which are sometimes tormented with fevers, have never felt
any indisposition.”

§ 4. To prove the innocuousness of emanations from human remains on the general health, evidence
of another class is adduced, consisting of instances of persons acting as keepers of dissecting rooms,
and grave-diggers, and the undertakers’ men, who it is stated have pursued their occupations for long
periods, and have nevertheless maintained robust health.
The examination of persons engaged in processes exposed to miasma from decomposing animal
remains in general only shows that habit combined with associations of profit often prevents or
blunts the perceptions of the most offensive remains. Men with shrunken figures, and the appearance
of premature age, and a peculiar cadaverous aspect, have attended as witnesses to attest their own
perfectly sound condition, as evidence of the salubrity of their particular occupations. Generally,
however, men with robust figures and the hue of health are singled out and presented as examples of
the general innocuousness of the offensive miasma generated in the process in which they are
engaged. Professor Owen mentions an instance of a witness of this class, a very robust man, the
keeper of a dissecting room, who appeared to be in florid health (which however proved not to be so
sound as he himself conceived), who professed perfect unconsciousness of having sustained any
injury from the occupation, and there was no reason to doubt that he really was unconscious of
having sustained or observed any; but it turned out, on inquiry, that he had always had the most
offensive and dangerous work done by an inferior assistant; and that within his time he had had no
less than eight assistants, and that every one had died, and some of these had been dissected in the
theatre where they had served. So, frequently, the sextons of grave-yards, who are robust men, attest
the salubrity of the place; but on examining the inferiors, the grave-diggers, it appears, where there is
much to do, and even in some of the new cemeteries, that as a class they are unhealthy and
cadaverous, and, notwithstanding precautions, often suffer severely on re-opening graves, and that
their lives are frequently cut short by the work.[2] There are very florid and robust undertakers; but, as
a class, and with all the precautions they use, they are unhealthy; and a master undertaker, of
considerable business in the metropolis, states, that “in nine cases out of ten the undertaker who has
much to do with the corpse is a person of cadaverous hue, and you may almost always tell him
whenever you see him.” Fellmongers, tanners, or the workmen employed in the preparation of hides,
have been instanced by several medical writers as a class who, being exposed to emanations from the
skins when in a state of putrefaction, enjoy good health; but it appears that all the workmen are not
engaged in the process when the skins are in that state, and that those of them who are, as a class, do
experience the common consequences. The whole class of butchers, who are much in the open air
and have very active exercise, and who are generally robust and have florid health, are commonly
mentioned as instances in proof of the innocuousness of the emanations from the remains in
slaughter-houses; but master butchers admit that the men exclusively engaged in the slaughter-
houses, in which perfect cleanliness and due ventilation are neglected, are of a cadaverous aspect,
and suffer proportionately in their health.
Medical papers have been written in this country and on the continent to show that the exposure of
workmen to putrid emanations in the employment of sewer cleansing has no effect on the general
health; and when the employers of the labourers engaged in such occupations are questioned on the
subject, their general reply is, that their men “have nothing the matter with them:” yet when the class
of men who have been engaged in the work during any length of time are assembled; when they are
compared with classes of men of the same age and country, and of the like periods of service in other
employments free from such emanations, or still more when they are compared with men of the same
age coming from the purer atmosphere of a rural district, the fallacy is visible in the class, in their
more pallid and shrunken aspect—the evidence of languid circulation and reduced “tone,” and even

of vitality—and there is then little doubt of the approximation given me by an engineer who has
observed different classes of workmen being correct, that employment under such a mephitic
influence as that in question ordinarily entails a loss of at least one-third of the natural duration of life
and working ability.
The usual comment of the employers on the admitted facts of the ill-health and general brevity of life
of the inferior workmen engaged in such occupations is, “But they drink—they are a drunken set;”
and such appears frequently, yet by no means invariably, to be the case. On further examination it
appears that the exposure to the emanations is productive of nervous depression, which is constantly
urged by the workmen as necessitating the stimulus of spirituous or fermented liquors. The inference
that the whole of the effects are ascribable to the habitual indulgence in such stimuli is rebutted by
the facts elicited on examination of other classes of workmen who indulge as much or more, but who
nevertheless enjoy better health, and a much greater average duration of life. It is apt to be
overlooked that the weakly rarely engage in such occupations, or soon quit them; and that, in general,
the men are of the most robust classes, and have high wages and rather short hours of work, as well
as stimulating food. A French physician, M. Labarraque, states in respect to the tanners, that,
notwithstanding the constant exposure to the emanations from putrid fermentations, it has not been
“remarked” of the workmen of this class that they are more subject to illness than others. A tanner, in
a manual written for the use of the trade, without admitting the correctness of this statement,
observes: “Whatever may be the opinion of M. Labarraque on this point, we do not hesitate to
declare the fact that this species of labour cannot be borne by weakly, scrofulous, or lymphatic
subjects.”[3]
§ 5. So far as observations have been made on the point (and the more those reported upon it are
scrutinized, the less trustworthy they appear to be), workmen so exposed do not appear to be
peculiarly subject to epidemics; many, indeed, appear to be exempted from them to such an extent as
to raise a presumption that such emanations have on those “acclimated” to them an unexplained
preservative effect analogous to vaccination. That one miasma may exclude, or neutralize, or modify
the influence of another, would appear to be primâ facie probable. But it is now becoming more
extensively apparent that the same cause is productive of very different effects on different persons,
and on the same persons at different times; as in the case mentioned by Dr. Arnott of the school badly
drained at Clarendon Square, Somers’ Town, where every year, while the nuisance was at its height,
and until it was removed by drainage, the malaria caused some remarkable form of disease; one year,
extraordinary nervous affection, exhibiting rigid spasms, and then convulsions of the limbs, such as
occur on taking various poisons into the stomach; another year, typhoid fever; in another,
ophthalmia; in another, extraordinary constipation of the bowels, affecting similar numbers of the
pupils. Such cases as the one before cited with respect to the depôt for animal matter in Paris, where
the workmen suffered very little, whilst the people living near the depôt were “tormented with
fevers,” are common. The effects of such miasma are manifested immediately on all surrounding
human life (and there is evidence to believe they are manifest in their degree on animal life[4]), in
proportion to the relative strength of the destructive agents and the relative strength or weakness of
the beings exposed to them; the effects are seen first on infants; then on children in the order of their
age and strength; then on females, or on the sickly, the aged, and feeble; last of all, on the robust
workmen, and on them it appears on those parts of the body that have been previously weakened by
excess or by illness. Whilst M. Parent Duchâtelet was looking for immediate appearances of acute
disease on the robust workmen living amidst the decomposing animal effluvium of the Montfaucon, I
have the authority of Dr. Henry Bennett for stating that he might have found that the influence of that
effluvium was observable on the sick at half a mile distant. “When I was house surgeon at St. Louis,”
says Dr. Bennett, “I several times remarked, that whenever the wind was from the direction of the
Montfaucon, the wounds and sores under my care assumed a foul aspect. M. Jobert, the surgeon of

the hospital, has told me that he has repeatedly seen hospital gangrene manifest itself in the wards
apparently under the same influence. It is a fact known to all who are acquainted with St. Louis, that
the above malady is more frequent at that hospital than at any other in Paris, although it is the most
airy and least crowded of any. This, I think, can only be attributed to the proximity of the
Montfaucon. Indeed, when the wind blows from that direction, which it often does for several
months in the year, the effluvium is most odious.” As an instance of a similar influence of another
species of effluvium, not observed by the healthy inhabitants of a district, it is stated that at a large
infirmary in this country, when the piece of ornamental water, which was formerly stagnant in front
of the edifice, had a greenish scum upon it, some descriptions of surgical operations were not so
successful as at other times, and a flow of fresh water has been introduced into the reservoir to
prevent the miasma.
The immediate contrasts of the apparent immunity of adults to conspicuous attacks of epidemics,
may perhaps account for the persuasion which masters and workmen sometimes express, that they
owe an immunity from epidemics to their occupation, and that the stenches to which they are
exposed actually “purify” the atmosphere. Numbers of such witnesses have heretofore been ready to
attest their conviction of the preservative effect, and even the positive advantages to health, of the
effluvia generated by the decomposition of animal or of vegetable matter, or of the fumes of
minerals, of smoke, soot, and coal gas. But though they do not peculiarly suffer from epidemics, it is
usually found that they are not exempted. In a recent return of the state of health of some workmen
engaged in cleansing sewers, whilst it appeared that very few had suffered any attack from fever,
nearly all suffered bowel attacks and violent intestinal derangement. If the effects of such emanations
invariably appeared in the form of acute disease, large masses of the population who have lived
under their influence must have been exterminated. In general the poison appears only to be
generated in a sufficient degree of intensity to create acute disease under such a conjunction of
circumstances, as a degree of moisture sufficient to facilitate decomposition, a hot sun, a stagnant
atmosphere, and a languid population. The injurious effects of diluted emanations are constantly
traceable, not in constitutional disturbance at any one time; they have their effect even on the strong,
perceptible over a space of time in a general depression of health and a shortened period of existence.
This or that individual may have the florid hue of health, and may live under constant exposure to
noxious influences to his sixtieth or his seventieth year; but had he not been so exposed he might
have lived in equal or greater vigour to his eightieth or his ninetieth year. A cause common to a whole
class is often, however, not manifest in particular individuals, but is yet visible in the pallor and the
reduced sum of vitality of the whole class, or in the average duration of life in that class, as compared
with the average duration of life of another class similarly situated, in all respects except in the
exposure to that one cause.[5] The effects of a cause of depression on a class are sometimes visible in
the greater fatality of common accidents. An excess of mortality to a class is almost always found, on
examination, to be traceable to an adequate cause. From the external circumstances of a class of the
population, a confident expectation may be formed of the sum of vitality of the class, though nothing
could be separately predicated of a single individual of it. If the former vulgar notions were correct as
to the salubrity of the stenches which prevail in towns, the separate as well as the combined results of
these several supposed causes of salubrity must be to expel fevers and epidemics from the most
crowded manufacturing districts, and to advance the general health of the inhabitants above that of
the poorer rural population; but all such fallacies are dissipated by the dreadful facts on the face of
the mortuary records showing a frequency of deaths, and a reduction of the mean duration of life, in
proportion to the constancy and the intensity of the combined operation of these same causes.[6]
§ 6. The observations of the effects of such emanations on the general health of classes of human
beings have been corroborated by experiments on animals.

§ 7. Another doctrine more extensively entertained than that above noticed, is, that although putrid
emanations are productive of injury, they are not productive of specific disease, such as typhus. The
medical witnesses say, that they were exposed to such emanations in dissecting-rooms, where bodies
of persons who have died of small-pox, typhus, scarlatina, and every species of disease, are brought;
that they pursued their studies in such places, and were unaware of typhus or other disease having
been taken by the students in them, though that disease was frequently caught by students whilst
attending the living in the fever wards.[7]
The strongest of this class of negative evidence appears to be that of undertakers, all of whom that I
have seen state that neither specific disease nor the propagation of any disease was known to occur
amongst them, from their employment. Neither the men who handle, or who “coffin,” the remains;
nor the barbers who are called in to shave[8] the corpses of the adult males; nor the bearers of the
coffins, although, when the remains are in an advanced state of decomposition, the liquid matter from
the corpse frequently escapes from the coffin, and runs down over their clothes, are observed to catch
any specific disease from it, either in their noviciate, or at any other time. When decomposition is
very far advanced, and the smell is very offensive, the men engaged in putting the corpse into the
coffin smoke tobacco; and all have recourse to the stimulus of spirituous liquor. But it is not known
that, by their infected clothes they ever propagate specific disease in their families, or elsewhere.
Neither does this appear to be observed amongst the medical men themselves.[9]
§ 8. On the other hand, the undertakers observe such instances, as will be stated in their own words in
a subsequent part of the report, where others have caught fever and small-pox, apparently from the
remains of the dead, and they mention instances of persons coming from a distance to attend
funerals, who have shortly afterwards become affected with the disease of which the person buried
had died. Of the undertakers it is observed, that being adults, they were likely to have had small-pox.
Dr. Williams, in a work stated to be of good authority, on the effects of morbid poisons, relates the
case of four students infected with small-pox by the dead body of a man who had died of this disease,
that was brought into the Windmill-street Theatre, in London, for dissection. One of them saw the
body, but did not approach it; another was near it, but did not touch it; a third, accustomed to make
sketches from dead bodies, saw this subject, but did not touch it; the fourth alone touched it with both
his hands; yet all the four caught the disease. Sir Benjamin Brodie mentions cases which occurred
within his own knowledge, of pupils who caught small-pox after exposure to the emanations in the
dissecting-room from the bodies of persons who had died of that disease.
Dr. Copeland, in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons, adduced the
following remarkable case, stated to be of fever communicated after death:—
About two years ago (says he) I was called, in the course of my profession, to see a gentleman, advanced in life, well known to many
members in this house and intimately known to the Speaker. This gentleman one Sunday went into a dissenting chapel, where the
principal part of the hearers, as they died, were buried in the ground or vaults underneath. I was called to him on Tuesday evening, and
I found him labouring under symptoms of malignant fever; either on that visit or the visit immediately following, on questioning him
on the circumstances which could have given rise to this very malignant form of fever, for it was then so malignant that its fatal issue
was evident, he said that he had gone on the Sunday before (this being on the Tuesday afternoon) to this dissenting chapel, and on
going up the steps to the chapel he felt a rush of foul air issuing from the grated openings existing on each side of the steps; the effect
upon him was instantaneous; it produced a feeling of sinking, with nausea, and so great debility, that he scarcely could get into the
chapel. He remained a short time, and finding this feeling increase he went out, went home, was obliged to go to bed, and there he
remained. When I saw him he had, up to the time of my ascertaining the origin of his complaint, slept with his wife; he died eight days
afterwards; his wife caught the disease and died in eight days also, having experienced the same symptoms. These two instances
illustrated the form of fever arising from those particular causes. Means of counteraction were used, and the fever did not extend to any
other members of the family.
Assuming that that individual had gone into a crowded hospital with that fever, it probably would have become a contagious fever. The
disease would have propagated itself most likely to others, provided those others exposed to the infection were predisposed to the
infection, or if the apartments where they were confined were not fully ventilated, but in most cases where the emanations from the
sick are duly diluted by fresh air, they are rendered innocuous. It is rarely that I have found the effects from dead animal matter so very
decisive as in this case, because in the usual circumstances of burying in towns the fetid or foul air exhaled from the dead is generally

so diluted and scattered by the wind, as to produce only a general ill effect upon those predisposed; it affects the health of the
community by lowering the vital powers, weakening the digestive processes, but without producing any prominent or specific disease.

Mr. Barnett, surgeon, one of the medical officers of the Stepney Union, who has observed the
symptoms observable in those persons who are exposed to the emanations from a crowded grave-
yard, thus describes them:—
They are characterized by more or less disturbance of the whole system, with evident depression of the vital force, as evinced
throughout the vascular and nervous systems, by the feeble action of the heart and arteries, and lowness of the spirits, &c. These
maladies, I doubt not, if surrounded by other causes, would terminate in fever of the worst description. The cleanliness, &c., of the
surrounding neighbourhood, perhaps, prevents this actually taking place.
Some years since a vault was opened in the church-yard (Stepney), and shortly after one of the coffins contained therein burst with so
loud a report that hundreds flocked to the place to ascertain the cause. So intense was the poisonous nature of the effluvia arising
therefrom, that a great number were attacked with sudden sickness and fainting, many of whom were a considerable period before they
recovered their health.
The vaults and burial ground attached to Brunswick chapel, Limehouse, are much crowded with dead, and from the accounts of
individuals residing in the adjoining houses, it would appear that the stench arising therefrom, particularly when a grave happens to be
opened during the summer months, is most noxious. In one case it is described to have produced instant nausea and vomiting, and
attacks of illness are frequently imputed to it. Some say they have never had a day’s good health since they have resided so near the
chapel-ground, which, I may remark, is about five feet above the level of the surrounding yards, and very muddy—so much so, that
pumps are frequently used to expel the water from the vaults into the streets.

The bursting of leaden coffins in the vaults of cemeteries, unless they are watched and “tapped” to
allow the mephitic vapour to escape, appears to be not unfrequent. In cases of rapid decomposition,
such instances occur in private houses before the entombment. An undertaker of considerable
experience states:—
“I have known coffins to explode, like the report of a small gun, in the house. I was once called up at midnight by the people, who
were in great alarm, and who stated that the coffin had burst in the night, as they described it, with ‘a report like the report of a
cannon.’ On proceeding to the house I found in that case, which was one of dropsy, very rapid decomposition had occurred, and the
lead was forced up. Two other cases have occurred within my experience of coffins bursting in this manner. I have heard of similar
cases from other undertakers. The bursting of lead coffins without noise is more frequent. Of course it is never told to the family unless
they have heard it, as they would attribute the bursting to some defective construction of the coffins.”

The occurrence of cases of instant death to grave-diggers, from accidentally inhaling the
concentrated miasma which escapes from coffins, is undeniable. Slower deaths from exposure to
such miasma are designated as “low fevers,” and whether or not the constitutional disturbances
attendant on the exposure to the influence of such miasma be or not the true typhus, it suffices as a
case requiring a remedy, that the exposure to that influence is apt to produce grievous and fatal
injuries amongst the public.
§ 9. Undertakers state that they sometimes experience, in particularly crowded grave-yards, a
sensation of faintness and nausea without perceiving any offensive smell. Dr. Riecke appears to
conclude, from various instances which are given, that emanations from putrid remains operate in
two ways,—one set of effects being produced through the lungs by impurity of the air from the
mixture of irrespirable gases; the other set, through the olfactory nerves by powerful, penetrating, and
offensive smells. On the whole, the evidence tends to establish the general conclusion that offensive
smells are true warnings of sanitary evils to the population. The fact of the general offensiveness of
such emanations is adduced by Dr. Riecke also as evidence of their injurious quality.
Another circumstance which must awaken in us distrust of putrid emanations, is the powerful impression they make on the sense of
smell. It certainly cannot be far from the truth to call the organ of smell the truest sentinel of the human frame. “Many animals,”
observes Rudolphi, “are entirely dependent on their sense of smell for finding out food that is not injurious; where their smell is injured
they are easily deceived, and have often fallen a sacrifice to the consequent mistakes.” Amongst all known smells, there is, perhaps, no
one which is so universally, and to such a degree revolting to man, as the smell of animal decomposition. The roughest savage, as well
as the most civilized European, fly with equal disgust from a place where the air is infected by it. If an instinct ever can be traced in
man, certainly it is in the present case: and is instinct a superfluous monitor exactly in this one case? Can instinct mislead just in this
one circumstance? Can it ever be, that the air which fills us with the greatest disgust, is the finest elixir of life, as Dumoulins had the
boldness to maintain in one of his official reports. Hippolyte Cloquet, in his Osphrestologie has attempted to throw some light on the
effect of smell on the human frame, and though we must entirely disregard many of the anecdotes which he has blended into his

inquiry, yet the result remains firmly proved that odours in general exert a very powerful influence on the health of men, and that all
very acutely impressing smells are highly to be suspected of possessing injurious properties.

§ 10. I beg leave on this particular topic to submit the facts and opinions contained in
communications from two gentlemen who have paid close and comprehensive attention to the
subject.
Dr. Southwood Smith, who, as physician to the London Fever Hospital, and from having been
engaged in several investigations as to the effects of putrid emanations on the public health, must
have had extensive means of observation, states as follows:—
1. That the introduction of dead animal matter under certain conditions into the living body is capable of producing disease, and even
death, is universally known and admitted. This morbific animal matter may be the product either of secretion during life or of
decomposition after death. Familiar instances of morbific animal matter, the result of secretion during life, are the poisons of small-pox
and cow-pox, and the vitiated fluids formed in certain acute diseases, such as acute inflammations, and particularly of the membranes
that line the chest and abdomen. On the examination of the body a short time after death from such inflammations, the fluids are found
so extremely acrid, that even when the skin is entirely sound, they make the hands of the examiner smart; and if there should happen to
be the slightest scratch on the finger, or the minutest point not covered by cuticle, violent inflammation is often produced, ending,
sometimes within forty-eight hours, in death. It is remarkable, and it is a proof that in these cases the poison absorbed is not putrid
matter, that the most dangerous period for the examination of the bodies of persons who die of such diseases is from four to five hours
after the fatal event, and while the body is yet warm.
That the direct introduction into the system of decomposing and putrescent animal matter is capable of producing fevers and
inflammations, the intensity and malignity of which may be varied at will, according to the putrescency of the matter and the quantity
of it that is introduced, is proved by numerous experiments on animals; while the instances in which human beings are seized with
severe and fatal affections from the application of the fluids of a dead animal body to a wounded, punctured, or abraded surface,
sometimes when the aperture is so minute as to be invisible without the aid of a lens, are of daily occurrence. Though this fact is now
well known, and is among the few that are disputed by no one, it may be worth while to cite a few examples of it, as specimens of the
manner in which the poison of animal matter, when absorbed in this way, acts; a volume might be filled with similar instances.
The following case is recorded by Sir Astley Cooper:—Mr. Elcock, student of anatomy, slightly punctured his finger in opening the
body of a hospital patient about twelve o’clock at noon, and in the evening of the same day, finding the wound painful, showed it to Sir
Astley Cooper after his surgical lecture. During the night the pain increased to extremity, and symptoms of high constitutional irritation
presented themselves on the ensuing morning. No trace of inflammation was apparent beyond a slight redness of the spot at which the
wound had been inflicted, which was a mere puncture. In the evening he was visited by Dr. Babington, in conjunction with Dr.
Haighton and Sir Astley Cooper; still no local change was to be discovered, but the nervous system was agitated in a most violent and
alarming degree, the symptoms nearly resembling the universal excitation of hydrophobia, and in this state he expired within the period
of forty-eight hours from the injury.
The late Dr. Pett, of Hackney, being present at the examination of the body of a lady who had died of peritoneal inflammation after her
confinement, handled the diseased parts. In the evening of the same day, while at a party, he felt some pain in one of his fingers, on
which there was a slight blush, but no wound was visible at that time. The pain increasing, the finger was examined in a stronger light,
when, by the aid of a lens, a minute opening in the cuticle was observed. During the night the pain increased to agony, and in the
morning his appearance was extremely altered; his countenance was suffused with redness, his eyes were hollow and ferrety; there was
a peculiarity in his breathing, which never left him during his illness; his manner, usually gay and playful, was now torpid, like that of
a person who had taken an excessive dose of opium, he described himself as having suffered intensely, and said that he was completely
knocked down and had not the strength of a child, and he sunk exhausted on the fifth day from the examination of the body.
George Higinbottom, an undertaker, was employed to remove in a shell the corpse of a woman who had died of typhus fever in the
London Fever Hospital. In conveying the body from the shell into the coffin, he observed that his left hand was besmeared with a
moisture which had oozed from it. He had a recent scratch on his thumb. The following morning this scratch was inflamed; in the
evening of the same day he was attacked with a cold shivering and pain in his head and limbs, followed the next by other symptoms of
severe fever; on the fourth day there was soreness in the top of the shoulder and fulness in the axilla; on the fifth the breast became
swollen and efflorescent; on the seventh delirium supervened, succeeded by extreme prostration and coma, and death took place on the
tenth day.
A lady in the country received a basket of fish from London which had become putrid on the road. In opening the basket she pricked
her finger, and she slightly handled the fish. On the evening of this day inflammation came on in the finger, followed by such severe
constitutional symptoms as to endanger life, and it was six months before the effects of this wound subsided and her health was
restored.
Among many other cases, Mr. Travers gives the following, as displaying well the minor degrees of irritation, local and constitutional,
to which cooks and others, in handling putrid animal matter with chapped and scratched fingers, are exposed:—A cook-maid practised
herself on a stale hare, for the purpose of learning the mode of boning them, in spite of being strongly cautioned against it. A few days
afterwards two slight scratches, which she remembered to have received at the time, began to inflame; one was situated on the fore-
finger and the other on the ring-finger. This inflammation was accompanied with a dull pain and feeling of numbness, and an
occasional darting pain along the inside of the fore-arm. The next day she was attacked with excruciating pain at the point of the fore-
finger, which throbbed so violently as to give her the sensation of its being about to burst at every pulsation. The following morning
constitutional symptoms came on; her tongue was white and dry; she had no appetite; there was great dejection of spirits and languor,

and a weak and unsteady pulse. After suffering greatly from severe pain in the finger, hand, and arm, and great constitutional
derangement and debility, the local inflammation disappeared in about three weeks, and she then began to recover her appetite and
strength.
2. It is proved by indubitable evidence that this morbific matter is as capable of entering the system when minute particles of it are
diffused in the atmosphere as when it is directly introduced into the blood-vessels by a wound. When diffused in the air, these noxious
particles are conveyed into the system through the thin and delicate walls of the air vesicles of the lungs in the act of respiration. The
mode in which the air vesicles are formed and disposed is such as to give to the human lungs an almost incredible extent of absorbing
surface, while at every point of this surface there is a vascular tube ready to receive any substance imbibed by it and to carry it at once
into the current of the circulation. Hence the instantaneousness and the dreadful energy with which certain poisons act upon the system
when brought into contact with the pulmonary surface. A single inspiration of the concentrated prussic acid, for example, is capable of
killing with the rapidity of a stroke of lightning. So rapidly does this poison affect the system, and so deadly is its nature, that more
than one physiologist has lost his life by incautiously inhaling it while using it for the purpose of experiment. If the nose of an animal
be slowly passed over a bottle containing this poison, and the animal happen to inspire during the moment of the passage, it drops
down dead instantaneously, just as when the poison is applied in the form of a liquid to the tongue or the stomach. On the other hand,
the vapour of chlorine possesses the property of arresting the poisonous effects of prussic acid; and hence when an animal is all but
dead from the effects of this acid, it is sometimes suddenly restored to life by holding its mouth over the vapour of chlorine.
During every moment of life in natural respiration a portion of the air of the atmosphere passes through the air vesicles of the lungs
into the blood, while a quantity of carbonic acid gas is given off from the blood, and is transmitted through the walls of these vesicles
into the atmosphere. Now that substances mixed with or suspended in atmospheric air may be conveyed with it to the lungs and
immediately enter into the circulating mass, any one may satisfy himself merely by passing through a recently painted chamber. The
vapour of turpentine diffused through the chamber is transmitted to the lungs with the air which is breathed, and passing into the
current of the circulation through the walls of the air vesicles, exhibits its effects in some of the fluid excretions of the body, even more
rapidly than if it had been taken into the stomach.
Facts such as these help us to understand the production and propagation of disease through the medium of an infected atmosphere,
whether on a large scale, as in the case of an epidemic which rapidly extends over a nation or a continent, or on a small scale, in the
sick chamber, the dissecting room, the church, and the church-yard.
Thus it is universally known that, when the atmosphere is infected with the matter of small-pox, this disease is produced with the same
and even with greater certainty than when the matter of small-pox is introduced by the lancet directly into a blood-vessel in
inoculation.
It is equally well known that, when the air is infected by particles of decomposing vegetable and animal matter, fevers are produced of
various types and different degrees of intensity; that the exhalations arising from marshes, bogs, and other uncultivated and undrained
places, constitute a poison chiefly of a vegetable nature, which produces principally fevers of an intermittent or remittent type; and that
exhalations accumulated in close, ill-ventilated, and crowded apartments in the confined situations of densely-populated cities, where
little attention is paid to the removal of putrefying and excrementitious matters, constitute a poison chiefly of an animal nature, which
produces continued fever of the typhoid character. There are situations in which these putrefying matters, aided by heat and other
peculiarities of climate, generate a poison so intense and deadly, that a single inspiration of the air in which they are diffused is capable
of producing almost instantaneous death; and there are other situations in which a less highly concentrated poison accumulates, the
inspiration of which for a few minutes produces a fever capable of destroying life in from two to twelve hours. In dirty and neglected
ships, in damp, crowded, and filthy gaols, in the crowded wards of ill-ventilated hospitals filled with persons labouring under
malignant surgical diseases or bad forms of fever, an atmosphere is generated which cannot be breathed long, even by the most healthy
and robust, without producing highly dangerous fever.
3. The evidence is just as indubitable that exhalations arise from the bodies of the dead, which are capable of producing disease and
death. Many instances are recorded of the communication of small-pox from the corpse of a person who has died of small-pox. This
has happened not only in the dwelling-house before interment, but even in the dissecting room. Some years ago five students of
anatomy, at the Webb-street school, Southwark, who were pursuing their studies under Mr. Grainger, were seized with small-pox,
communicated from a subject on the dissecting-table, though it does not appear that all who were attacked were actually engaged in
dissecting this body. One of these young men died. There is reason to believe that emanations from the bodies of persons who have
died of other forms of fever have proved injurious and even fatal to individuals who have been much in the same room with the corpse.
The exhalations arising from dead bodies in the dissecting room are in general so much diluted by admixture with atmospheric air,
through the ventilation which is kept up, that they do not commonly affect the health in a very striking or marked manner; and by great
attention to ventilation, it is no doubt possible to pursue the study of anatomy with tolerable impunity. Yet few teachers of anatomy
deny that without this precaution this pursuit is very apt to injure the health, and that, with all the precaution that can be taken, it
sometimes produces such a degree of diarrhœa, and at other times such a general derangement of the digestive organs, as imperatively
to require an absence for a time from the dissecting room and a residence in the pure air of the country. The same statements are
uniformly made by the professors of Veterinary anatomy in this country. The result of inquiries which I have personally made into the
state of the health of persons licensed to slaughter horses, called knackers, is, that though they maintain their health apparently
unimpaired for some time, yet that after a time the functions of the nutritive organs become impaired, they begin to emaciate, and
present a cadaverous appearance, slight wounds fester and become difficult to heal, and that upon the whole they are a short-lived race.
The exhalations arising from dead bodies interred in the vaults of churches, and in church-yards, are also so much diluted with the air
of the atmosphere, that they do not commonly affect the health in so immediate and direct a manner as plainly to indicate the source of
these noxious influences. It is only when some accidental circumstances have favoured their accumulation or concentration in an
unusual degree, that the effects become so sensible as obviously to declare their cause. Every now and then, however, such a
concurrence of circumstances does happen, of which there are many instances on record; but it may suffice for the present to mention

one, the particulars of which I have received from a gentleman who is known to me, and on the accuracy of whose statements I can
rely.
Mr. Hutchinson, surgeon, Farringdon-street, was called on Monday morning, the 15th March, 1841, to attend a girl, aged 14, who was
labouring under typhus fever of a highly malignant character. This girl was the daughter of a pew-opener in one of the large city
churches, situated in the centre of a small burial ground, which had been used for the interment of the dead for centuries, the ground of
which was raised much above its natural level, and was saturated with the remains of the bodies of the dead. There were vaults beneath
the church, in which it was still the custom, as it had long been, to bury the dead. The girl in question had recently returned from the
country, where she had been at school. On the preceding Friday, that is, on the fourth day before Mr. Hutchinson saw her, she had
assisted her mother during three hours and on the Saturday during one hour, in shaking and cleansing the matting of the aisles and
pews of the church. The mother stated, that this work was generally done once in six weeks; that the dust and effluvia which arose,
always had a peculiarly fœtid and offensive odour, very unlike the dust which collects in private houses; that it invariably made her
(the mother) ill for at least a day afterwards; and that it used to make the grandmother of the present patient so unwell, that she was
compelled to hire a person to perform this part of her duty. On the afternoon of the same day on which the young person now ill had
been engaged in her employment, she was seized with shivering, severe pain in the head, back, and limbs, and other symptoms of
commencing fever. On the following day all these symptoms were aggravated, and in two days afterwards, when Mr. Hutchinson first
saw her, malignant fever was fully developed, the skin being burning hot, the tongue dry and covered with a dark brown fur, the thirst
urgent, the pain of the head, back, and extremities severe, attended with hurried and oppressed breathing, great restlessness and
prostration, anxiety of countenance, low muttering delirium, and a pulse of 130 in the minute.
In this case it is probable that particles of noxious animal matter progressively accumulated in the matting during the intervals between
the cleansing of it; and that being set free by this operation and diffused in the atmosphere, while they were powerful enough always
sensibly to affect even those who were accustomed to inhale them, were sufficiently concentrated to produce actual fever in one wholly
unaccustomed to them, and rendered increasingly susceptible to their influence by recent residence in the pure air of the country; for it
is remarkable that miasms sometimes act with the greatest intensity on those who habitually breathe the purest air.
The miasms arising from church-yards are in general too much diluted by the surrounding air to strike the neighbouring inhabitants
with sudden and severe disease, yet they may materially injure the health, and the evidence appears to me to be decisive that they often
do so. Among others who sometimes obviously suffer from this cause, are the families of clergymen, when, as occasionally happens,
the vicarage or rectory is situated very close to a full church-yard. I myself know one such clergyman’s family, whose dwelling-house
is so close to an extremely full churchyard, that a very disagreeable smell from the graves is always perceptible in some of the sitting
and sleeping rooms. The mother of this family states that she has never had a day’s health since she has resided in this house, and that
her children are always ailing; and their ill health is attributed, both by the family and their medical friends, to the offensive exhalations
from the church-yard.

Dr. Lyon Playfair states as follows in his communication—
There are two kinds of changes which animal and vegetable matters undergo, when exposed to certain influences. These are known by
the terms of “decay” and “putrefaction.” Decay, properly so called, is a union of the elements of organic matter with the oxygen of the
air; while putrefaction, although generally commencing with decay, is a change or transformation of the elements of the organic body
itself, without any necessary union with the oxygen of the air. When decay proceeds in a body without putrefaction, offensive smells
are not generated; but if the air in contact with the decaying matter be in any way deficient, the decay passes into putrefaction, and
putrid smells arise. Putrid smells are rarely if ever evolved from substances destitute of the element nitrogen.
Both decaying and putrefying matters are capable of communicating their own state of putrefaction or of decay to any organic matter
with which they may come in contact. To take the simplest case, a piece of decayed wood, a decaying orange, or a piece of tainted
flesh is capable of causing similar decay or putrefaction in another piece of wood, orange, or flesh. In a similar manner the decaying
gases evolved from sewers occasion the putrescence of meat or of vegetables hung in the vicinity of the place from which they escape.
But this communication of putrefaction is not confined to dead matter. When tainted meat or putrescent blood-puddings are taken as
food, their state of putrefaction is frequently communicated to the bodies of the persons who have used them as food. A disease
analogous to rot ensues, and generally terminates fatally. Happily this disease is little known among us, but it is of very frequent
occurrence in Germany.
The decay or putrefaction communicated by putrid gases or by decaying matters does not always assume one form, but varies
according to the organs to which their peculiar state is imparted. If communicated to the blood it might possibly happen that fever may
arise; if to the intestines, dysentery or diarrhœa might result; and I think it might even be a question worthy of consideration, whether
consumption may not arise from such exposure. Certainly it seems to do so among cattle. The men who are employed in cleaning out
drains are very liable to the attacks of dysentery and of diarrhœa; and I recollect instances of similar diseases occurring among some
fellow-students, when I attended the dissecting-rooms.
The effects produced by decaying emanations will vary according to the state of putrefaction or decay in which these emanations are,
as well as according to their intensity and concentration. Thus it occurs frequently that persons susceptible to contagion may be in the
vicinity of a fever patient without acquiring the disease. I know one celebrated medical man who attends his own patients in fever
without danger, but who has never been able to take charge of the fever-wards in an infirmary, from the circumstance of his being
unable to resist the influence of the contagion under such circumstances. This gentleman has had fever several times. This shows that
the contagion of fever requires a certain degree of concentration before it is able to produce its immediate effects. A knowledge of this
circumstance has induced several infirmaries (the Bristol infirmary, for example) to abolish altogether fever-wards and to scatter the
fever cases indiscriminately through the medical wards. Owing to this distribution, cases in which fever is communicated to other
patients or nurses in the infirmary are very unfrequent, although they are far from being so in those hospitals where the fever cases are
grouped together.

I consider that the want of attention to the circumstance of the concentration of decaying emanations is a great reason that the effects of
miasmata in producing fever is still a questio vexata. Thus there may be many church-yards and sewers evolving decaying matter, and
yet no fever may occur in the locality. Some other more modified effect may be produced, according to the degree of concentration of
the decaying matter, such as diarrhœa or even dysentery; or there may be no perceptible effects produced, although the blood may still
be thrown into a diseased state which will render it susceptible to any specific contagion that approaches. It must be remembered that
decaying exhalations will not always produce similar effects, but that these will vary not only according to the concentration, but also
according to the state of decomposition in which the decaying matters are.
The rennet for making cheese is in a peculiar state of decay, or rather is capable of a series of states of decay, and the flavour of the
cheese manufactured by means of it varies also according to the state of the rennet. Just so with the diseases produced by the peculiar
state or concentration of decaying matters or of specific contagions. When the Asiatic cholera visited this country many of the towns
were afflicted with dysentery before the cholera appeared in an unquestionable form. In like manner the miasmata evolved from
church-yards may produce injurious effects which may not be sufficiently marked to call attention until they assume a more serious
form by becoming more concentrated. But notwithstanding the absence of marked effects, it is extremely probable that constant
exposure to miasmata may produce a diseased state of the blood. Thus I had occasion to visit and report upon, amongst other matters,
the state of slaughter-houses in Bristol. These are generally situated in courts, very inefficiently ventilated, as all courts are. I remarked
that the men employed in the slaughter-houses had a remarkably cadaverous hue, and this was participated in a greater or less degree
by the inhabitants of the court. So much was this the case, that in a court where the smells from the slaughter-house were so offensive
that my companion had immediately to retire from sickness, I immediately singled out one person as not belonging to the court from a
number of people who ran out of their houses to inquire the object of my visit. The person who attracted my attention from her healthy
appearance compared with the others, had entered this court to pay a visit to a neighbour.

§ 11. That conclusions respecting such immensely important effects can only be established by
reasonings on facts frequently so scattered over distant times and places as to require much research
to bring them together; that those conclusions are still open to controversy, and have hitherto been
maintained only by references to statements of distant observations, whilst regularly sustained
examinations of the events occurring daily in our large towns might have placed them beyond a
doubt; may be submitted as showing the necessity of some public arrangements to ensure constant
attention, and complete information on these subjects, as the basis of complete measures of
prevention.
§ 12. The conclusions, however, which appear to be firmly established by the evidence, and the
preponderant medical testimony, are on every point, as to the essential character of the physical evils
connected with the practice of interment, so closely coincident with the conclusions deduced from
observation on the continent, that from Dr. Riecke’s report (and to which a prize was awarded by an
eminent medical association), in which the preponderant medical opinions are set forth, they may be
stated in the following terms:—
“The general conclusions from the foregoing report may be given as follows:
“The injurious effect of the exhalations from the decomposition in question upon the health and life
of man is proved by a sufficient number of trustworthy facts;
“That this injurious influence is by no means constant, and depends on varying and not yet
sufficiently explained circumstances;
“That this injurious influence is manifest in proportion to the degree of concentration of putrid
emanations, especially in confined spaces; and in such cases of concentration the injurious influence
is manifest in the production of asphyxia and the sudden and entire extinction of life;
“That, in a state less concentrated, putrid emanations produce various effects on the nerves of less
importance, as fainting, nausea, head-ache, languor;
“These emanations, however, if their effect is often repeated, or if the emanations be long applied,
produce nervous and putrid fevers; or impart to fevers, which have arisen from other causes, a
typhoid or putrid character;
“Apparently they furnish the principal cause of the most developed form of typhus, that is to say, the
plague (Der Bubonenpest). Besides the products of decomposition, the contagious material may also
be active in the emanations arising from dead bodies.”

§ 13. Such being the nature of the emanations from human remains in a state of decomposition, or in
a state of corruption, the obtainment of any definite or proximate evidence of the extent of the
operation of those emanations on the health of the population nevertheless appears to be hopeless in
crowded districts. In such districts the effects of an invisible fluid have not been observed, amidst a
complication of other causes, each of a nature ascertained to produce an injurious effect upon the
public health, but undistinguished, except when it accidentally becomes predominant. The sense of
smell in the majority of inhabitants seems to be destroyed, and having no perception even of stenches
which are insupportable to strangers, they must be unable to note the excessive escapes of miasma as
antecedents to disease. Occasionally, however, some medical witnesses, who have been accustomed
to the smell of the dissecting-room, detect the smell of human remains from the grave-yards, in
crowded districts; and other witnesses have stated that they can distinguish what is called the “dead
man’s smell,” when no one else can, and can distinguish it from the miasma of the sewers.
In the case of the predominance of the smell from the grave-yard, the immediate consequence
ordinarily noted is a head-ache. A military officer stated to me that when his men occupied as a
barrack a building which opened over a crowded burial-ground in Liverpool, the smell from the
ground was at times exceedingly offensive, and that he and his men suffered from dysentery. A
gentleman who had resided near that same ground, stated to me that he was convinced that his own
health, and the health of his children had suffered from it, and that he had removed, to avoid further
injury. The following testimony of a lady, respecting the miasma which escaped from one burial-
ground at Manchester, is adduced as an example of the more specific testimony as to the perception
of its effects. This testimony also brings to view the circumstance that in the towns it is not only in
surface emanations from the grave-yards alone that the morbific matter escapes.
You resided formerly in the house immediately contiguous to the burying-ground of —— chapel, did you not?—Yes I did, but I was
obliged to leave it.
Why were you so obliged?—When the wind was west, the smell was dreadful. There is a main sewer runs through the burying-ground,
and the smell of the dead bodies came through this sewer up our drain, and until we got that trapped, it was quite unbearable.
Do you not think the smell arose from the emanations of the sewer, and not from the burying-ground?—I am sure they came from the
burying-ground; the smell coming from the drain was exactly the same as that which reached us when the wind was west, and blew
upon us from the burying-ground. The smell was very peculiar; it exactly resembled the smell which clothes have when they are
removed from a dead body. My servants would not remain in the house on account of it, and I had several cooks who removed on this
account.
Did you observe any effects on your health when the smells were bad?—Yes, I am liable to head-aches, and these were always bad
when the smells were so also. They were often accompanied by diarrhœa in this house. Before I went there, and since I left, my head-
aches have been very trifling.
Were any of the other inmates of the house afflicted with illness?—I had often to send for the surgeon to my servants, who were liable
to ulcerated sore throats.
And your children, were they also affected?—My youngest child was very delicate, and we thought he could not have survived; since
he came here he has become quite strong and healthy, but I have no right to say the burying-ground had any connexion with his health.

§ 14. In the course of an examination of the Chairman and Surveyor of the Holborn and Finsbury
Division of Sewers, on the general management of sewers in London, the following passage occurs:
—
“You do not believe that the nuisance arises in all cases from the main sewers? (Mr. Roe)—Not always from the main sewers. (Mr.
Mills)—Connected with this point, I would mention, that where the sewers came in contact with church-yards, the exudation is most
offensive.
“Have you noticed that in more than one case?—Yes.
“In those cases have you had any opportunities of tracing in what manner the exudation from the church-yards passed to the sewer?—It
must have been through the sides of the sewers.
“Then, if that be the case, the sewer itself must have given way?—No; I apprehend even if you use concrete, it is impossible but that
the adjacent waters would find their way even through cement; it is the natural consequence. The wells of the houses adjacent to the
sewers all get dry whenever the sewers are lowered.
“You are perfectly satisfied that in the course of time exudations very often do, to a certain extent, pass through the brick-work?—Yes;
it is impossible to prevent it.

“Have you ever happened to notice whether there was putrid matter in all cases where the sewer passed through a burial-ground?—The
last church-yard I passed by was in the parish of St. Pancras, when the sewer was constructing. I observed that the exudation from it
into the sewer was peculiarly offensive, and was known to arise from the decomposition of the bodies.
“At what distance was the sewer from the church-yard where you found that?—Thirty feet.”

Mr. Roe subsequently stated—
“Mr. Jacob Post, living at the corner of Church-street, Lower Road, Islington, stated to our clerk of the works, when we were building a
sewer opposite Mr. Post’s house, that he had a pump, the water from the well attached to which had been very good, and used for
domestic purposes; but that, since a burying-ground was formed above his house, the water in his well had become of so disagreeable a
flavour as to prevent its being used as heretofore: and he was in hopes that the extra depth of our sewer would relieve him from the
drainage of the burying-ground, to which he attributed the spoiling of his water.”

Professor Brande states that he has “frequently found the well-water of London contaminated by
organic matters and ammoniacal salts,” and refers to an instance of one well near a church-yard, “the
water of which had not only acquired odour but colour from the soil;” and mentions other instances
of which he has heard, as justifying the opinion, that as “very many of these wells are adjacent to
church-yards, the accumulating soil of which has been so heaped up by the succession of dead bodies
and coffins, and the products of their decomposition, as to form a filtering apparatus, by which all
superficial springs must of course be more or less affected.” Some of the best springs in the
metropolis are, fortunately, of a depth not likely to be considerably affected by such filtration. In
Leicester, and other places, I have been informed of the disuse of wells near church-yards, on
account of the perception of a taint in them. The difficulty of distinguishing by any analysis the
qualities of the morbific matter when held in solution or suspension in water, in combination with
other matters in towns, and the consequent importance of the separate examination already given to
those qualities, may be appreciated from such cases as the following, which are by no means
unfrequent. In the instance of the water of one well in the metropolis, which had ceased to be used, in
consequence of an offensive taste (contracted, as was suspected, from the drainage of an adjacent
church-yard), it was doubted whether it could be determined by analysis what portion of the pollution
arose from that source, what from the leakage of adjacent cesspools, and what from the leakage of
coal-gas from adjacent gas-pipes. In most cases of such complications, the parties responsible for any
one contributing source of injury are apt to challenge, as they may safely do, distinct proof of the
separate effect produced by that one. Popular perceptions, as well as chemical analysis, are at present
equally baffled by the combination, and complaints of separate injuries are rarely made. If, therefore,
the combined evil is to remain until complaints are made of the separate causes, and their specific
effects on the health, and until they can be supported by demonstration, perpetual immunity would be
ensured to the most noxious combinations.
The effects of unguarded interments have, however, as will subsequently be noticed, been observed
with greater care on the continent, and the proximity of wells to burial-grounds has been reported to
be injurious. Thus it is stated in a collection of reports concerning the cemeteries of the town of
Versailles, that the water of the wells which lie below the church-yard of St. Louis could not be used
on account of its stench. In consequence of various investigations in France, a law was passed,
prohibiting the opening of wells within 100 metres of any place of burial; but this distance is now
stated to be insufficient for deep wells, which have been found on examination to be polluted at a
distance of from 150 to 200 metres. In some parts of Germany, the opening of wells nearer than 300
feet has been prohibited.
§ 15. Where the one deleterious cause is less complicated with others, as in open plains after the
burial of the dead in fields of battle, the effects are perceived in the offensiveness of the surface
emanations, and also in the pollution of the water, followed by disease, which compels the survivors
to change their encampments.
The fact is thus adduced in the evidence of Dr. Copeland:—

“It is fully ascertained and well recognized that the alluvial soil, or whatever soil that receives the
exuviæ of animal matter, or the bodies of dead animals, will become rich in general; it will abound in
animal matter; and the water that percolates through the soil thus enriched will thus become injurious
to the health of the individuals using it: that has been proved on many occasions, and especially in
warm climates, and several remarkable facts illustrative of it occurred in the peninsular campaigns. It
was found, for instance, at Ciudad Rodrigo, where, as Sir J. Macgregor states in his account of the
health of the army, there were 20,000 dead bodies put into the ground within the space of two or
three months, that this circumstance appeared to influence the health of the troops, inasmuch as for
some months afterwards all those exposed to the emanations from the soil, as well as obliged to drink
the water from the sunk wells, were affected by malignant and low fevers and dysentery, or fevers
frequently putting on a dysenteric character.”
§ 16. In the metropolis, on spaces of ground which do not exceed 203 acres, closely surrounded by
the abodes of the living, layer upon layer, each consisting of a population numerically equivalent to a
large army of 20,000 adults, and nearly 30,000 youths and children, is every year imperfectly
interred. Within the period of the existence of the present generation, upwards of a million of dead
must have been interred in those same spaces.
§ 17. A layer of bodies is stated to be about seven years in decaying in the metropolis: to the extent
that this is so, the decay must be by the conversion of the remains into a gas, and its escape, as a
miasma, of many times the bulk of the body that has disappeared.
§ 18. In some of the populous parishes, where, from the nature of the soil, the decomposition has not
been so rapid as the interments, the place of burial has risen in height; and the height of many of
them must have greatly increased but for surreptitious modes of diminishing it by removal, which, it
must be confessed, has diminished the sanitary evil, though by the creation of another and most
serious evil, in the mental pain and apprehensions of the survivors and feelings of abhorrence of the
population, caused by the suspicion and knowledge of the disrespect and desecration of the remains
of the persons interred.
§ 19. The claims to exemption in favour of burial-grounds which it is stated are not overcrowded
would perhaps be most favourably considered by the examination of the practice of interment in the
new cemeteries, where the proportion of interments to the space is much less.
§ 20. I have visited and questioned persons connected with several of these cemeteries in town and
country, and I have caused the practice of interments in others of them to be examined by more
competent persons. The inquiry brought forward instances of the bursting of some leaden coffins and
the escape of mephitic vapour in the catacombs; the tapping of others to prevent similar casualties;
injuries sustained by grave-diggers from the escapes of miasma on the re-opening of graves, and an
instance was stated to me by the architect of one cemetery, of two labourers having been injured,
apparently by digging amidst some impure water which drained from some graves. No precedent
examination of the evils affecting the public health, that are incident to the practice of interment,
appears to have been made, no precedent scientific or impartial investigation appears to have been
thought necessary by the joint-stock companies, or by the Committees of the House of Commons, at
whose instance privileges were conferred upon the shareholders: no new precautionary measures or
improvements, such as are in use abroad, appear consequently to have been introduced in them; the
practice of burial has in general been simply removed to better looking, and in general, better situated
places. The conclusion, however, from the examination of these places (which will subsequently be
reverted to) is, that if most of the cemeteries themselves were in the midst of the population, they
would, even in their present state, often contribute to the combination of causes of ill health in the
metropolis, and several of the larger towns.

§ 21. It has been considered that all danger from interments in towns would be obviated if no burials
were allowed except at a depth of five feet. But bodies buried much deeper are found to decay; and
so certain as a body has wasted or disappeared is the fact that a deleterious gas has escaped. In the
towns where the grave-yards and streets are paved, the morbific matter must be diffused more widely
through the subsoil, and escape with the drainage. If the interments be so deep as to impede escapes
at the surface, there is only the greater danger of escape by deep drainage and the pollution of
springs.
Dr. Reid detected the escape of deleterious miasma from graves of more than 20 feet deep. He states
—
In some churchyards I have noticed the ground to be absolutely saturated with carbonic acid gas, so that whenever a deep grave was
dug it was filled in some hours afterwards with such an amount of carbonic acid gas that the workmen could not descend without
danger. Deaths have, indeed, occurred occasionally in some churchyards from this cause, and in a series of experiments made in one of
the churchyards at Manchester, where deep graves are made, each capable of receiving from 20 to 30 bodies, I found in general that a
grave covered on the top at night was more or less loaded with carbonic acid in the morning, and that it was essential, accordingly, to
ventilate these grave-pits before it was safe to descend.
This I effected on some occasions by means of a small chauffer placed at the top, and at one end of the grave a tube or hose being let
down from it to the bottom of the grave. The fire was sustained by the admission of a small portion of fresh air at the top, and the air
from the bottom of the grave was gradually removed as the upper stratum was heated by the fire around which it was conveyed; and
when it had been once emptied in this manner a small fire was found sufficient to sustain a perpetual renewal of air, and prevent the
men at work in the grave-pits from being subject to the extreme oppression to which they are otherwise liable, even when there may be
no immediate danger. A mechanical power might be used for the same purpose; and chemical agents, as a quantity of newly slaked
lime, are frequently employed, as they absorb the carbonic acid. From different circumstances that have since occurred, it appears to
me probable that numerous examples of strata or superficial soil containing carbonic acid may be more frequently met with than is
generally suspected, and that while in churchyards the presence of large quantities of carbonic acid may be frequently anticipated, its
presence must not always be attributed solely to the result of the decomposition of the human body.
The amount of carbonic acid that collects within a given time in a deep grave-pit intended to receive 20 or 30 bodies, is much
influenced by the nature of the ground in which it is dug. In the case referred to, the porous texture of the earth allowed a
comparatively free aerial communication below the surface of the ground throughout its whole extent. It was, in reality, loaded with
carbonic acid in the same manner as other places are loaded with water; it was only necessary to sink a pit, and a well of carbonic acid
was formed, into which a constant stream of the same gas continued perpetually to filter from the adjacent earth, according to the
extent to which it was removed. From whatever source, however, the carbonic acid may arise, it is not the less prone to mingle with the
surrounding air, and where the level of the floor of the church is below the level of the churchyard, there the carbonic acid is prone to
accumulate, as, though it may be ultimately dispersed by diffusion, it may be considered as flowing in the same manner in the first
instance as water, where the quantity is considerable.
Again, where the drainage of the district in which the church may be placed is of an inferior description, and liable to be impeded
periodically by the state of the tide, as in the vicinity of the Houses of Parliament, where all the drains are closed at high water, the
atmosphere is frequently of the most inferior quality. I am fully satisfied, for instance, not only from my own observation, but from
different statements that have reached me, and also from the observations of parties who have repeatedly examined the subject at my
request, that the state of the burying-ground around St. Margaret’s church is prejudicial to the air supplied at the Houses of Parliament,
and also to the whole neighbourhood. One of them, indeed, stated to me lately that he had avoided the churchyard for the last six
months, in consequence of the effects he experienced the last time he visited it. These offensive emanations have been noticed at all
hours of the night and morning; and even during the day the smell of the churchyard has been considered to have reached the vaults in
the House of Commons, and traced to sewers in its immediate vicinity. When the barometer is low, the surface of the ground slightly
moist, the tide full, and the temperature considerable—all which circumstances tend to favour the evolution of effluvia both from the
grave-pits and the drains—the most injurious influence upon the air is observed. In some places not far from this churchyard fresh
meat is frequently tainted in a single night, on the ground-floor, in situations where at a higher level it may be kept without injury for a
much longer period. In some cases, in private houses as well as at the Houses of Parliament, I have had to make use of ventilating
shafts, or of preparations of chlorine, to neutralize the offensive and deleterious effects which the exhalations produced, while, on other
occasions, their injurious influence has been abundantly manifested by the change induced in individuals subjected to their influence
on removing to another atmosphere. No grievance, perhaps, entails greater physical evils upon any district than the conjoined influence
of bad drainage and crowded churchyards; and until the drainage of air from drains shall be secured by the process adverted to in
another part of this work, or some equivalent measures, they cannot be regarded as free from a very important defect.
The drainage of air from drains is, indeed, desirable under any circumstances; but when the usual contaminations of the drain are
increased by the emanations from a loaded churchyard, it becomes doubly imperative to introduce such measures; and if any one
should desire to trace the progress of reaction by which the grave-yards are continually tending to free themselves of their contents, a
very brief inquiry will give him abundant evidence on this point. My attention was first directed to this matter in London ten years ago,
when a glass of water handed to me at an hotel, in another district, presented a peculiar film on its surface, which led me to set it aside;
and after numerous inquiries, I was fully satisfied that the appearance which had attracted my attention arose from the coffins in a
churchyard immediately adjoining the well where the water had been drawn. Defective as our information is as to the precise qualities
of the various products from drains, church-yards, and other similar places, I think I have seen enough to satisfy me that in all such
situations the fluids of the living system imbibe materials which, though they do not always produce great severity of disease, speedily

induce a morbid condition, which, while it renders the body more prone to attacks of fever, is more especially indicated by the facility
with which all the fluids pass to a state of putrefaction, and the rapidity with which the slightest wound or cut is apt to pass into a sore.

Mr. Leigh, surgeon and lecturer of chemistry at Manchester, confirms the researches made by Dr.
Reid in that town, and observes on this subject—
But the decomposition of animal bodies is remarkably modified by external circumstances where the bodies are immersed in or
surrounded by water, and particularly, if the water undergo frequent change, the solid tissues become converted into adipocire, a fatty
spermaceti-like substance, not very prone to decomposition, and this change is effected without much gaseous exhalation. Under such
circumstances nothing injurious could arise, but under ordinary conditions slow decomposition would take place, with the usual
products of the decomposition of animal matters, and here the nature of the soil becomes of much interest. If the burial-ground be in
damp dense compact clay, with much water, the water will collect round the body, and there will be a disposition to the formation of
adipocire, whilst the clay will effectually prevent the escape of gaseous matter. If on the other hand the bodies be laid in sand or gravel,
decomposition will readily take place, the gases will easily permeate the superjacent soil and escape into the atmosphere, and this with
a facility which may be judged of when the fact is stated, that under a pressure of only three-fourths of an inch of water, coal gas will
escape by any leakage in the conduit pipes through a stratum of sand or gravel of three feet in thickness in an exceedingly short space
of time. The three feet of soil seems to oppose scarcely any resistance to its passage to the surface; but if the joints of the pipes be
enveloped by a thin layer of clay, the escape is effectually prevented.
If bodies were interred eight or ten feet deep in sandy or gravelly soils, I am convinced little would be gained by it; the gases would
find a ready exit from almost any practicable depth.

§ 22. He also expresses an opinion concurrent with that of other physiologists, that the effects of
these escapes in an otherwise salubrious locality, soon attract notice, but their influence in obedience
to the laws of gaseous diffusion, developed by Dalton and Graham, is not the less when scattered
over a town, because in a multitude of scents they escape observation. In open rural districts these
gases soon intermix with the circumambient air, and become so vastly diluted that their injurious
tendency is less potent.
Other physical facts which it is necessary to develope in respect to the practice of interment may be
the most conveniently considered in a subsequent portion of this report, where it is necessary to
adduce the information possessed, as to the sites of places of burial, and the sanitary precautions
necessary in respect to them.
§ 23. From what has already been adduced, it may here be stated as a conclusion,
That inasmuch as there appear to be no cases in which the emanations from human remains in an
advanced stage of decomposition are not of a deleterious nature, so there is no case in which the
liability to danger should be incurred either by interment (or by entombment in vaults, which is the
most dangerous) amidst the dwellings of the living, it being established as a general conclusion in
respect to the physical circumstances of interment, from which no adequate grounds of exception
have been established;—
That all interments in towns, where bodies decompose, contribute to the mass of atmospheric
impurity which is injurious to the public health.

Injuries to the Health of Survivors occasioned by the delay of Interments.

In order to understand the state of feeling of the labouring classes, and the general influence upon
them, and even the effects on their health, of the practice of interment, it will be necessary to submit
for consideration those circumstances which immediately precede the interment, namely, the most
common circumstances of the death.
§ 24. In a large proportion of cases in the metropolis, and in some of the manufacturing districts, one
room serves for one family of the labouring classes: it is their bed-room, their kitchen, their
washhouse, their sitting room, their dining room; and, when they do not follow any out-door
occupation, it is frequently their work room and their shop. In this one room they are born, and live,
and sleep, and die amidst, the other inmates.
§ 25. Their common condition in large towns has been developed by various inquiries, more
completely than by the census. As an instance, the results may be given of an inquiry lately made, at
the instance and expense of Lord Sandon, by Mr. Weld, the secretary of the Statistical Society, as to
the condition of the working classes resident in the inner ward of St. George’s, Hanover Square, and
in the immediate vicinity of some of the most opulent residences in the metropolis. It appeared that
1465 families of the labouring classes had for their residence 2175 rooms, and 2510 beds. The
distribution of rooms and beds was as follows:—
Number of Number of
Dwellings. Beds.
Families. Families.
Single rooms for each
929 One bed to each family 623
family
Two rooms for each family 408 Two beds to each family 638
Three rooms for each Three beds to each
94 154
family family
Four rooms for each Four beds to each
17 21
family family
Five rooms for each
8 Five beds to each family 8
family
Six rooms for each family 4 Six beds to each family 3
Seven rooms for each Seven beds to each
1 1
family family
Eight rooms for each
1 Dwellings without a bed 7
family
Not ascertained 3 Not ascertained 10

Total 1,465 Total 1,465
Out of 5945 persons 839 were found to be ill, and yet the season was not unhealthy. One family in 11
had a third room (and that not unoccupied) in which to place a corpse. This, however, appears to be a
favourable specimen. From an examination made by a committee of the Statistical Society into the
condition of the poorer classes in the borough of Marylebone, it appeared that the distribution of
rooms amongst the portion of population examined showed that not more than one family in a
hundred had a third room.

No. occupying part of a room, 159 families, and 196 single persons.
No. occupying one room 382 families, and 56 single persons.
No. occupying two rooms 61 families, and 2 single persons.
No. occupying three rooms 5 families, and 7 single persons.
No. occupying four rooms 1 families, and 0 single persons.
§ 26. Mr. Leonard, surgeon and medical officer of the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, gives the
following instances of the circumstances in which the poorest class of inhabitants die, which may be
adduced as exemplifications of the dreadful state of circumstances in which the survivors are placed
for the want of adequate accommodation for the remains immediately after death, and previous to the
interment:—
There are some houses in my district that have from 45 to 60 persons of all ages under one roof, and in the event of death, the body
often occupies the only bed till they raise money to pay for a coffin, which is often several days. They are crowded together in houses
situate in Off-alley, the courts and alleys opening from Bedfordbury, Rose-street, Angel-court, courts and alleys opening from Drury-
lane and the Strand, and even in places fitted up under the Adelphi arches; even the unventilated and damp underground kitchens are
tenanted. Of course the tenants are never free from fevers and diarrhœa, and the mortality is great. The last class live, for the most part,
in lodging-rooms, where shelter is obtained, with a bed or straw, for from 2d. to 4d. per night, and where this is not obtainable, the
arches under the Adelphi afford a shelter. In the lodging-rooms I have seen the beds placed so close together as not to allow room to
pass between them, and occupied by both sexes indiscriminately. I have known six people sleep in a room about nine feet square, with
only one small window, about fifteen inches by twelve inches; and there are some sleeping-rooms in this district in which you cannot
scarcely see your hand at noon-day.
How long is the dead body retained in the room beside the living?—If the person has subscribed to a club, or the friends are in
circumstances to afford the expense of the funeral, it takes place, generally, on the following Sunday, if the death has occurred early in
the week; but if towards the end of the week, then it is sometimes postponed till the Sunday week after, if the weather permit; in one
case it was twelve days. In the other cases I have known much opposition to removal till after a subscription had been collected from
the affluent neighbours; and in some instances, after keeping the body several days, I have been applied to to present the case to the
relieving officer, that it might be buried by the parish. Amongst the Irish it is retained till after the wake, which “is open to all comers”
as long as there is anything dacent to drink or smoke; but I must bear witness, also, to the frequent exhibition, in a large majority of the
poor, of those affectionate attentions to the mortal remains of their relatives, which all are anxious to bestow, and which,
notwithstanding the danger and want of accommodation, make them loth to part with them.
In what condition is the corpse usually, or frequently, retained?—Amongst the Irish, it does not signify of what disease the person may
have died, it is retained often for many days, laid out upon the only bed, perhaps, and adorned with the best they can bestow upon it,
until the coronach has been performed. Thus fevers and other contagious diseases are fearfully propagated. I remember a case of a
body being brought from the Fever Hospital to Bullin-court, and the consequences were dreadful; and this spring I removed a girl,
named Wilson, to the infirmary of the workhouse, from a room in the same court. I could not remain two minutes in it; the horrible
stench arose from a corpse which had died of phthisis twelve days before, and the coffin stood across the foot of the bed, within
eighteen inches of it. This was in a small room not above ten feet by twelve feet square, and a fire always in it, being (as in most cases
of a like kind) the only one for sleeping, living, and cooking in. I mention these as being particular cases, from which most marked
consequences followed; but I have very many others, in which the retention of the body has been fraught with serious results to the
survivors.
Will you describe the consequences of such retention?—Upon the 9th of March, 1840, M—— was taken to the Fever Hospital. He
died there, and without my knowledge the body was brought back to his own room. The usual practice, in such cases, is to receive
them into a lock-up-room, set apart for that purpose in the workhouse. I find that upon the 12th his step-son was taken ill. He was
removed immediately to the Fever Hospital. Upon the 18th the barber who shaved the corpse was taken ill, and died in the Fever
Hospital, and upon the 27th another step-son was taken ill, and removed also.
Upon the 18th of December, 1840, I—— and her infant were brought, ill with fever, to her father’s room in Eagle-court, which was ten
feet square, with a small window of four panes; the infant soon died. Upon the 15th of January, 1841, the grandmother was taken ill;
upon the 2nd of February the grandfather also. There was but one bedstead in the room. They resisted every offer to remove them, and
I had no power to compel removal. The corpse of the grandmother lay beside her husband upon the same bed, and it was only when he
became delirious and incapable of resistance that I ordered the removal of the body to the dead-room, and him to the Fever Hospital.
He died there, but the evil did not stop here: two children, who followed their father’s body to the grave, were, the one within a week
and the other within ten days, also victims to the same disease. In short, five out of six died.
In October, 1841, a fine girl, C——, died of cynanche maligna: her body was retained in a small back room. Upon the 1st of
November another child was taken ill, and upon the 4th two others were also seized with the same disease.
Upon the 2nd of February, 1843, H——, in Heathcock-court, died of fever. I recommended the immediate removal of the body from
the attic room of small dimensions, but it was retained about ten days, the widow not consenting to have it buried by the parish, and not
being able to collect funds sooner: their only child was seized with fever, and was several weeks ill.
Upon the 3rd of March, 1843, B—— died of a fever in Lemontree-yard; the body was retained some days, in expectation of friends
burying it, but in the mean time a child of B——, and one of a lodger in the same house, were infected.

Upon the 13th March, 1843, I saw a family in Hervey’s-buildings, which is more open, and the rooms of a better class than those in
some other situations. I found there the corpse of a person who had died of a fever; the father and mother were just taken ill, and a
child was taken ill soon after. The foot of the coffin was within ten inches of the father’s head as he lay upon his pillow. I caused it to
be removed as soon as possible, and the three cases terminated favourably. In the case in Bullin-court, mentioned before, the girl
Wilson was affected with nausea vertigo, general prostration of strength, and trembling, the usual symptoms in these cases. Soon after
her removal, the mother of the deceased was seized with typhus, and is now only so far recovered as scarcely to be able to go about
and attend to another son, who is at present ill of the same disease. These are a few cases only in which serious evils followed on
retention of the body. I could multiply them, if necessary; but they will suffice to show that there should be power of removal to some
recognized place of safety given to the district medical officer for the benefit of the individuals concerned and the public at large. The
rooms are often most wretched in which these cases occur; the neighbourhood is badly ventilated and drained, or often not drained at
all, and if the medical officer were responsible for his acts, and bound to report regularly, there would be a sufficient guarantee that no
unnecessary harshness would be exercised in the performance of a duty absolutely required for the preservation of the public health,
and the safety of those dearest to the sufferers themselves.
Comparing the effects of the practice of retaining the bodies before interment, with the effects of emanations from the dead after
interment, when buried in crowded districts, which appears to you to be the most pernicious practice?—When a body is retained in a
small room, badly ventilated, and often with a fire in it, the noxious gases evolved in the process of decomposition are presented to
persons exposed to them in a highly concentrated form, and if their health is in a certain state favourable to receive the contagion, the
effect is immediate. In crowded burial-grounds in which I have never seen a body at a less depth than three feet from the surface
(allowing for the artificial building up of the ground to give apparent depth to the grave), the gases having this thickness of earth to
penetrate, arrive at the surface in a divided state, and by small quantities at a time mix so gradually with the atmosphere, that it
becomes comparatively harmless by dilution, and is scarcely perceptible. In confined situations, where the ground is limited in extent,
the long continuance of gradual evolutions of noxious matter would, doubtless, be a cause of debility to surrounding inhabitants; but
such instances, I think, are rare. I have made inquiry in the immediate neighbourhood of grave-yards, and I form my opinion from the
result. There can be no doubt whatever as to the propriety of burial beyond the limits of towns, and if the corpse of the poor man could
be deposited at a distance, without entailing a greater expense upon him, I think it would improve the health of our large towns very
much; but I believe the retention of the corpse in the room with the living is fraught with greater danger than that produced by the
emanations from even crowded grave-yards.

§ 27. The condition in which the remains are often found on the occurrence of a death at the eastern
part of the metropolis are thus described by Mr. John Liddle, the medical officer of the Whitechapel
district of the Whitechapel Union.
What is the class of poor persons whom you, as medical officer, are called upon to attend to?—The dock labourers, navigators,
bricklayers’ labourers, and the general description of labourers inhabiting Whitechapel and lower Aldgate.
On the occurrence of a death amongst this description of labourers, what do you find to be the general condition of the family, in
relation to the remains. How is the corpse dealt with?—Nearly the whole of the labouring population there have only one room. The
corpse is therefore kept in that room where the inmates sleep and have their meals. Sometimes the corpse is stretched on the bed, and
the bed and bed-clothes are taken off, and the wife and family lie on the floor. Sometimes a board is got on which the corpse is
stretched, and that is sustained on tressels or on chairs. Sometimes it is stretched out on chairs. When children die, they are frequently
laid out on the table. The poor Irish, if they can afford it, form a canopy of white calico over the corpse, and buy candles to burn by it,
and place a black cross at the head of the corpse. They commonly raise the money to do this by subscriptions amongst themselves and
at the public-houses which they frequent.
What is the usual length of time that the corpse is so kept?—The time varies according to the day of the death. Sunday is the day
usually chosen for the day of burial. But if a man die on the Wednesday, the burial will not take place till the Sunday week following.
Bodies are almost always kept for a full week, frequently longer.
What proportion of these cases may be positively contagious?—It appears from the Registrar-General’s Report (which, however,
cannot be depended on for perfect accuracy, as the registrar’s returns are very incorrect,—I do not think I have been required to give a
certificate of death upon more than three occasions), that in the year 1839, there were 747 deaths from epidemic diseases which formed
about one-fifth of the whole of the deaths in the Whitechapel Union.
Have you had occasion to represent as injurious this practice of retaining the corpse amidst the living?—I have represented in several
communications in answer to sanitary inquiries from the Poor Law Commission Office, that it must be and is highly injurious. It was
only three or four days ago that an instance of this occurred in my own practice, which I will mention. A widow’s son, who was about
15 years of age, was taken ill of fever. Finding the room small, in which there was a family of five persons living, I advised his
immediate removal. This was not done, and the two other sons were shortly afterwards attacked, and both died. When fever was
epidemic, deaths following the first death in the same family were of frequent occurrence. In cases where the survivors escape, their
general health must be deteriorated by the practice of keeping the dead in the same room.
Do you observe any peculiarity of habit amongst the lower classes accompanying this familiarity with the remains of the dead?—What
I observe when I first visit the room is a degree of indifference to the presence of the corpse: the family is found eating or drinking or
pursuing their usual callings, and the children playing. Amongst the middle classes, where there is an opportunity of putting the corpse
by itself, there are greater marks of respect and decency. Amongst that class no one would think of doing anything in the room where
the corpse was lying, still less of allowing children there.

Mr. Byles, surgeon, of Spitalfields, states, that the above description is generally applicable to the
condition of the dwellings of the labouring classes, and to the circumstances under which the

survivors are placed on the occurrence of a death in that district. He observes, moreover—
In the more malignant form of fever, especially scarlatina, the instances of death following the first case of death are frequent. The
same holds good in respect to measles, and in respect to small-pox in families where vaccination has been neglected. I have also
known instances of children who had been vaccinated becoming the subject of fever apparently from the effluvia of the body of a child
who had died of the small-pox. I have often had occasion urgently to represent to the parish and union officers the necessity of a
forcible interference to remove bodies. Coffins have been sent and the bodies removed and placed in a vault under the church until
interment, and the rooms limewashed at the expense of the parish.
Were such removals resisted?—Not generally; they were in some few instances.

§ 28. Mr. Bestow, a relieving officer of the adjacent district of Bethnal Green, who is called upon to
visit the abodes of those persons of the labouring classes, who on the occurrence of death fall into a
state of destitution, thus exemplifies the common consequences of the retention of the corpse in the
living and working rooms of the family:—
Is the corpse generally kept in the living or in the working room?—In the majority of cases the weavers live and work in the same
room; the children generally sleep on a bed pushed under the loom. Before a coffin is obtained, the corpse is generally stretched on the
bed where the adults have slept. It is a very serious evil in our district, the length of time during which bodies have been kept under
such circumstances. I have frequently had to make complaint of it. We are very often complained to by neighbours of the length of time
during which the bodies are kept. We have very often had disease occasioned by it. I have known, in one case, as many as eight deaths,
from typhus fever, follow one death; there were five children and two or three visitors whose illness and deaths were ascribed to the
circumstance.
In January, 1837, a man named Clark, in George Gardens, in this parish, having been kept a considerable length of time unburied (I
was informed beyond a fortnight), I was directed to visit the case, and I found the house consisted of two small rooms, wherein resided
his wife and seven children. I remonstrated with them upon the impropriety of keeping the body so long, and offered either to bury, or
to remove it, as it was then becoming very offensive. I was informed it would be buried on the following Sunday, as it would not be
convenient for the whole of the relatives to attend the funeral earlier, and I understood a very great number did attend. I find that on the
30th of the same month (January) I was called again to visit Ann Clark, one of the family, in the same miserable abode, who was lying
upon some rags, very ill of fever. I had her removed, but she ultimately died; and I again remonstrated with the family remaining in the
same house, and offered to take them into the workhouse, which was declined, stating, it was their intention to remove in a few days to
another house. And on the 20th of February, my attention was called to the same family, who had then removed to No. 3, Granby Row,
not far from their former abode, and here I found the mother and the whole of the children (as I had predicted to them, if they persisted
in their habits), all ill of fever without much hopes of their recovery. I had five removed to the London Fever Hospital immediately; but
out of seven who were affected, two died. My attention was shortly afterwards directed to Henry Clark, of Barnet Street, who was a
relative, and had taken fever (it was stated) by having attended the funeral of his friend; he, it seems, communicated it to his wife and
two children, one of whom died; next followed Stephen Clark, of Edward Street, who, having visited the above-named relative, and
attended the funeral of their infant shortly afterwards, had fever; also his wife and three children, one of whom died also. In August,
1837, I was called to visit the case of Sarah Masterton, No. 11, Suffolk Street, whose husband lay dead of fever; she was with two
children in the same room, and the corpse not in a coffin. They were in the most deplorable condition, and so bad with fever that none
of the neighbours would venture to enter the room with me. I had the dead body removed in a shell to our dead-house, and the woman
and children to the infirmary in the workhouse. Two of them ultimately recovered; one died. In the same house, and in the upper room,
I next found Robert Crisp, with a wife and child, upon whom I could not prevail to leave the place, and my urgent entreaties were
treated with contempt and bad language. Ultimately, however, his child died, and not until then could I persuade him to get another
place, neither would he have the infant removed, or come into the workhouse himself.
William Procktor, residing in a miserable hut in Camden’s Gardens, of only one room, with a wife and two children, when visited, was
found badly affected with fever, of which the wife died, and the body was kept in the same place wherein all the family resided and
slept, for more than a week. The man was next attacked, and then the children; and for a considerable time they were attended by our
medical officer, but I believe they all ultimately recovered.

His report book contained frequent instances of cases of the like description.
§ 29. Mr. T. Abraham, surgeon, one of the Registrars for the City of London, who has had much
practice as a parochial medical officer, was asked upon this subject—
In the course of your practice, have you had occasion to believe that evil effects are produced by the retention of the corpse in the
house?—Yes; I can give an instance of a man, his wife, and six children, living in one room in Draper’s Buildings. The mother and all
the children successively fell ill of typhus fever: the mother died; the body remained in the room. I wished it to be removed the next
day, and I also wished the children to be removed, being afraid that the fever would extend. The children were apparently well at the
time of the death of the mother. The recommendation was not attended to: the body was kept five days in the only room which this
family of eight had to live and sleep in. The eldest daughter was attacked about a week after the mother had been removed, and, after
three days’ illness, that daughter died. The corpse of this child was only kept three days, as we determined that it should positively be
removed. In about nine days after the death of the girl, the youngest child was attacked, and it died in about nine days. Then the second
one was taken ill; he lay twenty-three days, and died. Then another boy died. The two other children recovered.
By the immediate removal of the corpse, and the use of proper preventive means, how many deaths do you believe might have been
prevented?—I think it probable that the one took it from the other, and that, if the corpse of the first had been removed, the rest would

have escaped, although I, of course, admit that the same cause which produced the disease in the mother might also have produced it in
the children. I believe that, in cases of typhus, scarlatina, and other infectious diseases, it frequently happens that the living are attacked
by the same disease from the retention of the body.

Mr. Blencarn, surgeon, one of the medical officers of the City of London Union, was asked—
Have you observed any evil effects following the practice of the long retention of the corpse in the house amidst the living?—Yes; I
have observed effects follow, but I cannot say produced by them, though they were perhaps increased by them. In those cases which I
have had, where there has been a succession of cases of fever in the same family, after a death it has generally occurred that the parties
affected have complained two or three days before that they felt very unwell. Generally this has been the case. I have in such instances
ordered them medicine immediately. Since the Union has been established, we have immediately removed all fever cases to the fever
hospital.
The retention of the corpse amidst the living, under such circumstances, must aggravate the mortality, must it not?—There cannot be a
moment’s doubt about it.

§ 30. Mr. Barnett, surgeon, one of the medical officers of the Stepney Union, thus exemplifies the
effects of the practice in his own district. After speaking of the prevalence of nervous depression,
ascribable to the contiguity to a crowded grave-yard, he says:—
Similar symptoms are observable when the dead are kept any length of time in crowded apartments. I well recollect a child dying,
during the summer months, of scarlet fever, and the parents persisted in keeping the corpse for a considerable period, notwithstanding
the entreaties of the rest of the inmates to the contrary, all of whom complained of being ill therefrom. The result was the production of
several cases of typhoid fever and much distress. A short time ago, I was requested to attend a family consisting of five persons; they
resided in a room containing about 500 cubic feet, with but little light and much less ventilation. One child was suffering from small-
pox, and died in a day or two: the corpse was allowed to remain in the room. The two other children were soon attacked by the disease,
as well as a child belonging to a person residing in the same house, who was imprudent enough to bring it into this apartment, though
cautioned not to do so. The stench arising from the living and dead was so intolerable that it produced in myself severe head-ache, and
my friend, who accompanied me, complained of sudden nervousness. The parents of these children (one of whom is since dead) are
suffering great debility.
The similarity of symptoms produced in these cases might perhaps lead us to the conclusion that the cause was probably the same in
all; consequently, whether this poison be diluted or concentrated, it should, at all times, be carefully avoided. For this purpose, I should
recommend the early removal of the dead from such apartments, and a check to be put to the baneful practice of burying the dead so
near the surface in crowded districts.

§ 31. The accounts given by the medical practitioners and persons who are chiefly in attendance on
the parties before death, are corroborated by the evidence of undertakers and others engaged in
providing goods and services for the performance of the last rites for artisans of a condition to defray
the funeral expenses.
Mr. Wild, an undertaker, residing in the Blackfriars Road, London, who inters between 500 and 600
bodies annually, of which about 350 are of the working classes, states, that the time during which the
corpse is kept in the house varies from five to twelve days.
The greater proportion of the working men in London live and sleep in one room only, do they not?—Three-fourths of the rooms we
have to visit are single rooms; the one room is the only room the poor people have.
When you visit the room, in what condition do you find the corpse? How is it laid out?—Generally speaking, we only find one bed in
the room, and that occupied by a corpse. It frequently happens that there is no sacking to the bedding; when they borrow a board or a
shutter from a neighbour, in order to lay out the corpse upon it; they have also to borrow other convenient articles necessary, such us a
sheet. The corpse of a child is usually laid out on the table. The Irish poor have a peculiar mode of arranging the corpse; they place
candles around the bed, and they have a black cross placed at the head of the bed.
Is the practice of keeping bodies in the place of abode for a long time much altered in cases where the death has occurred from fever or
any contagious disease?—Very seldom; they would keep them much longer if it were not for the undertaker, who urges them to bury
them. In cases of rapid decomposition of persons dying in full habit there is much liquid; and the coffin is tapped to let it out. I have
known them to keep the corpse after the coffin had been tapped twice, which has, of course, produced a disagreeable effluvium. This
liquid generates animal life very rapidly; and within six hours after a coffin has been tapped, if the liquid escapes, maggots, or a sort of
animalculæ, are seen crawling about. I have frequently seen them crawling about the floor of a room inhabited by the labouring
classes, and about the tressels on which the tapped coffin is sustained. In such rooms the children are frequently left whilst the widow
is out making arrangements connected with the funeral. And the widow herself lives there with the children. I frequently find them
altogether in a small room with a large fire.
Have you known instances of the spread of disease amongst the members of the family residing in the same room where the corpse is
kept?—Some medical men have said that corpses of persons who have contagious diseases are not dangerous; but my belief is, that in
cases of small-pox and scarlatina it is dangerous; and only the other day a case of this nature occurred,—a little boy, who died of the
small-pox. Soon after he died, his sister, a little girl who had been playing in the same room, was attacked with small-pox and died.
The medical attendant said, the child must have touched the corpse. A poor woman, a neighbour, went over to see one of these bodies,

and was much afflicted and frightened, and I believe touched the body. She was certainly attacked with the small-pox, and, after
lingering some time, died a few days since. The other day at Lambeth, the eldest child of a person died of scarlet fever. The child was
about four years old; it had been ill a week. There were two other children, one was three years old and the other sixteen months. When
the first child died there were no symptoms of illness for three days afterwards, the corpse of the eldest was kept in the house; here it
was in a separate room, but the medical man recommended early interment, and it was buried on the fourth day. The youngest child
had been taken by the servant into the room where the corpse was, to see it, and this child was taken ill just before the burial and died
in about a week. The corpse of this child was retained in the house three weeks. It is supposed that the other child had also been taken
into the room to see the corpse and touch it, and at the end of the three weeks it also died. The medical attendant was clearly of opinion
that had the first child been early removed, it would have been saved. The undertaker’s men who have to put into coffins the corpses of
persons who have died from any contagious disease, are sometimes sick and compelled to take instantly gin or brandy; and they will
feel sickly for some hours after, but they are not known to catch the disease. I have often heard the men say on the morning following,
“I have been able to take no breakfast to-day,” and have complained of want of appetite for some time after.

Mr. Jeffereys, an undertaker, residing in Whitechapel, gives a similar account of the dreadful effects
of this practice.
It is stated that the practice of keeping the body in the house is a very great evil; how long have you known bodies to be kept in the
house before interment?—I have known them to be kept three weeks: we every week see them kept until the bodies are nearly putrid:
sometimes they have run away almost through the coffin, and the poor people, women and children, are living and sleeping in the same
room at the same time. In some cases there is superstition about the interments, but it is not very frequent. Then when the corpse is
uncovered, or the coffin is open, females will hang over it. A widow who hung over the body of her husband, caught the disease of
which he died. The doctor told her he knew she must have kissed or touched the body: she died, leaving seven orphans, of whom four
are now in an orphan asylum. A young man died not long since, and his body rapidly decomposed. His sister, a fine healthy girl, hung
over the corpse and kissed it; in three weeks after she died also.

§ 32. The descriptions given by the labouring classes themselves of the circumstances precedent to
the removal of the body for interment, are similar to those in the instances above cited. They are thus
described by John Downing, one of several respectable mechanics examined:—
You, as secretary [of a burial society] are called upon to attend the funeral; are you not?—Yes, I am. It is part of our rules, also, that the
secretary shall see the body and identify it. When old members, whom I have known, have been sick, I have visited them, although I
am not obliged to do it.
What in the case of death is the condition in which you generally find the corpse?—It is generally stretched out on a shutter, with a
sheet over it. Children are generally laid out on the table.
In how many cases do you find that those whom you visit, who may perhaps be considered to be of the class of respectable mechanics,
do you find them occupying more than one room?—About one case in six.
Have you observed any effects from the long retention of the body in the same room as the family?—Yes, I have known children to
have taken the disease and die; I have also known the widow who has hung over the body and kissed it, become ill and die through it. I
have known other cases where there has been severe illness. I have myself been made ill by visiting them; I have felt giddy in the head
and very sick, and have gone to the nearest house of refreshment to get some brandy. I have felt the effects for two or three days.

§ 33. The next class of witnesses, who receive the remains at the place of burial, attest the fact that
the smell from the coffin is frequently powerfully offensive, and that it is by no means an uncommon
occurrence that the decomposing matter escapes from it, and in the streets, and in the church, and in
the church-yard, runs down over the shoulders of the bearers.
§ 34. So far as the inquiry has proceeded in the provincial towns, it appears that the practice of
keeping the corpse in the crowded living rooms does not differ essentially from the practice in the
metropolis. Mr. R. Craven, a surgeon residing at Leeds, who has had great experience amongst that
population, states—
The Irish almost universally live huddled together in great numbers in a small space. I have often known as many as twenty human
beings lodged and fed in a dirty filthy cottage with only two rooms. Great many live in cellar dwellings. I have frequently seen a cellar
dwelling lodge a family of seven to ten persons, and that in close confined yards. I have seen a cellar dwelling in one of the most
densely-populated districts of Leeds in which were living seven persons, with one corner fenced off and a pig in it; a ridge of clay
being placed round the fence to prevent the wet from the pigsty running all over the floor, and to this cellar there was no drainage.
I believe that a much larger proportion of the Irish attacked by fever, die, than of English. Children they do not make so much parade
of, as here is greater difficulty of obtaining the funds for their burial. It is no uncommon thing to see a corpse laid out in a room where
eight to twelve persons have to sleep, and sometimes even both sleep and eat.

He also states also that—
Amongst the hand-loom weavers there is some difference. They generally live in cottages consisting of two small rooms or cellar
dwellings; these have always a large space occupied by the loom; and in cottages of two rooms I have frequently seen two families

residing having in the upper room two looms. When deaths occur in this class the corpse cannot be laid out without occupying the
space where the family have to work (the father or mother weaving, and children winding or rendering other assistance), or in the room
where they live and eat. This, I am of opinion, has a very debasing effect on the morals of this class of the community, making
especially the rising generation so familiar with death that their feelings are not hurt by it: it has also a very injurious physical effect,
frequently propagating disease in a rapid manner and to an immense extent.

§ 35. Mr. Christopher Fountaine Browne, one of the parochial surgeons of Leeds, whose district
comprehends a population of 45,000 persons, chiefly of the working classes, states that:—
The people amongst whom I practise generally occupy one room where they live in, and a bed-room above; but I have known many
instances of a family, say a man, his wife, and from three to six children, having only one bed and one apartment for all purposes. But a
great many dwellings there consist of only one room, and in many of the lodging-houses I have seen five or six beds in one small
room, in which it has been acknowledged that from 12 to 14 persons have passed the night, and the air has been so bad that I have been
compelled to stand at the window whilst visiting the patient.

He also states, that—
He has seen many deaths take place in such houses when the body remains in the bed where it died; and I have known it remain two or
three nights before interment. In Irish cases they keep them longer. I have seen a child lie in a down-stairs room in a corner, dead of
small-pox, and another dying, and the house full of lodgers eating their meals. The length of time that a corpse is kept varies very much
according to the disposition of the relatives and the means of procuring a burial, as there are no restrictions as to the length of time
bodies are to be kept.
I have observed, that in cases of small-pox disease frequently follows in rapid succession on different members of the same family. I
have frequently known cases of a low typhoid character arise where many persons sleep in the same room: the addition of a death from
any such cause of course increases the danger to the living.

In Manchester and in several northern districts, it appears that by custom the corpse seldom remains
unburied more than three or four days, but during that time it remains in the crowded rooms of the
living of the labouring classes. Every day’s retention of the corpse is to be considered an aggravation
of the evil; but the evidence is to be borne in mind that the miasma from the dead is more dangerous
immediately after death, or during the first and second day, than towards the end of the week. In a
proportion of cases decomposition has commenced before the vital functions have ceased;
immediately after death decomposition often proceeds with excessive rapidity in the crowded rooms,
which have then commonly larger fires than usual.
§ 36. It is observed by some of the witnesses that usually, and except by accident, and in few cases,
the miasma from the remains of the dead in grave-yards can only reach the living in a state of
diffusion and dilution; and that large proportions of it probably escape without producing any
immediately appreciable evil. The practice, however, of the retention of the remains in the one room
of the living brings the effluvium to bear directly upon the survivors when it is most dangerous, when
they are usually exhausted bodily by watching, and depressed mentally by anxiety and grief—
circumstances which it is well known greatly increase the danger of contagion. The males of the
working-classes in general die earlier than the females, and in the greater number of cases the last
duties fall to the widow; and the prevalence of fatal disease chiefly amongst the children is frequently
attributed to the circumstance, that she is aroused from the stunning effect of the bereavement by the
necessity of going abroad and seeking pecuniary aid, and making arrangements for the funeral, whilst
the children are left at home in the house with the corpse.
In Scotland, from an aversion to sleeping in the presence of the corpse, it is the practice to sit up with
it, and there is then much drinking of ardent spirits. Mr. W. Dyce Guthrie speaks strongly of the evils
attendant upon the practice of the unguarded retention of the body under such circumstances, and of
the instances known by himself where persons have come from a distance to attend the funeral of a
departed friend, and have returned infected with a disease similar to that which terminated the
friend’s existence. The concurrent and decided opinion of himself and a number of other medical
witnesses is, that the public health is much more affected by the pestiferous influence of the corpse
during the interval of time that occurs from the moment of death, up to the hour of the funeral, than it
commonly is or can be after interment.

§ 37. Of the deaths which take place in the metropolis, it will be seen that more than one-half are the
deaths of the labouring classes. The following table, taken from the Mortuary Registries during the
year 1839, shows the numbers of deaths amongst the chief classes of society, and the proportions of
deaths from epidemic diseases. At least four out of five of the deaths of the labouring classes, it will
be remembered, are stated to occur in the single living and sleeping room, that is to say, upwards of
20,000 annually.
Ratio of
Number of Deaths of each Number of Deaths Average
Class. Ratio of Deaths from Age at
Deaths from Epidemic, Death of
of Epidemic, Endemic, the
Children Endemic, and whole
Children
to Total and Contagious Class,
Adults. under 10 Total.
Deaths. Contagious Disease to including
Years.
Diseases. Total Children.
Deaths.
Gentry,
Professional
Persons, & 1,724 529 2,253 1 in 4103 210 1 in 10107 44
their
Families
Tradesmen,
Clerks, &
3,979 3,703 7,682 1 in 2101 1,428 1 in 5104 25
their
Families
Undescribed 2,996 2,761 5,757 1 in 2101 1,051 1 in 5105 28
Labourers and
their 12,045 13,885 25,930 1 in 1109 5,469 1 in 4108 22
Families
Paupers 3,062 593 3,655 1 in 6102 557 1 in 6106 49
Total 23,806 21,471 45,277 1 in 2101 8,715 1 in 5102 27
In making up this table, all who were not distinguished as master tradesmen were entered as
mechanics. This circumstance would give to the labouring classes an appearance of a higher average
age of death than is gained by them. On the other hand, some of the labouring classes will be found
to have died in the workhouse, which would perhaps keep the average where it now stands, whilst if
the registration were more accurate, the average age of death of the middle classes might be found to
be about 27. The average age of death of 27 given for the whole metropolis is not made as an average
of the averages, but from the average of the whole. The apparent high average of the age of death of
paupers arises from the smaller proportion of children amongst them: and the larger proportion of
aged adults who seek refuge in the workhouse.[10]
§ 38. The deaths registered from epidemic, endemic, and contagious diseases during the year 1839,
which was by no means an unhealthy year, were as follows in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and
Birmingham:—
Deaths from Epidemic, Ratio of Deaths from Epidemic
Total Number
Endemic, and Contagious Disease to the Total Number of
of Deaths.
Diseases. Deaths.

Liverpool 7,435 1,844 1 in 4
Manchester 6,774 2,006 1 in 3104
Leeds 4,388 965 1 in 4105
Birmingham 3,639 747 1 in 4109
The numbers of deaths which occurred during that year amongst the labouring classes are not
distinguished, but they were for the next year as follows. And in the three first-named towns, I
conceive that the proportion of cases of deaths amongst those classes where the corpse is kept in the
living room, is in all probability as great as in the metropolis.
Liverpool 5,597
Manchester 4,629
Leeds 3,395
Birmingham 2,715
I am unaware of any data existing in the towns in Scotland from which any estimate can be made of
the extent to which the evils in question are prevalent there. In the recent Report on the Census,
sufficient is shown of the condition of the labouring population in the towns in Ireland to prove, that
in them, the evils must fall with at least as great severity as they are described to occur in the worst,
conditioned districts in England.[11]
§ 39. If the returns and the statements of witnesses acquainted with the crowded districts be correct,
that four out of five families of the labouring classes have each but one room, then every unit of
upwards of 20,000 deaths per annum which occur in the metropolis, every unit of 4600 deaths of the
labouring classes which occur annually at Liverpool, must be taken as representing a horrible scene
of the retention of the corpse amidst the family in the manner described in the testimony of those
who have witnessed it;—and every unit of some 4000 deaths from epidemics in the metropolis, and
every third or fourth recorded death in other towns, and even in crowded villages, represents a
distressing scene, and moreover a case of peculiar danger and probable permanent injury to the
survivors amongst whom it takes place. Great, however, as may be the physical evils to them, the
evidence of the mental pain and moral evil generally attendant on the practice of the long retention of
the body in the rooms in use and amidst the living, though only noticed incidentally, is yet more
deplorable.
§ 40. The duty which attaches to male relations, or which a benevolent pastor, if there were the
accommodation, would exercise on the occurrence of the calamity of death to any member of a
family, is to remove the sensitive and the weakly from the spectacle, which is a perpetual stimulus to
excessive grief, and commonly a source of painful associations and visible images of the changes
wrought in death, to haunt the imagination in after-life. When the dissolution has taken place under
circumstances such as those described, it is not a few minutes’ look after the last duties are performed
and the body is composed in death and left in repose, that is given to this class of survivors, but the
spectacle is protracted hour after hour through the day and night, and day after day, and night after
night, thus aggravating the mental pains under varied circumstances, and increasing the dangers of
permanent bodily injury. The sufferings of the survivors, especially of the widow of the labouring
classes, are often protracted to a fatal extent. To the very young children, the greatest danger is of
infection in cases of deaths from contagious and infectious disease. To the elder children and
members of the family and inmates, the moral evil created by the retention of the body in their
presence beyond the short term during which sorrow and depression of spirits may be said to be
natural to them is, that familiarity soon succeeds, and respect disappears. These consequences are
revealed by the frequency of the statements of witnesses, that the deaths of children immediately
following, of the same disease of which the parent had died, had been accounted for by “the doctor,”

or the neighbours, in the probability that the child had caught the disease by touching the corpse or
the coffin, whilst playing about the room in the absence of the mother. Dr. Reicke, in the course of
his dissertation on the physical dangers from exposure to emanations from the remains, mentions an
instance where a little child having struck the body of the parent which had died of a malignant
disease, the hand and arm of the child was dangerously inflamed with malignant pustules in
consequence. The mental effects on the elder children or members of the family of the retention of
the body in the living room, day after day, and during meal times, until familiarity is induced,—
retained, as the body commonly is, during all this time in the sordes of disease, the progress of
change and decomposition disfiguring the remains and adding disgust to familiarity,—are attested to
be of the most demoralizing character. Such deaths occur sooner or later in various forms in every
poor family; and in neighbourhoods where there are no sanitary regulations, where they are ravaged
by epidemics, such scenes are doubly familiar to the whole population.
§ 41. Astonishment is frequently excited by the cases which abound in our penal records indicative of
the prevalence of habits of savage brutality and carelessness of life amongst the labouring
population; but crimes, like sores, will commonly be found to be the result of wider influences than
are externally manifest; and the reasons for such astonishment, will be diminished in proportion as
those circumstances are examined, which influence the minds and habits of the population more
powerfully than precepts or book education. Among these demoralizing circumstances, which appear
to be preventible or removable, are those which the present inquiry brings to light. Disrespect for the
human form under suffering, indifference or carelessness at death,—or at that destruction which
follows as an effect of suffering—is rarely found amongst the uneducated, unconnected with a
callousness to others’ pain, and a recklessness about life itself. A known effect on uneducated
survivors of the frequency of death amongst youth or persons in the vigour of life, is to create a
reckless avidity for immediate enjoyment. Some examples of the demoralization attendant on such
circumstances cannot but be apparent in the evidence arising in the course of this inquiry into other
practices connected with interments.
§ 42. On submitting the above to a friend, a clergyman, whose benevolence has carried him to
alleviate the sufferings in several hundred death-bed scenes in the abodes of the labouring classes,
and who has been present, perhaps, at every death in his own flock, in a wretchedly crowded parish,
he writes in the following terms his confirmation:—
“The whole of this I can testify, from personal knowledge, to be just. With the upper classes, a corpse
excites feelings of awe and respect; with the lower orders, in these districts, it is often treated with as
little ceremony as the carcase in a butcher’s shop. Nothing can exceed their desire for an imposing
funeral; nothing can surpass their efforts to obtain it; but the deceased’s remains share none of the
reverence which this anxiety for their becoming burial would seem to indicate. The inconsistency is
entirely, or at least in great part, to be attributed to a single circumstance—that the body is never
absent from their sight—eating, drinking, or sleeping, it is still by their side; mixed up with all the
ordinary functions of daily life, till it becomes as familiar to them as when it lived and moved in the
family circle. From familiarity it is a short step to desecration. The body, stretched out upon two
chairs, is pulled about by the children, made to serve as a resting-place for any article that is in the
way, and is not seldom the hiding-place for the beer-bottle or the gin if any visitor arrives
inopportunely. Viewed as an outrage upon human feeling, this is bad enough; but who does not see
that when the respect for the dead, that is, for the human form in its most awful stage, is gone, the
whole mass of social sympathies must be weakened—perhaps blighted and destroyed? At any rate, it
removes that wholesome fear of death which is the last hold upon a hardened conscience. They have
gazed upon it so perpetually, they have grown so intimate with its terrors, that they no longer dread it,
even when it attacks themselves, and the heart which vice has deadened to every appeal of religion is
at last rendered callous to the natural instinct of fear.”

That it is possible by legislative means to stay the progress of this dreadful demoralization, which
must, if no further heed be taken of it, go on with the increased crowding of an increasing population;
that it is possible to abate the mental and physical suffering; to extend to the depressed urban districts
an acceptable and benign and elevating influence on such impressive occasions; may be confidently
affirmed, and will in a subsequent stage of this Report be endeavoured to be shown by reference to
actual examples of successful measures.

Expenses of Funerals and their effects on the Living.

§ 43. The practice of the long retention of the dead before burial being the one from which the
greatest evil accrues, the circumstances by which the practice is chiefly influenced are the first
submitted for consideration.
The causes which influence this practice amongst the greatest number of the population appear to be,
first, the expense of funerals—next, the delay in making arrangements for the funeral,—the natural
reluctance to part with the remains of the deceased, and occasionally a feeling of apprehension,
sometimes expressed on the part of the survivors, against premature interment.
The expense of interments, though it falls with the greatest severity on the poorest classes, acts as a
most severe infliction on the middle classes of society, and governs so powerfully the questions in
respect to the present and future administrative arrangements, and involves so many other evils, as to
require as complete an exposition as possible of its extent and operation.
The testimony of witnesses of the most extensive experience is of the following tenor in London and
the crowded town districts of England. Mr. Byles, the surgeon, of Spitalfields, in reference to the
delay of interments, states—
The difficulty of raising the subscription to bury the dead, is I apprehend one chief cause of the delay. When, in the instance of the
death of a child, I ask why it cannot be interred earlier, the usual reply is, we cannot raise the money earlier.

Mr. Wild, the undertaker, states—
The time varies from five to twelve days. This arises from the difficulty of procuring the means of making arrangements with the
undertaker, and the difficulty of getting mourners to attend the funeral. They have a great number to attend, neighbours, fellow-
workmen, as well as relations. The mourners with them vary from five to eight couple; it is always an agreement for five couple at the
least.

One of the witnesses of the labouring classes, who had acted as secretary to an extensive burial
society, gives the following account of the causes which operate to produce the delay.
What is the average length of time they remain unburied?—Never less than a week. If they die in the middle of the week they are
generally kept until the Sunday week. I have known instances, however, where they have been kept as long as a fortnight.
What have been the causes of this retention of the body?—In general it has been the want of money to defray the dues. In some cases,
however, the widow has been reluctant to part with the corpse.
In what proportion of cases has this occurred?—It may have been in one case in thirty, as far as I can recollect.

§ 44. Mr. Baker, the coroner, stated to me that he has met with some cases where inquests have been
promoted in consequence of suspicions excited amongst neighbours on account of the delay of
interments; it turned out that the deaths had been natural, and that the delay had arisen from the
difficulty of procuring money to defray the funeral expenses. Mr. Bell, who for several years acted as
clerk to Mr. Stirling, the late coroner for Middlesex, even cites several dreadful cases of children
found dead in the metropolis, in which, on inquiry, it was proved that the deaths were natural, but
that the bodies had been actually abandoned in consequence of the difficulty of raising the money for
interment, and the reluctance to apply for parochial aid.

§ 45. The nature of the expenses of interments in London, and their operation on the whole practice,
are most fully developed in the examination of Mr. Wild.
Supposing the expenses of interment reduced, and the conveniences increased, do you think that there would be much or any
reluctance to early interment, on account of any general feeling of dislike on the part of the survivors to earlier removals or interments?
—No, I do not think there would be any reluctance.
In cases where the obstacles arising from the expense and the inconvenience preventing the attendance of friends do not exist, is there a
frequent reluctance expressed to early interment?—It is not frequent. Sometimes, but very seldom, the deceased may have expressed a
wish not to be hurried out of the house soon after he was dead.
Do you find that there is less delay amongst the higher and middle classes?—There is certainly much less delay amongst them; but
with them the corpses are early placed either in lead or in double coffins, and the delay is of less consequence.
Amongst the poorer classes, is not the widow often made ill during the protracted delay of the burial?—Yes, very often. They have
come to me in tears, and begged for accommodation, which I have given them. On observing to them, you seem very ill: a common
reply is, “Yes, I feel very ill. I am very much harassed, and I have no one to assist me.” I infer from such expressions that the mental
anxiety occasioned by the expense, and want of means to obtain the money, is the frequent cause of their illness. My opinion is, that
unless the undertaker gave two-thirds of them time or accommodation for payment, they would not be able to bury the dead at all.
Do you consider that funerals in general are made unnecessarily expensive?—Yes, they are, even under their present system
unnecessarily expensive. The average price of funerals amongst the working classes for adults will be about 4l. This sum generally
provides a good strong elm coffin, bearers to carry the corpse to the grave, pall and fittings for mourners. For children the average cost
is 30s., but these charges do not include ground and burial fees.
Are they so even when the funerals are provided by burial societies, and made the subject of special attention?—In benefit societies
and burial clubs there is generally a certain sum set aside for the burial, which sum is, I consider, frequently most extravagantly
expended. This arises from the secretary, or some other officer of the club being an undertaker. When a death takes place the club
money is not paid directly: it is usually paid on the club or quarterly night following. The member dying seldom leaves any money
beyond the provision in his club to bury him, consequently the widow or nominee makes application to the secretary, who tells her that
he cannot give any money to purchase mourning for herself and family until the committee meets; this may be three months after the
death; but, says the secretary, “give me the funeral, I will advance you a few pounds upon my own account;” so that the widow is
obliged to submit to any charge he may think fit to make. I do not mean to be understood that this is always the case—I am sorry to say
it is of frequent occurrence.
In general, are not the expenses of burial in the Dissenters’ burial-grounds less than those of burial in the grounds belonging to the
Established Church?—On the average one-third less.
On the occasion of burial in Dissenters’ burial-grounds, is any question ever raised as to whether the deceased was a subscribing
member of the community to which the grounds belong?—No question is ever asked.
Of corpses of the labouring classes whom you yourself have buried in the burial-grounds of Dissenters, how many will have been of
subscribing members of the community to which the grounds belong?—Not one in twenty.
Then the preference arises from the greater cheapness of the burial in those grounds?—Yes, and the greater convenience. The burial,
instead of being fixed at one particular hour, as in cases of burials in the Church, may be had within a range of three hours. This
convenience has a great influence on the choice of places of burial.
Have burials in the Dissenters’ grounds been increasing of late?—Very much: their places of burial are in general no better; they are,
indeed, in some instances worse than the grounds belonging to the parish churches, but they would, probably, have enlarged and
improved them, and, at the rate at which they have proceeded, they would soon have three-fourths of all the burials;—chiefly on
account of the increased cheapness and accommodation attendant on their burials.
Are the ordinary expenses and inconveniences of funerals generally severely oppressive to persons of the middle classes?—Very
generally: it often occurs that a poor widow is crippled in her means through life by the expense of a funeral. An ordinary funeral,
burial fees and all, will cost from 50l. to 70l., which will deprive her of 5l. a year from ten to fourteen years, besides the interest.
Without any deductions of the solemnity, for how much less might such a funeral be performed?—For about 50 per cent. less. Indeed, I
have proved that practically for some time past.
Is not much of the accompaniments of funerals which, as at present conducted, are deemed part of the solemnity, questionable in its
effect as well as appropriateness? Is it not the effect of custom, rather than any choice or wish of the parties?—Merely customary: the
term used in giving orders is, “provide what is customary.”
Are you aware that the array of funerals, commonly made by undertakers, is strictly the heraldic array of a baronial funeral, the two
men who stand at the doors being supposed to be the two porters of the castle, with their staves, in black; the man who heads the
procession, wearing a scarf, being a representative of a herald-at-arms; the man who carries a plume of feathers on his head being an
esquire, who bears the shield and casque, with its plume of feathers; the pall-bearers, with batons, being representatives of knights-
companions-at-arms; the men walking with wands being supposed to represent gentlemen-ushers, with their wands:—are you aware
that this is said to be the origin and type of the common array usually provided by those who undertake to perform funerals?—No; I
am not aware of it.
It may be presumed that those who order funerals are equally unaware of the incongruity for which such expense is incurred?—
Undoubtedly they are.

What is the cost of porters, the men who bear staves covered with black?—The cost of the mutes varies from 18s. to 30s. In some cases
of respectable persons, where silk scarfs or fittings, including hat-bands and gloves, are used, 5l. 5s. is charged to families for those
fittings. To parties in moderate circumstances, two guineas would be charged for the fittings and the pay.
What is the charge for the person who walks with a scarf?—The usual charge to a respectable family would be a guinea, besides
fittings, scarfs, gloves, and hat-bands, which would altogether amount to about two guineas and a half for this man.
What is the charge for the plume of feathers borne on the head before the hearse?—The charge for the feathers would be about two
guineas; then there is the man’s gloves, scarf, and fittings, which make it about three guineas and a-half.
What is the charge per man bearing batons?—The charge, including silk fittings, will be about 22s. each man.
What is the charge for each man bearing a wand?—About the same price.
How many men of this description would be required for what is deemed a respectable funeral?—About twenty men; for if the coffin
be a leaden one it would require about eight men to bear it.
What other charges are there of the same kind?—There are velvets attached to the hearse, including feathers, and feathers to the horses,
which makes from ten to fifteen guineas more.
What is charged for the pall?—From one to four guineas would be charged for the use of the pall.
What is it usual to give to the clergyman?—A silk scarf of three yards and a half, a silk hatband, and black kid gloves.
What may be the expense of this?—About two guineas to the parties.
Is anything usually given to the clerk?—Yes, the same as to the minister.
Is anything given to the sexton?—Yes, they do in respectable families, or rather the undertaker does so, for his own gain. The cost of
the whole,—minister, sexton, and undertaker, will be about seven guineas to a respectable family, but it is usual to compound the
matter by giving them money; I generally give the minister 18s., and the clerk 15s., and the sexton, perhaps, 15s.
Is such an array as that described adopted in the case of the funerals of tradesmen as well as of other classes?—They have frequently
the same number of men.
A clergyman’s widow, who has solicited aid for her sons, whom she has found it difficult to educate, states that the expenses of her
husband’s funeral were upwards of 110l. On being asked how she could incur such an expense, she states that she considered it her
duty to have a respectable funeral, and ordered the undertaker to provide what was respectable; that she knew not what she ordered in
that condition, and merely gave general orders. Now is not this a frequent case, and is not the undertaker’s usual interpretation of
respectability that which is expensive, the parties knowing little about it?—Yes, that is frequently so.
In the case of funerals of persons of moderate respectability costing, say about 60l., how many of such men as those described would
there be attending it?—About fourteen.
For a curate, or person of that condition, would there be that number and array?—Yes.
What would be the expense of the funeral of a person of the condition of an attorney?—From 60l. to 100l.; but this would not include
the expense of tomb or monument, or burial-fees.
If a person of such a condition were buried, would it be of about twenty attendants, with such an array as that described?—Yes; for
such a person the cost would be about 100 guineas, exclusive of the burial-fees.
There would then be the same number of attendants as those mentioned, about twenty men?—Yes, about twenty men.
The funeral being ordered of an upholsterer, is it not usually provided by an undertaker?—Yes.
In how many cases of funerals will there be “the second profit?”—In nearly two-thirds of the cases of burial in the upper classes.
Is the same observation applicable to the funerals amongst the middle classes?—Yes; I think in nearly the same proportion.
How much of the profit will be the profit of the upholsterer?—Nearly half: if the funeral costs 50l. to the upholsterer from the
undertaker, it will cost about 100l. from the undertaker to the family.
Is there much credit given in the business to respectable families?—Not much; for as soon as letters of administration are taken out the
funeral expenses are discharged.
The average expense of the funeral of an adult of the labouring class being about 4l., exclusive of the burial fees, and that of a child
about 30s., what may be stated to be the ordinary expense of the funeral of a tradesman of the lowest class, as ordinarily conducted?—
Of the very lowest class—of a class in condition not much beyond that of a mechanic, the funeral expenses might be from 10l. to 12l.
What would be the ordinary expense for the funeral of a child of a person of this class?—The ordinary expense would be about 5l.
What would be the ordinary expense of the funeral of a tradesman of a better class?—From 70l. to 100l.
What do you consider would be a low average for the ordinary expense of the whole class of tradesmen’s funerals?—About 50l.
would, I consider, be a low average for the whole class.
What may be considered the average of ordinary expenses of the funerals of children of the class dying below 10 years of age?—About
14l.
Might 100l. be taken as the average expense of the funeral of a person of the condition of a gentleman?—No; they range from 200l. to
1,000l. I think that 150l. would be a low average.
What may be considered the ordinary expense of the funeral of a child of this class?—About 30l. would be the average.

What may be the ordinary expense of the funerals of persons of rank or title?—The expense varies from 500l. to 1500l. A large part of
this expense has, however, commonly been for the removal of the remains from town to the family vault by a long cavalcade moving
by very slow stages; but the conveyance by railway makes as much as 500l. difference in the expense of a funeral of this class.
What may be the average expense of the funeral of a child of this class?—About 50l.
Do you believe it to be practicable, by proper regulations, greatly to reduce the existing charges of interments?—Yes; a very great
reduction indeed may be made, at least 50 per cent.
May it be confidently stated that under such reductions, whatever of respectability in exterior is now attached to the trappings, or to the
mode of the ceremony, might be preserved?—Oh, yes; I should say it might, and that they could scarcely fail to be increased.

§ 46. Mr. Dix, an undertaker, who inters from 800 to 1000 persons annually, of whom about 300 are
of the class of independent labourers, being questioned on this topic, stated as follows:—
The lowest average expense of a poor man’s burial, from extensive evidence, is stated to be about 5l.; but that is where it is done, as it
usually is, second or third hand. I frequently perform funerals three deep: that is, I do it for one person, who does it for another who
does it for the relatives of the deceased, he being the first person applied to.
The people then generally apply to the nearest person?—Yes, they do. Everybody calls himself an undertaker. The numerous men
employed as bearers become undertakers, although they have never done anything until they have got the job. I have known one of
these men get a new suit of clothes out of the funeral of one decent mechanic.

§ 47. The conclusions in respect to the unnecessary expense of funerals appear to be applicable, with
little variation, to the most populous provincial towns. In the rural districts the expense of funerals of
the class of gentry appears to be even more expensive. In most of the provincial towns the expense of
the funerals of the more respectable class of tradesmen does not appear to be much less than in
London. In Scotland, the expenses of the funerals of persons of the middle classes appear, from a
communication from Mr. Chambers, to vary from 12l. to 25l. In Glasgow the expenses of funerals of
persons of the middle class appear to vary from 12l. to 50l.
§ 48. To persons of the condition of the widows of officers in the army or navy, or of the legal
profession, or of persons of the rank of gentry who have but limited incomes, the expenses of the
funerals often subject them to severe privations during the remainder of their lives. The widow is
frequently compelled to beg pecuniary assistance for the education of her children, which the
superfluous expenses of the funerals of the adult members of the family would have supplied; and
these expenses are incurred often in utter disregard of express requests of the dying, that the funerals
should be plain, and divested of unnecessary expense. The expenses are often incurred equally
against the wishes of the survivors. The cause of this appears to be that the funeral arrangements, and
the determination of what is proper, and what customs shall be maintained, fall, as shown by the
evidence, to those who have a direct interest,—and when the nature of their separate establishments
are considered, are commonly acting under a strong necessity,—in maintaining a system of profuse
expenditure. The circumstances of the death do not admit of any effective competition or any
precedent examination of the charges of different undertakers, or any comparison and consideration
of their supplies; there is no time to change them for others that are less expensive, and more in
conformity to the taste and circumstances of the parties. An executor who had ordered a coffin and
service of the “most simple description,” conformably to the intentions of the deceased, expecting the
coffin to cost not more than five pounds, having, under peculiar circumstances, occasion to call for
the bill previously to the interment, found, to his surprise, that instead of five the charge for the coffin
amounted to nearly twenty pounds. “What,” he says, “could be done? we could not turn the body out
of the coffin: I would have paid double rather than have disturbed the peace of the house on that
solemn occasion, by a dispute, or by an objection either to that charge, or to the disgusting frippery
with which those who attended the dead were covered against their tastes.” The survivors, however,
are seldom in a state to perform any office of every-day life; and they are at the mercy of the first
comer. The supplies of the funeral goods and services, are, therefore, a multiform monopoly, not
apparently on the parts of the chief undertakers, or original and real preparers of the funeral materials
and services, but of second or third parties living in the immediate neighbourhood,—persons who
assume the business of an undertaker, and who obtain the first orders. The reason why the charges are

seldom or ever disputed after interment is that, however severe or extortionate they may be, it would
be more severe for the widow, or survivor, or friends, to scrutinise the items, or resist the payment of
the total amount. Nor can it be expected of any individual to break through such customs, however
generally they may be disliked. All isolated efforts to simplify the supplies and use of the goods and
materiel,—all objections to the demands for them are exposed to the calumny that proper respect to
the deceased is begrudged. A late right reverend bishop, who thought it a moral duty to resist an
extortionate charge for such service, and he did so even in a court of law,—the well-intended, but
isolated effort, was fruitless. Another reason for the impunity of the extortion is, that much of the
funeral expenses are from trust-funds of the higher and middle classes, who influence the practice of
the lower classes; and the trustees have but weak motives and means to defend them. In so far as the
funeral expenses are concerned, such funds, as will appear in respect to the funds raised for burial
amongst the labouring classes, are an exposed prey.
§ 49. If there be any sort of service, which principles of civic polity, and motives of ordinary
benevolence and charity, require to be placed under public regulation, for the protection of the private
individual who is helpless, it is surely this, at the time of extreme misery and helplessness of the
means of decent interment. On inspecting the condition of the whole class of persons engaged in the
performance of the service of undertakers, it may be confidently stated that the class who only act as
agents, could not suffer, and must gain morally and socially, and ultimately pecuniarily by a change
that would be beneficial to the public. No class can be otherwise than benefited by change, from an
occupation in which they are kept waiting and dependent on profits which fall to them at wide and
irregular intervals. Notwithstanding the immensely disproportionate profits of these persons in some
cases, and the immense aggregate expenditure to the public, there appear to be very few wealthy
undertakers. They are described by one of them, “as being some few of them very respectable, but
the great majority as men mostly in a small grubbing way of business.” In this trade we have now the
means of knowing to an unit, from the mortuary registration, the amount of service required; and we
have some means of obtaining a proximate estimate of the number of persons engaged in its
performance.
§ 50. The number of deaths per diem in the metropolis (inclusive of the death of those who die in the
workhouses, whose interment being provided for by the parish and union officers, are not cases for
every-day competition) is on an average of three years 114. The number of persons whose sole
business is that of undertakers, whose names are enumerated in the Post-office Directory for the year
1843 for the metropolis is 275. Besides these there are 258 “undertakers and carpenters,” 34
“undertakers and upholsterers,” 56 “undertakers and cabinet-makers,” 51 “undertakers and builders,”
25 “undertakers and appraisers,” 19 “undertakers and auctioneers,” 7 “undertakers and house-
agents,” 3 “undertakers and fancy cabinet-makers,” 2 “undertakers and packing-case makers;”
making in all no less than 730 persons for the 114 deaths, or between six and seven undertakers
waiting for the chance of every private funeral. But these are masters who, whether they act as agents
or principals, have shops and establishments, and the list does not include the whole of them, as the
Directory is not understood to include all the masters residing in bye-streets and places. Some have
two and three funerals per diem, and some eight or ten; and it is apparent, even under the existing
imperfect arrangements, the undertaker’s service might be better performed by forty or fifty than by
the 275 principals, who have no other occupation, and whose establishments and expenses, as well as
the cost of their own maintenance, must, if the business be equally distributed, be charged on little
more than two funerals a-week. If the business be not equally distributed, and a minority have (as
will have been perceived) a much larger share of the funerals than the rest, the majority will be the
more severely driven, as they are in fact, to charge their expenses on a much smaller number of
funerals. When the additional number of tradesmen of mixed occupations are brought as waiters for
the chances of employment, the number of burials distributed amongst them all is reduced to 10

funerals to every master in 11 weeks, or less than one a-week each. It is stated, that much larger
numbers than are named in the Directory retain the insignia of undertakers in their shop-windows, for
the sake of the profits of one or two funerals a-year. They merely transmit the orders to the furnishing
undertaker, who supplies materials and men at a comparatively low rate; and it is stated that the real
service is rendered by about sixty tradesmen of this class, who compete with each other in furnishing
the supplies to a multitude of inferior tradesmen, probably exceeding 1000, amongst whom the
excessive profits arising from extortionate charges are thus irregularly distributed. The profits of
these agents or second parties are often, however, divided with others by the system (which pursues
the head of the family to the last) of corrupting servants for their “good word” or influence by bribes
or allowances, against which the only effectual defence is care to secure purchases at prices so low as
to preclude them. Physicians of great eminence have expressed their horror at the facts of which they
have been informed, of large sums of money having been promised and given to head servants to
secure to the particular tradesman the performance of the funeral. The undertakers who were
questioned on the subject admitted explicitly that such is “an occasional but not an universal
practice,” and that such sums as 10l., 20l., and even 50l., have been known to have been given for
such orders, according to the scale of expense and profit of the funeral. One undertaker stated that
whenever a medical man took the trouble to bring him an order for a funeral, he always, as a matter
of course, paid him a fee; and he believed it was a common practice. It was, however, only the
inferior practitioners who brought these orders. Physicians usually carefully abstain from giving any
recommendations of tradesmen in such cases.
§ 51. Such being the state of the service as respects the multitude of principals; the state of the
service as respects the inferior dependents is, that as at present conducted it is, as far as it goes,
demoralizing. The journeymen, who form the superfluous retinue of attendants for whom so much
expense is incurred, gain very little by their extravagant pay. “They are,” says one master undertaker,
“kept long waiting, and are taken away to a distance from their homes, and are put to great expense
in drinking at public-houses, and acquiring very bad habits.” The accounts given by undertakers
themselves of the conduct of the men composing the hired retinue of funerals, as at present
conducted, are corroborative of the following instance given by a gentleman who was a witness of
the scene described:—
“If the relatives of one who has been honoured with what is called a respectable funeral could witness the scenes which commonly
ensue, even at the very place where the last ceremony has been performed, they would be scandalized at the mockery of solemnity
which has preceded the disgusting indecency exhibited at the instant when the mourners are removed. An empty hearse, returning at a
quick pace from a funeral, with half a dozen red-faced fellows sitting with their legs across the pegs which held the feathers, is a
common exhibition. But let the relatives see what has preceded the ride home of the undertaker’s men. In the spring of 1842, two
friends walked into a village inn about twelve miles from London, for the purpose of dining. One had recently sustained a severe
domestic calamity. The inn is generally distinguished for its neatness and quiet. All now seemed confusion. The travellers were shown
up-stairs to a comfortable room. But the shouts, the laughing, the rapping the tables, the ringing the bells, in an adjoining room were
beyond endurance; and when the landlady appeared with her bill of fare, she apologized for what was so different from the ordinary
habit of her guests. “Is it a club feast?” “Oh, no, gentlemen; they are the undertaker’s men—blackguards I should say. They have been
burying poor Lord——; he was much beloved here. Shame on them. But they will soon go back to town, for they are nearly drunk.”
The travellers left the house till it was cleared of these harpies.”

§ 52. Men of the class who are every day to be seen stopping in parties at public houses on their
return from the places of burial, are intrusted without care or selection to perform what may be
shown to be important sanitary and civil ministrations of enshrouding and preparing the body for
burial. The impressions created by the bearing of these coarse, unknown, unrespected, irresponsible
hands, add to the revolting popular associations with death.
The extent of the public interests affected by so much of the practice of interment, as the undertaker’s
service embraces, will be better appreciated in a subsequent stage of this report, and after the
consideration of the facts unfolded in the course of an examination of the influence of the expenses
of funerals specifically on the states of mind, social habits and economy of the labouring classes in
towns of England.

Specific Effects of the Expenses of Funerals, and Associations to defray them amongst
the Labouring Classes.

§ 53. The desire to secure respectful interment of themselves and their relations is, perhaps, the
strongest and most widely-diffused feeling amongst the labouring classes of the population.
Subscriptions may be obtained from large classes of them for their burial when it can be obtained
neither for their own relief in sickness, nor for the education of their children, nor for any other
object. The amount of the twenty-four millions of deposits in the savings’ banks of the United
Kingdom is 29l. each depositor. Judging from particular investigations, it would appear that upwards
of 5l. of each deposit may be considered a sum devoted to defray the expenses of burial, and about as
much more to provide mourning and other expenses. From six to eight millions of savings may be
considered as devoted to these objects.
§ 54. The following is an answer to some inquiries on the subject from the secretary of the St.
Martin’s Lane Provident Institution, an institution in which the deposits amount to 1,168,850l., and
the depositors, amounting to upwards of 32,000, comprehend some of the most frugal and
respectable of the labouring classes:—
As you wished me to mention any facts within my knowledge, arising out of this institution and its concerns, bearing upon the question
of sepulture, I would first state, that the average annual number of deaths occurring amongst our depositors (now about 32,000 in
number) in the course of the last nine years, has been 231; these, taking the last of such years for an example, are divisible under the
classes shown by the subjoined statement. By reference to this statement it will be seen how large a class of our depositors consists of
individuals of the poorer or labouring population; and amongst that class, in regard to the question of sepulture, from the opportunity
afforded me of inspecting the charges made for funerals, I should say that the expenses incurred for the funeral and interment alone are
seldom so little as 4l., generally amount to 5l. and upwards, and not unfrequently exceed 6l.
It is, I may observe, no uncommon practice for parties to leave deposits in their names, about the amount I have stated, for the very
purpose of providing for the expenses of their interment, so as to ensure for themselves, under any change of circumstances, a decent
burial; this feeling has prevailed so strongly in instances within my own knowledge, that, upon the happening of the death, the party
has been found to have died at last an inmate of a poor house, and destitute of every kind of property, save only the little fund
appropriated for the purpose I have stated. This feeling is not confined solely to the poorest class of our depositors: an instance lately
occurred in which a depositor to the amount of 32l., made a special request that 20l. of this money might, in the event of her death, be
paid only to her undertaker on production of his account and of her burial certificate, and the balance to be paid to her relatives. The
depositor died in the following year, and her wishes were accordingly carried into effect, with the concurrence of a relative, to whom it
appeared she had communicated the arrangement she had thus made in regard to her money deposited with this institution.

Total Effects of such deceased Depositions, certified as under the
Total Number of
following Amounts, viz:—
Deaths in the Year
Amount to
ending 31st of
£50 £100 £200 £300 £400 £450 £600 £800 £1000 and
March, 1842.
upwards.
232 133 32 23 10 1 5 6 6 16
Occurrences such as those above alluded to are not unfrequent. Those who, as paupers, have led a
life of dissipation, and have saved nothing for other objects, have yet reserved and concealed a small
hoard to provide interment in a mode agreeable to their feelings. Besides the immense amount of
money reserved for this purpose in the savings’ banks, it forms the great object of the benefit clubs:
in most large towns there are burial clubs instituted for no other purpose. In the town of Preston
nearly 30,000 persons, men, women, and children, are associated in six large societies for the
purpose of burial; the chief of these clubs comprehends 15,164 members, and has since its
commencement expended upwards of 1,000l. per annum, raised in weekly contributions, from a
halfpenny and a penny to three-halfpence and two-pence per week. A benevolent officer, in giving an
account of this club, expresses a hope that it may be practicable, in connexion with it, to get up some
provision for the living, in the shape of medical attendance for the sick, an object which appears to

have been entirely lost sight of in these societies. Besides the burial societies, of which the funds are
deposited in the savings’ banks, there are others in which the funds are placed out in the hands of
private persons, traders, who pay interest upon them.
§ 55. As an example of the allowances in the provincial clubs, it may be mentioned, that on an
examination of the rules of 90 friendly societies at present existing in the borough and town of
Walsall, comprising upwards of 5000 members, it appeared that the allowances insured for funerals
were as follows:—that
For the Funeral of the Husband. For the Funeral of the Wife.
22 societies pay £10 36 societies pay £3
12 8 16 5
8 7 14 4
3 16 9 8
3 6
3 7
The burial allowances in the others were not specified.
§ 56. It must be premised, that it appears to be a serious error to regard the arrangements of all of this
class of clubs as the arrangements of the poor people themselves; the arrangements are evidence only
of the intensity of their feelings on the subject of interment, of their ignorance and their extensive
need of information and trustworthy guidance.
There are, for example, in Westminster, Marylebone, Finsbury, the City, and the Tower Hamlets,
districts of the metropolis, about 200 of such societies, composed chiefly of the labouring classes,
comprising from 100 to 800 members each, possessing aggregate amounts of deposits of from 90l. to
1000l. each; raised in contributions of from three-halfpence to two-pence per week, and paying on
the death of a member from 5l. to 10l. Besides these, there are clubs of a higher description, mostly
amongst the smallest class of tradesmen, where the sums insured extend to sums as high as 200l.,
payable at the member’s death, and are understood to be chiefly devoted to the payment of the
funeral expenses. The burial clubs for the labouring classes are generally got up by an undertaker and
by the publican at whose house the club is held. The state of feeling addressed in the formation of
these societies is denoted by the terms of the placards issued at the joint expense of the publican or of
the undertaker, or rather of some mechanic or person of another trade, who gets the business done by
an undertaker. These placards are frequently headed “In the midst of life we are in death;” and the
addresses are in such terms as the following, which is taken from “The United Brothers’ and Sisters’
Burial Society,” held at the Old Duke William public house, Ratcliffe Highway:—
“In contemplating the many vicissitudes and changes incident to all persons of every station in life, and the many anxieties that crowd
about our advancing years, more particularly the labouring class, through the uncertainty of employment, by long illness, or for want of
friends reduced to extreme distress, and after a long and miserable life, and in expectation of that awful change which we must one
time or other undergo, without ever providing for a decent interment, it will be some alleviation to our sufferings to remember that we
bring no pecuniary burthen on our commiserating friends and relations, that at least we have divested our suffering families of that
anxiety respecting our mortal remains which would add another pang to their already lacerated hearts: it too frequently occurs to the
sorrow of many a feeling heart, who mourns over the deplorable loss of a beloved husband, wife, or friend; to obtain this desirable
object, this society offers to the public, on easy terms, advantages worthy the consideration of persons in all stations of life.”

The terms of insurance are—
“That to defray the necessary expenses of printing books, bills, &c., that members of the first class, if under the age of 55 years, shall
pay 1s. entrance, and contribute 1s. per month to the box and 2d. per quarter to the secretary; and members of the second class, under
the age of 55 years, shall pay 6d. entrance, and 6d. per month to the box, and 2d. per quarter to the secretary; and every person above
the age of 55 years, and members of the first class, to pay 2s. entrance, and contribute 1s. 6d. per month to the box, and 2d. per quarter
to the secretary; and every member of the second class to pay 1s. entrance, and contribute 1s. per month to the box, and 2d. per quarter
to the secretary. No more than 20 members will be admitted above the age of 60 years. They to be free in 12 months; nor shall any
article that may be hereafter made exclude them.”

The benefits insured are to be—
“That at the death of a free member, immediate notice shall be given to T. Scotcher, undertaker, who shall perform the funeral, and he
shall inform one of the committee, and the first meeting night after the burial, his or her relation, next of kin, or nominee, on producing
satisfactory evidence, will be entitled (if a member of the first class) to the sum of 10l.; if a member of the second class, and above
seven years, to 5l.; if under the age of seven years, to 3l.; but when the stock of this society amounts to 150l. in the public funds, if a
member in the first class admitted ten years, 12l. will be allowed; and if a member admitted ten years in the second class, 6l. will be
allowed, deducting all arrears on the books; and for the credit of the society, the committee shall see the undertaker’s bill discharged.”

The publican is secured by a provision that the box shall not be removed to any other public house;
and the office of “J. Scotcher, undertaker and founder of the Society,” is made permanent. An
arbitrary rule, in such terms as the following, is so couched (the officers being judges) as to suppress
complaint. This rule is common to other societies:—
That if any member charge the committee, or any member thereof, or trustees, or secretary, with any improper practice in the
management of the society, and cannot make it appear just, he or she shall be fined 5s., or be excluded.

It is to be observed that the high and exclusive spirit of some of the rules would seem to show how
little the body of the members are consulted in the preparation of them. Thus, in the “Ancient
Friendly Society,” it is provided that “if any man sits down to drink with the stewards to pay
sixpence, whether a member or not.” It is provided in the rules of the “Loyal United Friends,” that “if
any person sit down to drink with the committee he is to pay sixpence;” and it is the same with a
large proportion of the others.
In what is called an “improved burial society,” of the date of 1841, called the East London Burial
Society, held at the Swan public house, Bethnal Green, the terms are:—
That the members of this society shall pay their contributions weekly or monthly, and shall pay 1d. per quarter extra, to defray other
expenses attending the society. Every member shall pay 1d. per week for the first class, from two to fifty-five years; the second class,
from ten to fifty-five years, 2d. per week; the third class, from ten to fifty-five years, shall pay 3d. per week.

Richard Crafer appears to be the president, and William Duggan secretary; then Richard Crafer
afterwards appears as the undertaker. With respect to him the following is inserted as a fundamental
rule of the society:—
That Richard Crafer, being the founder of this Society, shall be the undertaker, and no future articles shall remove him, so long as he
gives general satisfaction to the society, and in case of his death, his eldest son shall claim the same for the benefit of the widow, and at
her decease the same shall devolve on the eldest son living.
Mr. William Duggan is appointed secretary, and for his attendance and services he shall be allowed the sum of 1d. per quarter, for as
many members as there are on the society’s books: he will assist the society with his best advice, and register good and healthy
members, and post the books. He shall be allowed 3d. each for all notices he may deliver on the society’s business, but not obliged to
go more than two miles from the club-house.

This is preceded by the usual rule, that—
Any member coming to the society’s meeting-house in liquor, so as to disturb the proceedings, shall be fined 1s., and ordered to leave
the room; and should any member charge the committee, secretary, president, trustees, or landlord with any unjust proceedings relative
to the society, and cannot substantiate the same, he or she shall pay a fine not exceeding 10s. to the stock, or be excluded.

In the society of “United Brewers and Draymen,” of which J. Guy is secretary and undertaker, one of
the fundamental rules is, that—
At the funeral of a member, the secretary shall provide fittings for porters and six pall bearers, for which he shall be allowed 1l.,
whether they are used or not, provided such member dies and is interred within three miles of any meeting-house.

The particulars of the provision commonly held out, is stated in the following rule of the General
Burial Society:—
That the landlord for the time being shall be treasurer, and when there is sufficient cash, above what is necessary to supply the
exigencies of the society, the same shall be vested in the public funds, in the names of the trustees appointed by the committee. The
landlord, as treasurer, &c., shall give proper security for the due performance of his offices.

An evil entailed beyond the excessive amount of subscriptions paid for an object that is but poorly
obtained, is the impulse given by it to the vice of drinking; to the destruction of real friendly

sympathy amongst the working classes, by making the announcement of the death to be received as
the demoralizing announcement of a coming carousal. Such expenses can only be incurred in the
absence of proper feeling, in the face of destitute orphan children. The secretary of one of the better
ordered burial clubs, a working man, thus speaks of the regulations which tend to drinking. He was
asked—
What number of members have you?—Two hundred, who pay sixpence per month.
What is the publican’s advantage out of this?—The allowance is sixpence spending-money from each committee-man. I do not like
this, and have wanted to change the place of meeting to a coffee-house, for the members frequently add a shilling to the sixpence
spending-money, and are then not in a condition to begin business; but I find it is part of the rules of this, as well as of the other
societies, that they shall be held at public houses.
On the occasion of the funeral is there no drinking?—Yes, there is; that is another great evil, and I wish there was a way of remedying
it. The family provide themselves with drink, and the friends coming also drink. I have known this to be to such excess, that the
undertaker’s men, who always take whatever drink is given them, are frequently unfit to perform their duty, and have reeled in carrying
the coffin. At these times it is very distressing. The men who stand as mutes at the door, as they stand out in the cold, are supposed to
require most drink, and receive it most liberally. I have seen these men reel about the road, and after the burial we have been obliged to
put these mutes and their staves into the interior of the hearse and drive them home, as they were incapable of walking. After the return
from the funeral, the mourners commonly have drink again at the house. This drinking at the funeral is a very great evil.

Besides the regulations of meeting which lead to expenditure for drinking, besides express
regulations for allowances of drink, the “funeral allowances” are sometimes read by the publican to
mean “expenditure” with him. The officers of a club in Liverpool having been summoned before Mr.
Rushton, the magistrate, for the non-payment of a sum allowed by the rules, for funeral expenses, the
steward of the club attended, and in answer to the claim, stated that the complainant had refused to
take 4s. worth of whiskey at the house where the club meetings were held, a quantity which had been
used and allowed in that and other clubs, as forming part of the “funeral expenses.” Notwithstanding
the usage, the magistrate refused to sanction the steward’s reading of the term; and decided that the
whole of the payment of expenses must be in money and not in whiskey.
It is difficult to ascertain the amount spent in drink, but it appears from the amount cited of the
expenditure in the 90 societies at Walsall, that the required allowance was 2d. per month, in others
3d., and the aggregate sum spent in those clubs (if it were only limited to the rule), must have
amounted to 981l. 13s. 4d.; but besides these prescribed portions of drink, there are prescribed annual
feasts, at from 2s. 3d. to 3s. 6d. per member, amounting to an annual sum of 257l. 10s., making a
total of 1239l. 3s. 4d. per annum, expended in such expenses. Besides these, there are decoration
expenses, in which one society alone expended between 70l. and 80l. Seventeen of the societies had
lost 1500l., and one of them 600l., through various causes (such as the defalcations of secretaries),
either directly or indirectly, attributable to an inefficient system of management. If the one year’s
expenditure on drink, feast, and decoration money, were placed out in the savings’ bank, at interest,
together with the amount of losses from mismanagement, the amount due to the contributors, to this
small group of societies, would, at the end of 10 years, have amounted to the sum of 5328l. 19s. 3d.
§ 57. To prevent frauds, some of the rules provide that the secretary shall see the body. For this
service, in the society called the “Frugal Society,” where 7l. is allowed for the interment, a fee of 2s.
6d. is allowed to him, and 4s. if he have to go from two to five miles for the purpose. It is to be
observed, that this is the usual fee provided by such societies for any inspection of the body.
The publican is generally made the treasurer, and usually the money is placed by him into the hands
of his brewer, by whom from four to five per cent. interest is paid for its use as capital. In other
instances it forms a capital for the publican himself; in some instances it is lent to other tradesmen.
Though failures of societies have occurred from the failure of those to whom their funds have been
lent, they do not appear to have been so frequent as the failures from the erroneous bases in respect to
insurance on which they are generally founded.

§ 58. Believing that if the sums insured for burial in most of the burial clubs were received in money,
the premiums paid by the members of these clubs are excessive, as compared with the premiums paid
in the higher classes of insurance offices, I have submitted a number of their regulations, which may
be considered specimens of the common terms of assurance, to Mr. Jenkin Jones, the actuary of the
National Mercantile Life Assurance Society. His conclusions, which are confirmed by Mr. Griffith
Davies, the actuary of the Guardian Office, show that for a risk, for which, if the Northampton tables
were taken as the basis of the assurance, that in the large society at Preston, where an annual
premium of 3s. 9d. would be taken for one risk by an assurance office, 7s. 10d. is taken from the
contributors by the club. The General Friendly Society, for a risk for which 3s. 9d. would suffice on
the Northampton table, receives 11s. 5d. Instead of an average premium of 5s. 2d., the “Friendly
Society” takes 11s. 1d. If we add 25 per cent., to the premium that would be charged according to the
Northampton rate (which is supposed to represent a higher mortality than the average) for expenses
of management, including books, stationery, &c., and to cover the loss of interest occasioned by
weekly or monthly contributions, instead of annual premiums payable at the beginning of each year,
in nearly all these clubs the poor man pays an excess for burial of, at least, one-third,—besides the
expense of liquor more than he would otherwise drink, which he is induced to take at the time of his
multiplied attendances to pay his weekly subscriptions. There are various causes (which it would
require a long report to specify) for the failure of these clubs, and for the loss of the savings devoted
to their objects. The chief manager, the undertaker, has commonly an immediate interest in the
admission of bad lives, which bring him quick funerals. The younger members often begin to
perceive that they are subjected to unduly heavy charges, and when they are in the majority, they
break up the society and divide the stock among them equally, and the older members who have
contributed from the commencement are mercilessly deprived of the consolation for which they have
during a great part of their lives made the most constant sacrifices. Independently of the excessive
rates charged by these societies, the principle upon which the charges are made is a very unjust one,
viz.—that of charging the same rate to each member, without reference to age.
§ 59. It will be seen from the following table that the “Friendly” Society’s premium (11s. 1d.) is
rather more than double the average of the Northampton (5s. 2d.), and the premium by the
Northampton rates for ages 15 and 45 are 3s. 10d., and 7s. 9d.; the premiums of the “Friendly”
Society, therefore, according to their own average, ought not to be more for these ages than about
twice these amounts, or for age 15, 7s. 8d.; age 45, 15s. 6d.; but members between these ages pay
alike (11s. 1d.), the younger member therefore pays 3s. 5d. more than he ought, and the older
member 4s. 5d. less than he ought.
Average Premium
“Friendly” Society Premium according to
Age. according to the
Premium. the Northampton Rate.
Northampton Rate.
s. d. s. d. s. d.
7–45 11 1 5 2
15 3 10
45 7 9
And by the Northampton rate (upon the principle adopted by the society), the younger member
would have to pay 1s. 4d. more and the elder member 2s. 7d. less than he ought. As an
exemplification of the instability of such societies, Mr. Tidd Pratt mentioned to me that at a recent
election of a poor man to a vacancy in the Metropolitan Benefit Societies’ Asylum, a condition of
which is that the candidate must be above sixty years of age, and have been a member of a benefit
society more than ten years, there were 32 candidates, from whose documents it appeared that the
societies of no less than 14 out of the 32 had been dissolved, and that some of them had belonged to

two societies, and that both had failed them. Such societies are nevertheless constantly renewed on
the old and unsafe foundations; and so intense is the prevalent feeling on the subject of respectful
interment, that to secure it, a large proportion of the working population pay the same extravagant
premiums to several of these clubs, in the hope that one, at least, may at the last avail them. On the
death of a mechanic, the first business of an experienced undertaker is to ascertain of how many
societies the deceased was a member, and to arrange the funeral accordingly. I am informed that it is
not unfrequent that such sums as fifteen, twenty, thirty, and even forty pounds’ expenses are incurred
for a mechanic’s funeral under these circumstances. When two or three of the undertakers of different
clubs meet on the same search, and when they cannot agree to “settle” between them their shares in
the performance of the funerals, very complex questions arise, which, it is stated, the magistrates
have great difficulty in settling.
§ 60. The exercise, on the parts of the lowest classes, of the feeling, in itself so laudable and
apparently susceptible of great moral good, under proper guidance, has, in those districts where the
burial societies are conspicuous and numerous, led to dreadful incidental consequences, displaying,
amongst other things, the dangers of disturbing natural responsibilities, and allowing interests to be
placed in operation against moral duties.

§ 61. The insecurity of the burial societies has, under the anxiety of feeling of the working classes, lest they might
fail of their object from the failure of the club, led to multiplied insurances for adults, thence for families, and for
children; and thence has arisen high gains on the death of each child,—in other words, a bounty on neglect and
infanticide. Those who are aware of the moral condition of a large proportion of the population, will expect that
such an interest would, sooner or later, have its operation on some depraved minds to be found in every class.
§ 62. Mr. Robert Hawksworth, the Visitor to the Manchester and Salford District Provident Society, recently stated
to me,—“Here, the mode of conducting the funerals—the habits of drinking at the time of assemblage at the house,
before the corpse is removed, renewed on the return from the funeral, when they drink to excess, the long retention
of the body in the one room, are all exceedingly demoralizing. The occasion of a funeral is commonly looked to,
amongst the lowest grade, as the occasion of ‘a stir;’ the occasion of the drinking is viewed at the least with
complacency.” A minister in the neighbourhood of Manchester expressed his sorrow on observing a great want of
natural feeling, and great apathy at the funerals. The sight of a free flow of tears was a refreshment which he
seldom received. He was, moreover, often shocked by a common phrase amongst women of the lowest class
—“Aye, aye, that child will not live; it is in the burial club.”
The actual cost of the funeral of a child varies from 1l. to 30s. The allowances from the clubs in that town on the
occurrence of the death of a child are usually 3l., and extend to 4l. and 5l. But insurances for such payments on the
deaths of children are made in four or five of these burial societies; and an officer mentioned to me an instance
where one man had insured such payments in no less than nineteen different burial-clubs in Manchester. Officers
of these societies, relieving officers, and others whose administrative duties put them in communication with the
lowest classes in those districts, express their moral conviction of the operation of such bounties to produce
instances of the visible neglect of children, of which they are witnesses. They often say—“You are not treating that
child properly; it will not live; is it in the club?” and the answer corresponds with the impression produced by the
sight. Mr. Gardiner, the clerk to the Manchester Union, in the course of his exercise of the important functions of
registering the causes of death, deemed the cause assigned by a labouring man for the death of a child
unsatisfactory, and on staying to inquire found that popular rumour assigned the death to wilful starvation:—
The child (according to a statement of the case) had been entered in at least ten burial clubs; and its parents had six other children, who only lived from
nine to eighteen months respectively. They had received 20l. from several burial clubs for one of these children, and they expected to receive at least us
much on account of this child. An inquest was held at Mr. Gardiner’s insistence when several persons, who had known the deceased, stated that she was a
fine fat child shortly after her birth, but that she soon became quite thin, was badly clothed, and seemed as if she did not get a sufficiency of food. She
was mostly in the care of a girl six or seven years of age: her father bore the character of a drunken man. He had another child, which was in several
burial clubs, and was a year old when it died; the child’s mother stated that the child was more than ten months old, but she could not recollect the day of
her birth; she thought its complaint was convulsions, in which it died. It had been ill about seven weeks; when it took ill, she had given it some oil of
aniseeds and squills, which she had procured from Mr. Smith, a druggist. Since then she had given it nothing in the way of medicine, except some wine
and water, which she gave it during the last few days of its life, when it could not suck or take gruel. It was in three burial clubs; her husband told her that
they had received upwards of 20l. from burial clubs in which the other child had been entered; none of her children who had died were more than
eighteen months old.
A surgeon stated, that he made a post-mortem examination of the body of deceased; it was then in an advanced state of decomposition, but not so far
gone as to interfere with the examination. There was no appearance of external violence on the body, but there was an extreme degree of emaciation. The
brain was healthy, and gave no indication of convulsions having been the cause of death; the process of teething had not commenced; had such been the
case, it might have led to the supposition that fits might have occurred; the lungs, heart, stomach, and intestines were in a natural and healthy state.
The jury having expressed it as their opinion that the evidence of the parents was made up for the occasion, and entitled to no credit, returned the
following verdict:—“Died through want of nourishment; but whether occasioned by a deficiency of food, or by disease of the liver and spine, brought on
by improper food and drink, or otherwise, does not appear.”

No further steps were taken upon this verdict; and the man enforced payments upon his insurances from ten burial
clubs, and obtained from them a total sum of 34l. 3s. for the burial of this one child. Two similar cases came under
the notice of Mr. Coppock, the Clerk and Superintendent-Registrar of the Stockport Union, in both of which he
prosecuted the parties for murder. In one case, where three children had been poisoned with arsenic, the father was
tried, with the mother, and convicted at Chester, and sentenced to be transported for life, but the mother was
acquitted. In the other case, where the judge summed up for a conviction, the accused, the father, was, to the
astonishment of every one, acquitted. In this case the body was exhumed after interment, and arsenic was detected
in the stomach. In consequence of the suspicion raised upon the death, on which the accusation was made in the
first case, the bodies of two other children were taken up and examined, when arsenic was found in the stomach. In
all these cases payments on the deaths of the children were insured from the burial clubs: the cost of the coffin and
burial dues would not be more than about 1l., and the allowance from the club is 3l.
§ 63. It is remarked, on these dreadful cases, by the Superintendent Registrar, that the children who were boys, and
therefore likely to be useful to the parents, were not poisoned; the female children were the victims. It was the
clear opinion of the medical officers that infanticides have been committed in Stockport to obtain the burial money.

[12]
Cases of the culpable neglect of children who were insured in several clubs had been observed at Preston. The
collector of a burial society, one of the most respectable in Manchester, stated to me strong grounds for believing
that it had become a practice to neglect children for the sake of the money allowed. The practice of insuring in a
number of these clubs was increasing. He gave the following description of the frauds to which the clubs were
exposed:—
A great number of individuals have themselves and family in two or more societies, and by that means realize a great sum of money at the death of any
one of them; and I have no doubt at all in saying that a great many deaths are occasioned through neglect, when there is a great sum to be obtained at
their decease. Such cases as these generally happen amongst the lower orders of society.
In reference to cases of undoubted imposition, I will just name a few out of a great many. A person residing in Manchester wished to enter herself and
grandchild into our society. We went to the house, and there were from ten to twelve individuals present, the greater part of them children,—two of them
somewhere about three months old. I asked who it was that was going to enter? The mistress of the house spoke up, and said it was herself and her
grandchild. I asked which was her grandchild? She took a very fine child in her arms and said that was it, and asked me would it do?—to which I
answered, yes. The other was a very thin ghastly-looking child. I asked what was the matter with it? She said they could not tell; it had been so from the
time it was born. I assure you, sir, it was an awful sight to look at. A thought struck me when I came out, that if that child died they might say it was the
child I entered, so I determined to keep my eye on it every time I called, which was once a fortnight. In four months afterwards this thin child died, and
according to my anticipations they brought a notice of death for the child I had not entered. I went down to visit, and on looking at it, and examining it, I
pronounced it not the child I had entered. She said it was, and a great contest arose for about an hour, during which time I asked her were there not two
children about the same age when first I came into her house? which she denied at first, but afterwards admitted it. I then asked her was not one of them a
very fine and the other a very thin child? to which she answered, yes. I then asked her whether it was the finest or the thin one I entered? She answered,
the finest one. I then asked her was that the fine one? She said, yes. I then asked her where was the thin child? She pointed to one that was sleeping in a
bed, and said that was it. I looked at it, and said this was the child I entered. I then asked her how it was that this child which was sleeping had become so
fat and the other so thin? to which she said she could not tell. Now I said to her, it is clear enough how you have done this; you showed me that living
child, and gave me the name of the one that is dead, which she denied having done; and so we were compelled to give her the money because we had no
means of finding it out but by some one in the house telling of her. But since, a little light has been thrown on it by her husband uttering a saying when he
was drunk one day when I was there. This was the saying:—“A bright set of boys you are, burying the living for the dead!”—meaning that we gave
burial money for a living child; but he was immediately stopped by his wife.
Another case, a woman in Salford, entered herself and two sons, and one of them was far gone in consumption; this we discovered and on asking, why
she did it, she said she thought she could get a few pounds to bury him. Another, a man entered his wife, and she lay dying at the same time. When we
asked him where his wife was, he pointed to a woman that was sitting by the fireside, and said that was her; but his wife died before she became a
member. Another person, in order to obtain the funeral money, kept his child three weeks, until it was in a state of decomposition. The last case, out of
many more that might be named, is rather ludicrous.
A man and his wife, residing in Cotton-street, agreed that one of them, namely, the husband, should pretend to be dead, in order that the wife might
receive his funeral money; accordingly the wife proceeds in due form to give notice of his death; the visiting officer on behalf of the society, whose duty
it was to see the corpse, repairs to the house, enters the chamber, and inquires for the deceased; the should-be disconsolate widow points him to the body
of her late husband, whose chin was tied up with a handkerchief in the attitude of death; he surveys the corpse—the eyelids seem to move; he feels the
pulse, the certain signs of life are there: the officer pronounceth him not dead; she in return says, he is dead, for there has not been a breath in him since
12 o’clock last night. The neighbours are called in; a discussion ensues between the wife and the officer: some declare they saw the husband at the door
that morning giving a light. He (the officer) requires her to bring a doctor; she goes, and says she can’t get one to come; the officer goes and brings one,
who ordered him to be raised up in the bed, and having obtained some water, the doctor, while the man was sitting up, dashed it in his face.

The man was apprehended and taken before the magistrates for the fraud. Sir Charles Shaw, the Commissioner of
Police, directed that he should be produced in court in the same dress in which he had been laid out and was
apprehended, which produced a very salutary effect.
§ 64. The evidence in respect to the crimes committed under such circumstances may be carried into wider
ramifications. Some of the better constituted societies have perceived the evil of insurances, carried to the extent of
entirely removing responsibilities, or creating bounties, to the promotion of the event insured against, and have
endeavoured to abate the evil, as far as they could, by the adoption of a condition, that no payment should be made
where a party was found to have been a member or to have insured in another club.
§ 65. The collector of the society, whose exemplification of one class of frauds is above cited, stated, that they
were about to adopt the common rule of the insurance societies, that all claims should be forfeited for an act of
suicide; for they had even instances which showed that men held their own lives on so loose a tenure as to throw
them away on apparently slight motives. In one instance a man went to the secretary, and asked whether, if he were
to commit suicide, his widow would be entitled to the burial money? The secretary stated that, there being no rule
against it, he thought, the survivor would be entitled. The man, having fully satisfied himself on this point, went
away and took poison. The amount of burial money gained was supposed to be 50l. In another case, the letter
announcing to the widow the benefit he had secured, grew indistinct from the working of the poison and the
sinking of life whilst the man was writing it, until it was nearly illegible. But the occurrence of such facts, showing
a recklessness of life, with a degree of strength of domestic affections which induces them to encounter violent
deaths for the sake of the survivors, is not confined to one class of society. Soon after the practice of insuring from
insurance companies, the payment of large sums on the deaths of parties began to extend as a mode of providing
for families, instances occurred where tradesmen and persons of the higher and middle classes, having effected
insurances on their own lives, committed suicide with the view apparently of securing to their families the benefit
of the sums insured. It is understood that the experience of such cases, and the obvious inducement which persons

having in view to commit suicide to effect insurances on their lives, and thus defraud the offices, led to the
precaution, now almost universal, of inserting the condition, which, however, is confined to insurance by persons
on their own lives; that “if the assured shall die by his own act, whether sane or insane,” the policy shall be void.
Yet frauds are occasionally committed by persons who must know that they have not long to live.
§ 66. Multiplied payments on one death are contrary to the spirit, at the least, of the law. A payment of a sum
certain to parish officers, to be relieved from any future payments in respect to an illegitimate child, has been
declared to be illegal. “One of the principles on which that decision is founded is, that the payment of a large sum
for the support of a child gives the parish a degree of interest in the child’s death, and might have a tendency to
induce the officers to relax in their duty towards it.”[13]
§ 67. In the higher order of life insurances, the legislature has endeavoured to arrest the dangerous tendency of
insuring beyond the interest, by providing, by statute 14 Geo. III., c. 48, that persons insuring the lives of others
shall have an interest in such lives; and it is a principle of insurance law that where a risk paid for has not been run,
the premiums shall be returned; and it would seem to be a principle of common law that insurances beyond the
actual interest are void. In the case of Fauntleroy, the banker, who insured his life in the Amicable Office for
6000l., the claim was resisted on the fact that he had been attainted, convicted, and executed for forgeries
committed since the insurance, and the House of Lords held the insurance to be void on the plainest principles of
public policy. The Lord Chancellor, in delivering the judgment of the house, said—“Is it possible that such a
contract could be sustained? Is it not void upon the plainest principles of public policy? Would not such a contract
(if available) take away one of those restraints operating on the minds of men against the commission of crimes,—
namely, the interest we have in the welfare and prosperity of our connexions? Now, if a policy of that description,
with such a form of condition inserted in it in express terms, cannot, on grounds of public policy, be sustained,
how is it to be contended that in a policy expressed in such terms as the present, and after the events which have
happened, that we can sustain such a claim?”[14]
§ 68. The Benefit clubs in large towns cannot easily take effectual measures against the multiplication of
insurances, which indeed their own instability to some extent justifies, and they may find their account, in paying
sums beyond the legal authority, as the higher insurance offices avowedly do, in paying on policies to parties who
have had no legal interest in the life insured. An officer of one of these large insurance establishments declared,
that if they had acted upon the decision of the courts in the case of Godson v. Boldero, “they might as well have
shut their doors.”
§ 69. Although the practice referred to, of multiplied insurances of sums payable on the death of children, appears
happily to have broken out into infanticides only in the districts mentioned, yet as the means and the temptation are
left equally open in all, the necessity of preventing them, as far as a direct legislative act may, is submitted, by a
short provision prohibiting payments beyond the actual cost of interment, and directing the return of the premiums
or subscriptions where they have been given to more than one club.
§ 70. The means for the most direct protection of infantile life, and for giving additional security for life in general,
will be subsequently submitted for consideration, with the evidence as to the means and the necessity of the
appointment of medical officers for the protection of the public health.
§ 71. A collateral means of security, and of the abatement of other evils incidental to the practice of interments,
will be found in the practicable administrative measures for reducing the unnecessary expense of interments, and,
by consequence, of the temptations to crime constituted by the apparent expediency of the insurance of the
payment of large sums to meet that expense.
It will, moreover, on further examination, become apparent, in this as in some other branches of public
expenditure, that a course which attains increased efficiency with the popular desiderata in respect to interments is
a course of economy.

Total Expenses of Funerals to different Classes of Society.
§ 72. In the following table is given a proximate estimate of the total expenses of funerals of the persons of each
class in the metropolis:—
Annual Expenses of
Funerals in
Total Number Total England and
of Funerals of Number Expenses of Each Expenses of Wales: estimating
each Class of Funeral of Each the Funerals the proportions of
that have Children Class, Inclusive of of all the Deaths of each
Class. Burial Dues.
taken place in under 10 Persons of Class to be the
the Metropolis Years of each Class, same as in the
in the Year Age. inclusive of Metropolis, and the
1839. Children. Average Expenses
Adults. Children. of each Class to be
the same.
£. s. £. s. £. £.
Gentry, &c. 2,253 529 100 0 30 0 188,270 1,735,040
Tradesmen, 1st
5,757 2,761 50 0 14 0 250,792 2,370,379
cls.
Tradesmen,
2nd cls. and 7,682 3,703 27 10 7 15 103,728
undescribed
Artisans, &c. 25,930 13,885 5 0 1 10 81,053 766,074

Paupers 3,655 593 13s. 2,761

Total expense for the Metropolis 626,604

Proximate Estimate of the Expense for the Total
Number of Funerals in one Year, England and 4,871,493
Wales
The above, which can only be submitted as a proximate estimate, certainly shows an amount of money annually
thrown into the grave, at the expense of the living, which exceeded all previous anticipations; and yet, from the
information derived from the inspection of collections of undertakers’ bills for funerals, I cannot but consider it an
under rather than an over estimate, and that the actual expenses of interment in the metropolis would be found, on
a closer inquiry, to be nearly a million per annum. Hypothetical estimates of the amount of money which must be
expended to maintain so large a body of men as that engaged in the business and service of the undertaker are
confirmatory of this view. Even in Scotland the expense of the decent burial of a labouring man is not less than 5l.,
exclusive of the expense of mourning. I have been shown the payments on account of burials of an affiliated
association of a convivial and benevolent character called the “Odd Fellows,” which has upwards of 150,000
affiliated members, chiefly of the better class of artisans, in different parts of the country. With them, the payments
usually amount to 10l. per funeral. The expenses of burial of some of the smaller descriptions of shopkeepers may
not much exceed the expense of the undescribed class, which is taken us an average between the sum set down for
labourers and that for tradesmen; but the latter is certainly a low average for the metropolis. All the information
tends to show that the expenses of the funerals of persons in the condition of gentry are, on the average (inclusive
of burial dues), much higher than the sum stated. From inquiries I have made as to the practice in the offices of the
Masters in Chancery, where executors’ accounts are examined, I learn that if an undertaker’s bill is 60l. or 70l.
(exclusive of burial dues), for a person whose rank in life was that of the clergy, officers of the army or navy, or
members of the legal or medical professions, “it would, according to all usage, be allowed as of course, and
notwithstanding it should turn out that the estate was insolvent.”[15] The cost of the funerals of persons of rank and
title, it will have been seen, varies from 1500l. to 1000l., or 800l., or less, as it is a town or country funeral. The

expenses of the funerals of gentry of the better condition, it will have been seen, vary from 200l. to 400l., and are
stated to be seldom so low as 150l. § 45.
§ 73. The average cost of funerals of persons of every rank above paupers in the metropolis may, therefore, be
taken as 14l. 19s. 9d. per head. In some of the rural districts, and in the smaller provincial towns, where the distinct
business of an undertaker has not arisen, coffins are made by carpenters, and services are supplied at a very
moderate cost; but the allowances from the benefit and burial clubs throughout the country, of which instances
have been given, may be stated as instances of the general expense to the labouring classes. To persons of the
middle or higher classes, who give orders to undertakers in the metropolis, for funerals to be performed in the
country, the expense is further enhanced by the extra expense of carriage; so that there is ground for believing that
the same average prevails throughout Great Britain, and that the total annual expense of funerals cannot be much
less than between four and five millions per annum.
§ 74. Out of 5l. expended for the common funeral of an adult artisan in the metropolis, about 15s. will be the burial
dues. Of this 15s. about 3s. may be stated as the amount the clergyman will receive. The surplice fees vary in
different places from 2s. for the lowest class, rising with the condition to 5l. 5s., or more; but taking the average of
all cases which occur in the metropolis, and on the experience of the ministers of several parishes, the burial fees,
which form their chief emolument, that which was anciently denominated “Soul Scot,” might perhaps be fairly
taken as at 7s. 2d. per case, which is the average of the burial fees in some of the principal parishes in London.[16]
Different proportions of the Expenses of Burials to the Community in healthy and unhealthy Districts.
§ 75. It is a prevalent popular error, not unsanctioned by doctrines held by several eminent public writers, that “as
one disease disappears so another springs up,” that the positive “amount of mortality, the common lot,” is the same
to all classes. But death, besides differing in the period to different individuals, differs widely in the numbers of
burials, and in the consequent expenses to different families, classes, and districts. It is the number as well as the
separate expense of each of the funerals which occur during the year to each class of persons, or to different
districts, which determines the total expense of burial to the class or district. Thus, to the poorer classes, living in
wretched habitations, as those comprised in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, there is one burial to every 31 of the
inhabitants, whilst in the contiguous district of Hackney there is only one burial to every 56 of the inhabitants
yearly. In Liverpool there is one burial per annum to every 30 of the inhabitants, whilst in the county of Hereford
there is one burial only to every 55 of the inhabitants. If the existing charge of burial, at the above rates of expense
to each class of individuals, were commuted for an annual payment, commencing at birth, as a premium for the
payment of 100l., 50l., and 5l., payable at the undermentioned periods respectively, it would in the metropolis and
the county of Hereford be nearly as follows:—
METROPOLIS. HEREFORDSHIRE.
CLASS. Average Age Annual Payment for Average Age Annual Payment for
at Death. Burial to every Individual. at Death. Burial to every Individual.
Years. £. s. d. Years. £. s. d.
Gentry 44 1 1 10 45 1 1 0
Tradesmen or
25 1 6 8 47 0 9 9
Farmers
Labourers 22 0 3 2 39 0 2 9

Average of all
27 39
Classes
Supposing each member of the family to have been assured at birth, a labourer’s family in Herefordshire consisting
of five persons would have to pay yearly 13s. 9d., and there a farmer’s family of the same number would have to
pay 2l. 8s. 9d. yearly; whilst in London for an artisan’s family of five, the yearly payment would be 15s. 10d. and
for a tradesman’s family it would be 6l. 13s. 4d. per annum. To insure the payment of the average cost of funerals,
14l. 7s. 5d. at the end of 27 years, on the metropolitan chances of life, the annual payment would be 7s., whilst on
the Herefordshire chances of life of 39 years to all born high or low the sum would be only 4s. Or to take another
form of displaying the comparative burthen; the general average cost of each burial being 14l. 7s. 5d., and the
annual proportions of deaths being different from the average duration of life—being 1 of every 40 in the
metropolis, a poll-tax to defray the burial expenses must there be 7s. 2¼d.; whilst in Hereford the proportions of
deaths being one in every 55, the poll-tax on all of the inhabitants to meet the charge would be 5s. 3d. per head.

§ 76. It appears, therefore, that in considering the means of relief from the evils connected with the number and
expenses of burial, it should at the same time be borne in mind that the primary means of abatement and relief of
the misery of frequent funerals will be found in the means of the removal of the developed and removable causes
of premature mortality. Had the annual mortality amongst the population in the high, open, and naturally-drained
district of Hackney been the same proportionate amount of mortality as that in the contiguous, but low, ill-drained,
ill-cleansed, and ill-ventilated district of Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, instead of 759 deaths per annum,
Hackney would have upwards of 1138 deaths, and an expense of 5448l. more for funerals during the year than it
has. So the county of Hereford, if it were afflicted with the same amount of mortality as that which prevails in
Liverpool, would have 1488 more deaths annually and an additional expenditure of 21,390l. per annum in burials.
How directly, certainly, and powerfully, defective sanitary measures in respect of drainage and cleansing, bear
upon health and life, and, by consequence, on the frequency of burials, will be seen in the latter portions of the
examination of Mr. Blencarne, surgeon, one of the medical officers of the City of London Union, and of Mr.
Abraham, surgeon, one of the Registrars of Deaths in the same Union; which I select as an instance, because the
City stands high in wealth, in endowed charities, and in supposed immunity from the removable or preventible
causes of disease.[17]
§ 77. Two individual cases which were narrated by the physician who attended them, will serve to convey a
conception of a large proportion of the common cases denoted by the units of the statistical evidence derived from
towns, and will illustrate more clearly the economy of the prevention of sickness and death, as a superior economy
of the incidents of sickness as well as of funerals.
One case was that of an intelligent industrious man who had been foreman to a tradesman, and having married and
established himself as a master tradesman, had a family of children. To diminish the expense of his family he took
a house which he let off to lodgers, retaining to himself only the garrets and the underground or kitchen floor. He
had five children who became unhealthy and were attacked with cachectic diseases and scald head; and the
expense of an apothecary to the family during one year was 59l.: but still more serious disease afterwards
appearing, a physician was called in, who perceiving the impure air of the apartments, pointed out the causes of the
varied illness which had prevailed, and the remedy—removal from the house.
In another case the foreman of a brewery married a healthy wife, who gave birth to seven children, of whom six
died at various ages, while young, from diseases evidently springing from impure air. The source of this impure air
was an ill-constructed cesspool in the lower part of the house, the stench of which was pointed out by the
physician, who happened to have a perception of such causes, and advised the immediate removal of the family.
Since that time they have had two other children, who with the third which escaped, are now living in their better
lodging in the enjoyment of good health; the last of the children who died, when “ailing,” was sent to the purer
atmosphere of a rural district, and returned in robust health, but soon after his exposure to the impure atmosphere
was attacked with fever, of which he died within a fortnight.
It was in the power of neither of these persons to obtain an amendment of the general system of drainage, which
occasioned the atmospheric impurity under which they suffered; but the actual expenses of structural measures of
prevention would not, as an entire outlay, have amounted to half the apothecary’s bill for drugs in the first case, or
of the expenses of the funerals (superadded to the expenses of drugs) in the second case; but if the expenses of
those structural arrangements were defrayed by an annual payment of instalments of principal and interest, spread
over a period of 30 years, or a period coincident with the benefit, the expense of the extended or combined
measure of prevention would not be more than 1l. 5s. 10d. per tenement, or perhaps a small proportion of that sum,
to the individual family.[18]
§ 78. But to return to collective examples. Mr. Blencarne, on a view of the sanitary condition of the population,
and the causes of mortality within his district, expresses a confident opinion that in that district the average amount
of mortality might be reduced one-third by efficient sanitary measures. The saving by a reduction of 71 funerals
yearly, or one-third of the burials in that district, at the average expense of funerals for the metropolis, would
amount to nearly 1020l. per annum. If, as appears to be practicable, there were a reduction of one-half of the
expenses of the other two-thirds of the average number of funerals, the total saving from this source would be
2040l. per annum to the population inhabiting, according to the last census, 1416 houses. Now the annual share of
the expense of the chief structural sanitary arrangements, supposing every house in the district to be deficient,
would, on the proximate estimate, amount to a sum of 1829l., or less than the amount saved by the reduction of the
funeral expenditure, giving the health and longevity, and all the moral and social savings, plus the mere pecuniary
saving; these remoter savings being in themselves unquestionably far greater than can be represented by the
pecuniary items directly economised.

§ 79. Whosoever will carefully examine what has been done in scattered and fortuitous instances amongst persons
of the same class, following the same occupation, living in the same neighbourhoods, and deriving the same
amount of incomes, and will from such examinations judge of the inferences as to what may be done by the more
systematised application of the like means, will not deem the representation extravagant, that the same duration of
life may be given to the labouring classes that is enjoyed by professional persons of the first class; or that it is
possible to attain for the whole of a town population such average durations of life as are attained by portions of
existing towns; or say, such an average as is attained by the population of the old town of Geneva, that is to say of
45 years, or six years higher than appears to be attained by the whole population of the county of Hereford, which,
as we have seen, is 39 years.
§ 80. To take another example. If the proportion of deaths to the population in the Whitechapel Union were
reduced to the proportion of deaths to the population in Herefordshire, then, instead of 2307 burials, there would
only be 1305 burials per annum; and if the cost of the remaining burials were reduced 50 per cent. of the average
present cost, then the saving of funeral expenses to the Whitechapel district would be at the rate of more than
23,000l., or nearly 3l. per house on the inhabited houses of the district; about half that sum being deemed sufficient
to defray the expense of the proposed structural improvements. The funeral expenses in the parish of Hackney on
the proportion of burials amongst them, are at the rate of 5s. 2d. per head on the living population. Were the burials
in Liverpool reduced to the same proportion, 1 in 56 instead of 1 in 30,[19] at the rate of expenses for funerals in
London, nearly 50,000l. per annum would be saved to the population of Liverpool, being more than sufficient to
enable them to pay 30 years’ annual instalments, the principal and interest, at five per cent., of a sum of 845,065l.
sterling for structural arrangements.
§ 81. Strong barriers to the improvement of the sanitary condition of the population are created by the common
rule and practice of levying the whole expense of permanent works, immediately or within short periods, on
persons who conceive they have no immediate interest in them, or whose interest is really transient, and who under
such circumstances will see no per contra of benefit to themselves to compensate for the expenditure. It may be of
use to exemplify the contra of advantage to the inhabitants at least, to make it a good economy to them to pay the
proportions of rates required for the additional expenditure in efficient means of preventing sickness and mortality.
The following may be given as an instance of the superior economy of prevention, by the appliance of vaccination,
afforded by the experience obtained under the partial operation of the Vaccination Act in the metropolis as
compared with the experience in Glasgow, to which the same arrangements do not extend. In the metropolis, in the
year 1837, the deaths from small-pox were 1520. The deaths from small-pox in the metropolis, and in Glasgow for
the years after the Vaccination Act came into operation are thus compared in a report by Dr. R. D. Thompson.

Deaths from Small-Pox.

Glasgow. London.
Population 282,134 Population 1,875,493

1838 388 3,090 Epidemic.
[20]
1839 406 634
1840 413 1,233
1841 347 1,053
1842 334 350

Mean 377, or about one inhabitant daily dies of small-pox in Glasgow.
A confident opinion is expressed that the decrease of small-pox in the metropolis is ascribable to the extension of
vaccination. The rate of reduced mortality from that disease has continued during the present year; and the average
of the present rate, as compared with the average preceding the extension of vaccination, would give a reduction of
946 deaths and funerals from 1652 annually. But as not one attack in ten of small-pox usually proves fatal, the
reduction of the number of deaths may be taken as representing a reduction of some 9,460 cases of sickness. The
amount paid from the poor-rates for vaccination in the metropolis was 1701l., which at the average fee gives
22,680 of the worst conditioned and most susceptible cases out of about 56,000, in which vaccination was

successfully performed. The attention directed to the subject has also promoted the extension of vaccination, by
others than the appointed vaccinators. The various expenses of each case of sickness to the sufferers, inclusive of
medicines, may perhaps, on a low estimate, be represented at 1l. each case; and taking half the average expenses of
funerals for the 946 funerals saved, the total expense of funerals and of sickness saved by the expenditure of the
sum stated of 1701l. in well-directed measures of prevention, would exceed 16,000l. in the metropolis alone.
Throughout the whole country, the deaths from small-pox in 1840 were 10,434, as compared with 16,268 in 1838,
on which, if the reduction may be ascribed to the extension of vaccination solely, pounds of immediate expenses
must have been saved by the expenditure of half crowns,—in other words, upwards of 90,000l. in money has been
saved by the expenditure of about 12,000l. in vaccination.
The excess of deaths in the metropolis above the healthy standard of Islington or Herefordshire, of 1 in 55, is
11,266 (vide returns, Appendix); the expense of burial of this excessive number, at the average cost, is 168,990l.
per annum, which (without taking into account the expenses of the corresponding excess of sickness) as an
instalment, would in 30 years liquidate the principal and interest, at 5 per cent., of a loan of 2,856,168l. towards
house drainings and the structural improvements and arrangements, by which the excess might be prevented. To
the charge of the excessive deaths must be added the charge of the births which take place to make up the ravages
of the mortality in the most depressed districts. Taking the proportion of the births to the population in the Hackney
Union, 1 in 42, as the standard of proportion of births in a healthy district, the excess of births for the whole
metropolis during that year was upwards of 8000: or 52,609 instead of 44,541.[21]
§ 82. The grounds will hereafter be submitted which appear to sustain the position that all the solemnity of
sepulture may be increased, and solemnity given where none is now obtained, concurrently with a great reduction
of expense to all classes.—Vide post, § 113 to § 120.
In considering the expenses of funerals, the arrangements and consequent expenses of the funerals of the wealthy
are of importance, less perhaps for themselves than as governing by example the arrangements and expenses of the
poorest classes, even to the adoption of such arrangements, and consequently expensive outlay as to have hired
bearers and mutes with silk fittings even at the funerals of common labourers. The expenditure by the wealthy, in
compliance with supposed demands at which their own taste revolts, for a transient effect which is not gained,[22]
would suffice to produce permanent effects of beneficence and taste worthy of their position in society. A
gentleman who recently, in distaste of the ordinary undertaker’s arrangements, reduced them on the occasion of the
burial of his daughter, applied the money in erecting to her memory, and partly endowing, a small school for 25
children of a village, in which, as the tablet on the school recorded, the deceased had, when alive, taken a kindly
interest. Where no such objects are offered for the surplus expenditure, that which would be unsuccessfully thrown
away for the transient effect would suffice for a statue or some work of art that would ensure permanent
admiration. The aggregate waste on funerals in the metropolis would, in the course of a short time, suffice for the
endowment of educational or other institutions, that would go far to retrieve the condition of the poorer classes.
The waste of two years in the metropolis would suffice for the erection of a magnificent cathedral, and of a third
year for its endowment for ever.
§ 83. In justification of the funeral exactions from the labouring classes, it is sometimes alleged that if they did not
expend the money in the funereal decorations, they would expend it in drink. But this would only occur in a
minority of cases, and in those only for a time. The reduction would be an immediate and most important relief in
an immense number of cases of widowhood, and especially in those cases where there has been no insurance,
where the widow incurs debts which often reduce her to destitution and dependence on the poor’s rates, or on
charity. It forms a large part of the business of some of the small-debt courts in the metropolis to enforce payments
of the undertakers’ bills, incurred under such circumstances. For all classes, what is deemed by them respectful
interment is to be considered a necessity; and in general the expenditure beyond what is necessary to ensure such
interment competes not with extravagancy, but with high moral obligations. By the arrangements which throw the
savings of the poor family into the grave, children are left destitute, and creditors are often defrauded, and heavy
taxes levied on the sympathies of neighbours and friends.[23]

Failure of the objects of the common Expenditure on Funerals.

§ 84. Notwithstanding the immense sacrifices made by the labouring classes for the purpose, neither they nor the
middle classes obtain solemn and respectful interment, nor does it appear practicable that they should obtain it by
any arrangement of the present parochial means of interment in crowded districts.

§ 85. Few persons can have witnessed funeral processions passing in mid-day through the thronged and busy
streets of the metropolis, without being struck with the extreme inappropriateness of the times and places chosen
for such processions. This want of regulation as to appropriate times is the subject of complaints, which must
attach, even to a greater extent, to numerous processions, without regulation, from the centre of the populous town
districts to the suburbs.
Mr. Wild, the undertaker, was asked—
What besides the expense, and the objection to the ground, do you find is the objection entertained to the existing mode of burial in the crowded districts
of the metropolis?—One very common objection, is the inconvenient time; the average time is about 3 o’clock, but it varies from 2 to 4 o’clock. This is
very inconvenient for persons in business, who wish to attend as mourners. From this cause, interments are frequently delayed; at this time, also, the
streets are very much crowded; sometimes boys crowd round the gates, and shout as ill-educated boys usually do; sometimes there are mobs; I have
known the service interrupted more than once during the ceremony; sometimes the adults of the mob will make rude remarks. I have heard them call out
to the clergyman, “Read out, old fellow;” sometimes I have known them make rude remarks in the hearing of the mourners; on the clergyman frequently;
but this has been on the week days, when, of course, the numbers attending are very great. At times, the adults and mob at the gates have an idle and rude
curiosity to hear the service. I have known them rush in past the mourners, and go in indiscriminately. It is part of my business to see the mourners and
corpse safe in, before I go in; and I have been sometimes severely hustled, and have had great difficulty in getting in myself.
Are the crowds in the town, or districts, ever characterized by any reverence for the dead?—Not the slightest: quite the contrary, and it makes part of the
annoyance of interments in town to have to encounter them.
Are you not aware that on the Continent it is generally the custom for passengers of every condition in the streets, to stop and take off the hat, on the
approach, and during the passage of the dead?—I have met with several instances of persons stopping in our streets in London, and taking off their hats.
On looking at them, I had reason to believe they were foreigners.
Have you ever known carriages or common coaches, or carts or waggons, stop in the streets on the approach of a funeral?—I have seen gentlemen pull
their check-strings, or tap at their windows, and stop their coachmen in towns; but, if the carriage were empty, there was no stoppage. But none of the
common conveyances ever stop. I have several times ran the risk of being knocked down by them. I have known cabmen and omnibus men drive through
the procession of a walking funeral, and separate the mourners from the corpse. These characters display complete indifference to such scenes.

§ 86. In the rural districts the population appears to be so far better instructed and more respectful; but, according
to the testimony of living persons, the same indifference has not always characterized labouring classes in the town
districts, even of the metropolis. It is described as an unavoidable consequence of the increasing numbers of
funerals, and familiarity with them arising from the neglect of appropriate general arrangements, a neglect from
which not only the relations and parties engaged in such services, but strangers have to complain, that their
feelings are not duly regarded. In a rural parish, the deceased who is interred is generally known, and the single
funeral arrests attention and excites sympathy. In crowded districts neighbourship diminishes; a vast portion of the
population of the metropolis pass their lives without knowing their next-door neighbours, or even persons living in
the same building; the great majority of burials are, to the mass of the population, burials of strangers, for whom
no personal sympathies can be awakened; the inopportune and unexpected passage of small funeral processions
through busy and unprepared crowds of the young and active, create a familiarity that stifles all respectful or
reverential feelings, whilst the numbers of separate funerals make undue demands on the sympathies, and harass
the minds of the sickly and the solitary by their continued passage, and the perpetual tollings of the passing bells.
Examples in some of the German cities might be cited of refined and successful arrangements by which the
feelings of all are consulted, by interments either in the quiet of evening or of early morning, or by the selection of
retired routes for the processions. The funeral processions to the cemetery of Frankfort are generally held at early
morning for the labouring classes.
§ 87. The celebration of religious ceremonies in a satisfactory manner at some of the populous parishes, appear to
be often extremely difficult, if not impracticable. Mr. Wild further answers:—
What are the matters objected to that are of common experience in our burials, when the corpse and attendants have arrived within the church-yard?—In
certain seasons of the year, when the mortality is greater than usual, a number of funerals, according to the present regulation of the churchyards, are
named for one hour. During last Sunday, for example, there were fifteen funerals all fixed during one hour at one church. Some of these will be funerals
in the church; those which have not an in-door service must wait outside. At the church to which I refer, there were six parties of mourners waiting
outside. My man informed me, that all these parties of mourners were kept nearly three-quarters of an hour waiting outside, without any cover, and with
no boards to stand upon. The weather last Sunday was dreadfully inclement. I have seen ten funerals kept waiting in the church-yard from twenty
minutes to three-quarters of an hour. I have known colds caught on the ground by parties kept waiting, and more probably occurred than I could know of.
It is the practice on such occasions to say the service over the bodies of children and over the bodies of the adults together, and sometimes the whole are
kept waiting until the number is completed. Even under these circumstances, the ceremony is frequently very much hurried.
How many are there in some parochial burial grounds to be buried at one time?—Sometimes fifteen.
With such a number to bury is it physically possible that the separate service should be other than hurried, and in so far as it is hurried unsatisfactory to
the mourners?—According to the present system I do not see that it is at all times practicable to be other than hurried and unsatisfactory.
Would not an in-door service be acceptable to the labouring classes?—I conceive highly so. In some parishes, as at Camberwell, the custom is to give an
in-door service to all, whether rich or poor. This is considered highly acceptable. Where the labouring classes are excluded they not only feel the
inconvenience of having to wait, but they feel very much the exclusion on account of their poverty. They frequently complain to me, and question me as
to whether it is right, and ask me the reason.
What other inconveniences are experienced in the service in church-yards?—It is a frequent thing that a grave-digger, who smells strongly of liquor, will
ask of the widow or mourners for something to drink, and, if not given, he will follow them to the gates and outside the gates, murmuring and uttering

reproaches.
Is that ordinarily the last thing met with before leaving the church-yards?—Yes, that is the last thing.
That closes the scene?—Yes, that closes the scene.

Mr. Dix was asked—
In the crowded districts is the funeral ceremony often impeded?—Besides the state of the parochial burial grounds, the mode of performing the ceremony
is very objectionable, in consequence of the crowd and noise and bustle in the neighbourhood. I have had burials to perform in St. Clements Danes’
burial ground, when the noise of the passing and the repassing of the vehicles has been such that we have not heard a third of the service, except in
broken sentences.

§ 88. On this very important subject it is observed, by the Reverend William Stone, the rector of Spitalfields:—
It must, I think, be admitted, that, in a crowded population, the parochial system, as it generally stands at present, is utterly inadequate to meet the
demand for interment—the demand, I mean, which would exist, if that system were universally acquiesced in, and all our parishioners were brought for
interment to our parochial burial grounds. To say nothing of the inability of many parishes to provide adequate grounds, there could not be an adequate
supply of clergymen or of churches. Indeed, it has always seemed to me, that, in practice, this has been admitted; for, in London, that considerable and
important part of the burial service which is performed within the church, unless specially desired and paid for, has, from time almost immemorial, been
left out; and I think that the highest ecclesiastical authorities could hardly have introduced or sanctioned such an anti-rubrical omission, had it not served
some more popular or more necessary purpose than that of merely raising the fees of the church. From this consideration, added to the frequent
inconvenience of my burial services, I have been led to regard the fees for the in-church service, like the payments for the erection of monuments and
tablets in our churches, as a kind of necessary preventive duty. And certain it is, that unless our burial services were limited by some such restrictive
system, they would be not only overwhelmingly laborious, but absolutely impracticable and incompatible with our other professional engagements. How,
for instance, could the densely-built parish of Christchurch, Spitalfields, yielding a clerical income less than 380l. a-year, possessing one burial-ground,
and one church attached to that burial-ground, accommodate, in any enlarged sense of the word, an interrable population of 23,642, with the addition of
the many proprietors of our vaults and graves, who must always be resident at a distance? Even now, with our present very scanty demand for interment,
I sometimes find, as I have intimated, extreme inconvenience from this part of my duties. For obvious reasons the working classes make choice of
Sunday for their burials; the very day, above all others, when the clergy and the church are almost wholly pre-engaged for other purposes. No wonder,
then, that one purpose should often clash with another—that burials in church should clash with burials out of it—that clergymen should be hurried,
discomposed, and exhausted—and mourners kept waiting in a cold, damp burial-ground, so as to verify the old objection urged by the Puritans against
our service there, that “in burying the dead we kill the living.” On other days, too, the clergy have other engagements, so as to render it necessary to
appoint burials for a particular hour—an appointment, however, often more necessary to the clergy than agreeable to the undertakers and their employers.
And yet, with every precaution, the clergyman is most seriously incommoded; for, however he may try to accommodate, by allowing parties to fix their
own hour of burial, his time and patience are fearfully encroached upon. Burials are very seldom punctual. They arrive from 20 minutes up to an hour
and a half after the hour fixed. Mourners linger at home over their cups. The undertaker pleads that he “couldn’t get them to move.” Sometimes he has
another “job” in hand elsewhere—nay, an undertaker has had two “jobs” in my own burial ground—he has fixed them for the same hour; yet, after
having, with my assistance, completed one of them, he has coolly left me to wait till he could fetch the other; so that, what with wasted time, exhausted
patience, and trials of temper owing to incivility and other annoyances from such persons as a clergyman is thus brought into contact with, he has, to say
the least, as much inconvenience as the public have to complain of.
Among the inconveniences which the necessities of our parochial system impose upon the working-classes, may be mentioned the practice just now
alluded to, viz., the omission of the in-church service in all cases where it is not specially paid for. Looking at my parishioners in a religious light, and at
a moment when all ranks and conditions are literally levelled in the dust, I feel this to be an invidious distinction between rich and poor; and I think it but
natural that the poor should prefer burial in places where such a distinction is less strongly marked.

In another part of his highly important communication, he observes—
In the course of my remarks I have adverted to our inadequate parochial provision for the burial of the dead in populous places, and to the consequent
inconvenience which has placed the churchyard in unfavourable contrast with the dissenting ground. There is another inconvenience, however, which
attaches to both, and which is inseparable from the burial of the dead in a crowded population: I mean the impossibility of maintaining a due solemnity
on such an occasion.
If the working-classes of a populous city are less awfully affected by the sight of death, from an unavoidable familiarity with it in their own homes, it is
to be feared that they and others meet with much to prevent or impair a wholesome sensibility upon it in public; for there the touching associations of a
burial, and the sublime spirituality of our burial office are broken in upon by the exhibition of the most vulgar and even ludicrous scenes of daily life.
The eastern end of my parish ground, for instance, abuts upon Brick-lane, one of our most crowded and noisy thoroughfares, and at one corner stands a
public-house, which, of course, is not without its attraction to all orders of street minstrels. In performing the burial service, I have left the church, while
the organ has been playing a beautiful and impressive requiem movement, and proceeded to the grave, where it was purely accidental if I did not hear the
very inappropriate tune mentioned by my medical friend.
Indeed, as my church extends along one side of another crowded street, I have had most inappropriate musical accompaniments, even during that part of
the burial service which is performed within the church. My burial ground is partially exposed to the street at the west end also; and there, as at the east,
it is liable to be invaded by sounds and sights of the most incongruous description. Boys clamber up the outside of the wall, hang upon the railing, and, as
if tempted by the effect of contrast, take a wanton delight in the noisy utterance of the most familiar, disrespectful, and offensive expressions;—of course,
all attempts to put down this nuisance from within the burial ground serve only to aggravate it, and nothing could put it down but a police force ordered
to the outside every time that a burial takes place. To this wilful disturbance is added the usual uproar of a crowded thoroughfare,—whistling, calling,
shouting, street-cries, and the creaking and rattling of every kind of vehicle—the whole forming such a scene of noisy confusion as sometimes to make
me inaudible. On all these occasions, indeed, I labour under the indescribable uneasiness of feeling myself out of place. Amidst such a reckless din of
secular traffic, I feel as if I were prostituting the spirituality of prayer, and profaning even the symbolical sanctity of my surplice. And yet, the exposure
of my burial-ground is but partial, and is little or nothing compared with that of many others. The ground is hardly less desecrated by the scenes within it;
on Sundays, especially, it is the resort of the idle, who pass by the church and its services to lounge and gaze in the churchyard. It is made a play-ground
by children of both sexes, who skip and scamper about it, and, if checked by our officers, will often retort with impertinence, abuse, obscenity, or
profaneness. I generally have to force my way to a grave through a crowd of gossips, and as often to pause in the service, to intimate that the murmurs of
some or the loud talk of others will not allow me to proceed. I hardly ever witness in any of these crowds any indication of a religious sentiment. I may
sometimes chance to observe a serious shake of the head among them; but, with these rare exceptions, I see them impressed with no better feeling than
the desire to while away their time in gratifying a vulgar curiosity. On the burial of any notorious character,—of a suicide, of a man who has perished by
manslaughter, of a woman who has died in child-birth, or even of a child who has been killed by being run over in the street, this vulgar excitement rises
to an insufferable height. If, in such a case, the corpse is brought into my church, this sacred and beautiful structure is desecrated and disfigured by the

hurried intrusion of a squalid and irreverent mob, and clergyman, corpse, and mourners are jostled and mixed up with the confused mass, by the
uncontrollable pressure from without. I will not, indeed, venture to say that, on these occasions, the mourners always feel and dislike this uproar, for I
believe that among the working classes they often congratulate themselves upon it. There is an éclat about it which ministers to the love of petty
distinction before alluded to; but, whether through the operation of this feeling or the many other abominable mischiefs attending the burial of the dead in
populous places, there is much to counteract or impair the solemn and impressive effect of religious obsequies.

§ 89. The feeling of a large proportion of the population appears to be dissatisfaction with the intra-mural parochial
interments, less on sanitary grounds than from an aversion to the profanation arising from interment amidst the
scenes of the crowd and bustle of every-day life. This feeling is manifested in the increasing numbers who
abandon the interments, even in parishes where the places of burial are neatly kept, where, if there be nothing to
satisfy, there is nothing to offend the eye, where the service is solemnly and attentively performed, and where the
amount of the burial fees cannot be supposed to influence the choice. The increasing feeling of aversion is indeed
manifested by acts less liable to error than any verbal testimony, by the increasing abandonment of parochial
family-vaults by the gentry and middle classes of the population, by payments from the labouring classes, even of
increased burial dues for interments in places apart from the profanation of every-day life. The feeling manifested
may be stated to be a national one, and to call for measures of a corresponding extent and character.

Means of diminishing the evil of the retention of the Remains of the Dead amidst the Living.

The most predominant of the physical, if not of the moral evils which follow the train of death, to the labouring
classes, being the long retention of the corpse in their one room, the means of altering this practice claims priority
in the consideration of remedies.
§ 90. The delay of interment, it has been shown, is greatly increased by the expense of the funerals; but in a
considerable proportion of cases, where the expense is provided for, the delay still occurs, chiefly from feelings
which require to be consulted,—the fear of interment before life is extinct.
§ 91. It has been proposed by an arbitrary enactment, without qualification or provision of securities, to forbid all
delay of interments beyond a certain number of hours. Such a provision would, in the shape proposed, and without
other securities, run counter to the feelings of the population, and standing as a self-executing law it would have
but little operation.
The proposed compulsory clause stood thus in the bill of the session of 1842 without any qualification:—
“And be it enacted, That from and after the First day of October, One thousand eight hundred and forty, if any dead body shall continue unburied
between the First day of May and the Thirty-first day of October, both days inclusive, more than hours, or between the First day of November and
the Thirtieth day of April, both days inclusive, more than hours, the executors or administrators to the estate and effects of such deceased person, or
the friends or relatives of the same, or any one of such friends or relatives present at the burial, or the occupier of the house from which such dead body
shall be removed to be buried, shall forfeit the sum of Twenty shillings for every Twenty-four hours after the expiration of such respective periods.”

From the closeness of the rooms in which the poorer classes die, and from large fires being on such occasions
lighted in them, decomposition often proceeds with as much rapidity in winter as in summer. The mental sufferings
from the prolonged retention of the body amidst the living, §§ 26, 3, 39, and the moral objections to it also, § 42,
would be as intense in the winter as in the summer, or more so.
§ 92. In several of the continental states, about half a century ago, similar enactments were passed; but it was
found necessary to accompany them with various securities; and where these securities, such as the medical
inspection and certificate before interment, have been loose, events have occurred which have convinced the
public of the necessity of strengthening them. In a recent report on the subject at Paris, by M. Orfila, he adduces an
instance.
“In October, 1837, M. Deschamps, an inhabitant of la Guillotière, at Lyons, died at the end of a short indisposition. His obsequies were ordered for the
next day. On the next day the priests and the vergers, the corpse-bearers and conductors of funerals, attended. At the moment when they were about to
nail down the lid of the coffin, the corpse rose in its shroud, sat upright, and asked for something to eat. The persons present were about to run away in
terror, as from a phantom, but they were re-assured by M. Deschamps himself, who happily recovered from a lethargic sleep, which had been mistaken
for death. Due cares were bestowed upon him, and he lived. After his recovery he stated that in his state of lethargy he had heard all that had passed
around him, without being able to make any movement, or to give any expression to his sensations. * * * It is fortunate for M. Deschamps that the
funeral, which was to have taken place in the evening, was deferred until the morning, when the lethargic access terminated, otherwise he would have
been interred alive.” * *

In the last number of the Annales d’Hygiene, the following recent instances are cited, as proving the necessity of a
regular verification throughout the kingdom of the fact of death:—
A midwife of the commune of Paulhan (Hérault) was believed to be dead and was put in a coffin. At the expiration of twenty-four hours she was carried
to the church and from thence to the cemetery. But during its progress the bearers felt some movement in the coffin, and were surprised and frightened.
They stopped and opened the coffin, when they found the unfortunate woman alive! she had merely fallen into a lethargy. She was carried back to her
home, but in consequence of the shock she received she only survived a few days the horrible accident.

It is stated from Bergerac (Dordogne), of the date of the 27th of December, 1842, that—
An individual of the Commune d’Eymet, who suffered from the continued want of sleep, having consulted a medical practitioner, took on his
prescription a potion which certainly caused sleep; but the patient slept always, and the prolongation of the repose created great anxiety, and occasioned
his being bled. The blood flowed feebly, drop by drop. Then he was declared to be dead. At the expiration of a few days, however, the potion given to the
patient was remembered, and an uneasy sensation that it might have been the cause of an apparent death, caused the exhumation of the body. When the
coffin was opened the horrible fact was apparent to all present that the unfortunate man had really been buried alive; he had turned round in the coffin!
His distorted limbs showed that he had long struggled against death.

In the “Journal des Débats,” bearing date February 21, 1843, a letter is given from Caen of the 17th February,
informing us “that Madame * * * dwelling in the Rue Saint-Jean, appeared, after a long sickness, to expire on
Tuesday evening. The sad functions of preparing her for the tomb were performed during the night. On the
Thursday morning the coffin was brought, and as the two men were about to lay her in it, she moved in their
hands, and woke up from the profound lethargy in which she was plunged. Madame * * * is in a state of health
which leaves little hope. We shudder to contemplate the horrible end which awaited her if the trance had continued
some hours longer.”

§ 93. I am informed of one case, which occurred in a private family in this country, of a disentombment, made
under very similar circumstances to those of the case related from Bergerac, which revealed a similarly horrible
event, the body being found turned in the coffin. The belief of the occurrence of such cases in this country is
sometimes founded on statements of the bodies being found out of their proper position in the coffins; but nothing
is more probable than the discomposure of the body from its recumbent position, by jolting at the time of its
removal down steep and narrow staircases. Sir Benjamin Brodie observes:—“Mistakes such as these here alluded
to must be very rare, and can be the result only of the grossest neglect. The movements of respiration are always
perceptible to the eye, and cannot be overlooked by any one who does not choose to overlook them, and there is no
doubt that the heart never continues to act more than four or five minutes after respiration has entirely ceased. But
it is not always easy to say what is the exact moment at which death hath taken place, as in some instances the
inspirations for some time previously are repeated at very long intervals. Thus I have watched a dying person, and
supposed that he was dead, when, after a minute’s interval, there has been a fresh inspiration; then one or two more
presently afterwards; then another long interval, and so on. I have no doubt that persons in this condition are often
sensible, and even hear and understand all that is said.
“It may be doubtful whether sensibility is always immediately extinguished when the heart has ceased to act. In
persons who have died of the Asiatic cholera convulsive movements of the body have been observed even several
hours after apparent death. If the nervous system has remained in such a state as this implies, who can say that it
did not retain its sensibility? There is no account of persons in whom such convulsions (after apparent death) have
taken place having recovered; but this occurrence, even without chance of recovery, forms a strong argument
against the immediate burial of persons who have died of the cholera.”[24]
§ 94. The extreme ignorance and terror of the lowest class of the population on the occurrence of a death which
they may never have witnessed before, must be expected to stand in the place of gross neglect. Of the lower class
of officers in public establishments, when unsuperintended by well qualified and responsible persons, the
occurrence of gross neglect must be anticipated. Cases have recently occurred, and have at other times, though
rarely, occurred, where the sick are laid out for dead, who have afterwards recovered. “To the skilful medical
practitioner,” says Dr. Paris, (Paris and Fonblanque’s Medical Jurisprudence, vol. ii., p. 44,) “we apprehend such
signs must ever be unequivocal, but we are not prepared to say that common observers may not be deceived by
them.” And he adduces instances where they have been. He cites the testimony of Howard, who, in his work on
prisons, says, “I have known instances where persons supposed to be dead of the gaol fever, and brought out for
burial, on being washed with cold water have shown signs of life, and have soon afterwards recovered.”

Dr. Paris also states that—
At the period when the small-pox raged with such epidemic fury, and physicians so greatly aggravated its violence by their stimulating plan of cure, there
can be no doubt but that many persons were condemned as dead who afterwards recovered; amongst the numerous cases that might be cited in support of
this opinion, the following may be considered as well authenticated:—the daughter of Henry Lawrens, the first president of the American Congress,
when an infant was laid out as dead, in the small-pox; upon which the window of the apartment, that had been carefully closed during the progress of the
disease, was thrown open to ventilate the chamber, when the fresh air revived the supposed corpse, and restored her to her family; this circumstance
occasioned in the father so powerful a dread of living interment, that he directed by will that his body should be burnt, and enjoined on his children the
performance of this wish as a sacred duty. We can also imagine, that women after the exhaustion consequent on severe and protracted labours may lie for
some time in a state so like that of death, as to deceive the by-standers; a very extraordinary case of this kind is related in the Journal de Savans, Janvier
1749.
Dr. Gordon Smith, in his work on Forensic Medicine, has observed, that in cases of precipitancy or confusion, as in times of public sickness, the living
have not unfrequently been mingled with the dead, and that in warm climates, where speedy interment is more necessary than in temperate and cold
countries, persons have been entombed alive. We feel no hesitation in believing that such an event may be possible; but the very case with which the
author illustrates his position is sufficient to convince us that its occurrence would be highly culpable, and could only arise from the most unpardonable
inattention: “I was,” says Dr. Smith, “an eye witness of an instance in a celebrated city on the continent, where a poor woman, yet alive, was solemnly
ushered to the margin of the grave in broad day, and whose interment would have deliberately taken place, but for the interposition of the by-standers.” If
the casual observer was thus able to detect the signs of animation, the case is hardly one that should have been adduced to show the difficulty of deciding
between real and apparent death.

Although the chances may be as millions to one against such a horrible occurrence, yet the existence of the painful
feeling of the possibility of such an event, even if the apprehended possibility were utterly unreal, is as valid
ground for the adoption of measures to prevent and alleviate the painful feeling, as if the danger were real and
frequent. A large proportion of the population, especially in Scotland, are deeply impressed with the horror of
being buried alive. Amongst the working-classes the feeling is sometimes manifested in a dying request that they
may not be “hurried at once to the grave.”
One consequence of abandoning the rite of burial, as a trade and source of emolument to persons without
instruction or qualification, who employ for important ministrations agents of the lowest class, § 51, is, that only

the superficial, ceremonial, and profitable portions of the service are usually attended to, and that important private
and public securities are lost. One of the proper ministrations after death, a purification or ablution of the body, is
generally omitted. On inquiring, as to the effects produced amongst the lower class of Irish by the retention of the
body amidst the survivors under circumstances of imminent danger, a comparative immunity has been ascribed to
the practice which they maintain of washing the corpse immediately after death. Amongst the lower class of the
English and Scotch population of the towns, this important sanitary rite is extensively neglected, and the corpse is
generally kept (except the face) with the sordes of disease upon it. The occurrence of such cases as have already
been mentioned, § 31 and § 40, of the propagation by contact of diseases of a malignant character, may probably
be sometimes ascribed to this neglect. The ablution, whether with tepid or cold water, as a general practice, is a
protection against cases of protracted syncope or suspended animation. Besides these cases, there are others of a
judicial nature which cannot be termed extraordinary amidst a population where deaths from accidents or one
description of violence or other, a large proportion of them involving criminality, amount in England and Wales
alone to between 11,000 and 12,000 per annum. Cases have occurred of violent deaths discovered on exhumation,
and on judicial examination where marks of violence have been covered by the shroud, and where the coffin has
been closed on primâ facie evidence of murder.
Between the every-day dangers arising from the undue retention of the dead amidst the living, and all real dangers
and painful apprehensions, a course of proceeding has been taken at Franckfort, and several cities in Germany,
which has hitherto been perfectly successful as a sanitary measure, and highly satisfactory to the population.
§ 95. A case is stated to have occurred at Franckfort, where, on taking to the grave a child which had died
immediately after its mother, who had been just interred, on opening her coffin the eye of the supposed corpse
moved, and she was taken out and recovered. She stated that she retained sensation, but had utterly lost all power
of volition, even when the coffin was closed, and she heard the earth fall upon it.
§ 96. This case, and some others which have undoubtedly occurred in Germany, led to the establishment of houses
at Franckfort and Munich for the reception and care of the dead until their interment; and similar establishments
have now been attached to a large proportion of the German cities, under regulations substantially the same. The
State regulations of interments at Munich (translations of which, and of those at Franckfort, together with plans
showing the construction of the houses of reception, I have given in the Appendix) have this recital:—
“Whereas it is of importance to all men to be perfectly assured that the beings who were dear to them in life are not
torn from them so long as any, the remotest, hope exists of preserving them,—so death itself becomes less dreadful
in its shape when one is convinced of its actual occurrence, and that a danger no longer exists of premature
interment.
“To afford this satisfaction to mankind, and to preclude the possibility of any one being treated as dead who is not
actually so; to prevent the spread of infectious disorders as much as possible; to suppress the quackeries so highly
injurious to the health of the people; to discover murders committed by secret violence; and to deliver the
perpetrators over to the hands of justice;—is the imperative duty of every wise government; and in order to
accomplish these objects, every one of which is of the greatest importance, recourse must be had to the safety, that
is to say the medical police, as the most efficient means, by a strict medical examination into the deaths occurring,
and by a conformable inspection of the body.”
The regulations provide that, on the occurrence of the death, immediate notice shall be given to the authorities,
who shall cause the body to be removed to the house of reception provided (which at Munich is a chapel where
prayers are said) for its respectful care. At the edifice of the institution at Franckfort, an appropriate apparatus is
provided for the requisite ablutions with warm or tepid water: the body is received, if it be of a female, by properly
appointed nurses, who perform, under superior medical superintendence, the requisite duties. The spirit of the
regulations of these institutions (vide Appendix) may be commended to attention; for if it be a high public duty,
which is not questioned, to treat the remains of the dead with respect and reverence, it follows that public means
should be taken in every stage of proceeding, to protect individuals against the violation of that duty; where private
individuals are, as they almost always are and must be, especially in populous districts, compelled to call in the aid
of strangers for the performance of such ministrations as those of purifying and enshrouding the corpse, such
securities as are exemplified in these regulations should be taken that those duties are confided to hands invested
with responsibilities, and having a character of respectability, if not of sanctity. At Munich, they are intrusted to a
religious order of Nuns. At Franckfort a private room is appropriated for the reception of each corpse, where
regular warmth and due ventilation and light, night and day, are maintained. Here it may be visited by the relations
or friends properly entitled. On a finger of each corpse is placed a ring, attached to which is the end of a string of a

bell,[25] which on the slightest motion will give an alarm to one of the watchmen in nightly and daily attendance, by
whom the resident physician will be called. Each body is daily inspected by the responsible physician, by whom a
certificate of unequivocal symptoms of death must be given before any interment is allowed to take place. The
legislative provisions of the institution of the house of reception at Franckfort are thus stated:—
The following are the regulations regarding the use of the house for the reception and care of the dead, which are here made known for every one’s
observance.
(1.) The object of this institution is—
a. To give perfect security against the danger of premature interment.
b. To offer a respectable place for the reception of the dead, in order to remove the corpse from the confined dwellings of the survivors.
(2.) The use of the reception-house is quite voluntary, yet, in case the physician may consider it necessary for the safety of the survivors that the dead be
removed, a notification to this effect must be forwarded to the Younger Burgermeister to obtain the necessary order.
(3.) Even in case the house of reception is not used the dead cannot be interred, until after the lapse of three nights, without the proper certificate of the
physician that the signs of decomposition have commenced. In order to prevent the indecency which has formerly occurred, of preparing too early the
certificate of the death, the physician shall in future sign a preliminary announcement of the occurrence of death, for the sake of the previous
arrangements necessary for an interment, but the certificate of death is only to be prepared when the corpse shows unequivocal signs of decomposition
having commenced. For the dead which it is wished to place in the house of reception, the physician prepares a certificate of removal. This certificate of
removal can only be given after the lapse of the different periods, of six hours; in sudden death, of twelve hours; and in other cases, twenty-four hours.

§ 97. A German merchant, now resident in London, who took great interest in the institution, informs me that he
visited it in company with his friend, one of the inspecting physicians of this house of reception. His attention was
there attracted by the corpse of a beautiful child:—that child turned out not to be dead, and he himself saw it alive
and recovered. No such event is known to have occurred at Munich.
This gentleman, and Mr. Koch, our consul at Franckfort, who obtained for this Report the plans of the house of
reception and the regulations for interment in that city, both attest from extensive knowledge of its population, that
the effect of this institution, of which all classes avail themselves, is, on the part of the poorest and most
susceptible classes, to allay all feelings of reluctance to part with the remains, and to create, on the contrary, a
general desire for their removal from the private house early after death, that they may be placed under the care of
skilful and responsible officers. The aggravation and extension of disease to the living is thus prevented; the
protraction of the pain of the weaker and more susceptible of the survivors, arising from the undue retention of the
remains, and the demoralizing effect of familiarity with them on the parts of the younger, and those of the least
susceptible of the survivors, are equally avoided.
The following is an extract from an official report made for this inquiry through the English Ambassador, on the
operation of similar regulations at Munich:—
“The arrangements made for the speedy removal of the body after death are considered highly beneficial in a
sanative point of view, as tending to check the spread of contagious and unclean disorders, more particularly in the
crowded parts of the town.
“At the same time the great care and attention paid to the bodies in the place where they are deposited, the
precautions taken in cases of re-animation, and the ascertaining beyond a doubt the actual occurrence of death, are
sufficiently satisfactory to the surviving relations.
“The examinations also which take place immediately after death have been found equally useful in detecting the
employment of violent or improper means in causing death, as well as in discovering the existence of any
contagious disease against which it is of importance to guard.
“There is only one burial ground for the whole city of Munich, on a scale sufficiently large for the population, and
open to Protestants as well as Catholics, without distinction.”
§ 98. The practical means for the accomplishment of such an alteration of custom in the mode of keeping the
remains of the deceased, preparatory to interment, in the towns of England, may be further considered in
connexion with the remedial measures, for the reduction of the great and unnecessary expense of funerals.
Mr. Hewitt states the practical need of some such accommodation of survivors for the temporary reception of the
dead in the crowded districts, independently of the high considerations on which the intermediate houses of
reception at Franckfort and Munich and other parts of Germany were established.
The house in which my foreman lives is seldom unoccupied by a corpse. During the last week there were three at one time. The poor people speak of the
inconvenience of having the corpse in their house, where they have only one room for their family. It is customary for me to say, “Very well, then, you
may be accommodated; the body may be brought to our house, and kept until the time of the funeral, when you and your friends may come to the house
and put on your fittings and follow the body to the ground.” This is done: men and women come to the house, put on hoods, scarves, coats, and hatbands,
and follow the body to the ground. The body is sometimes removed under these circumstances from the room of the private house where the death has

taken place, but it is most frequently done when the death of a poor person has occurred in an hospital, a workhouse, or a prison, and it is wished to bury
them respectably, but where it would be inconvenient to remove them to the only room which the family have to live in. I believe that all the undertakers
receive deceased persons in their houses and keep them for burial.
Judging from the particular instances coming within your own experience, do you believe that if arrangements of a superior order were made for the
reception of bodies and keeping them under medical care previous to interment, the accommodation would be deemed a boon?—Yes; it would be a boon
to a great many classes, especially the poorest. It would be a great accommodation also to many persons of the middle classes—shopkeepers, who only
keep the under part of their houses and let off the upper parts. On the occurrence of a death these classes are as much inconvenienced by the presence of a
corpse as are persons of the labouring classes. And yet there are few who like to have a burial take place in less time than a week. To such persons as
these it would certainly be a very great accommodation to have an intermediate house of reception for the due care of the body until the proper time of
interment.

Mr. Thomas Tagg, jun., an undertaker of extensive business in the city of London, states, that “besides the poorest
classes who die at hospitals and are buried by their friends, and are sometimes taken to the undertaker’s premises,
when more convenient to the relatives of the deceased than to be removed to their own houses, that respectable
persons also from the country, who die at an hotel or inn, or in apartments, are occasionally removed to the
undertaker’s until the coffins are made, and they can be conveyed to the residence of their family, or their vaults in
the country.”
§ 99. Mr. Wild gives other examples of the practice; and states that instances sometimes occur of persons of
respectable condition in life who cannot bear the painful impressions produced by the long continued presence of
the corpse in the house, and who quit it, and return to attend the funeral.
§ 100. Mr. P. H. Holland, surgeon and registrar of Chorlton-on-Medlock, in Manchester, states an instance where a
mother who had lost two of her children from small-pox (as she conceived, from the retention in the house of the
corpse of a child belonging to another woman which had also died of the small-pox) stated that it would be a great
boon to the poorer classes to provide proper places to receive bodies until the convenient time of interment. The
extent of benefit which such a provision would confer, and which is attested by other witnesses of extensive
experience, will indeed be sufficiently manifest on consideration of the circumstances under which they are placed.
§ 101. It is only submitted that suitable accommodation should be provided for the removal and care of bodies, and
given, as it would be, as a boon. Confident statements are frequently made that the removal of the deceased from
private houses to any public place of reception would be resisted; but it appears on an examination of the cases in
which resistance was made, that in most of them the arrangements were really offensive, coarse-minded, and
vulgar, and such as to prove that the feelings of the relations and survivors were little cared for by those who ought
to have understood and consulted them. In some cases of the lowest paupers the retention of the body has been
proved to have arisen from a desire to raise money, on the pretext of applying it to defray the expenses of the
funeral long after it had been provided for; but the objection of the respectable portions of the labouring classes are
objections not to the removal itself, but to the mode and sort of place in which it is commonly performed on the
occurrence of a death from contagious disease, in a bare parish shell, by pauper bearers, to the “bone-house” or
other customary receptacle for suicides, deserted or relationless, or, as they are sometimes termed, “God-forsaken
people.” On the occurrence of the cholera little difficulty was interposed by any class to the immediate removal of
the dead. The success of such a measure would depend entirely on the mode in which it is conducted.
§ 102. In reference to all such alterations, it may here be premised that very serious practical errors are frequently
created by taking particular manifestations of feeling or prejudice, and assuming those prejudices to be
impregnable, and assuming, moreover, that any or every prejudice pervades the entire population.
Not only does the extent of the prejudices which are supposed to stand in the way of regulations of the practice of
interments, but the difficulties of overcoming them, appear, from an examination of the evidence, to be commonly
much exaggerated; but it appears that the nature of the objections themselves is much mistaken: it appears, for
example, that the prejudice against dissection often arises less from a desire to preserve the remains in their living
form than to preserve them from profanation and disrespect. In no part of the country has a more intense feeling
been manifested to preserve the remains of the dead from dissection than in Scotland, where the expense of safes
made of iron bars, strongly riveted down, and of a watchman to watch it, forms a prominent item of the funeral
charges. Yet when the studies of the schools of anatomy were allowed to depend chiefly on the supplies of subjects
stolen from the graves, it is stated by practitioners who, whilst students, were themselves driven to that mode of
procuring subjects, that their labours were frequently frustrated by the precautions the survivors had taken to
render the use of the remains for dissection impossible, by putting quick lime into the coffin to destroy them. The
same precaution has been known to have been sometimes taken for the same purpose in London; and yet by proper
care and attention to the feelings of the survivors, the practice of post-mortem examinations has been extended,
and the consent to the use of the remains even for dissection in the schools has been frequently obtained from the

survivors. A witness of peculiar and extensive opportunities of experience in several thousand cases was asked on
this point—
Have you had any reason to believe, that by careful and kind treatment of the labouring classes, their prejudices may be extensively overcome?—Yes,
certainly. There was no prejudice stronger or more general than that to post-mortem examinations, or to any dissection; yet by care, and by the
inducement of the allowance of a better funeral, that prejudice has been extensively overcome. The teachers of the medical schools, after dissection of a
body, and its use for the advancement of medical knowledge, have made a liberal allowance for the interment of the remains; such sums as three or four
pounds have been allowed for that service. When the relations of the poorest classes have expressed the common aversion to a pauper funeral, and their
pain at having to submit to it on account of their necessity, I have told them if they would allow the remains to be taken to a medical school, and be
examined, the teachers would allow them such a respectable funeral as they wish; I have sometimes added, “It is for the advancement of science; persons
of the highest rank and condition in society have directed their remains to be examined, and I do not see what sound objection there can be to any of the
poorest classes doing so.” Whenever I have made the offer under such circumstances it has generally been accepted.
Of course after the examination at the schools, the remains were properly and respectfully interred?—Yes they were, wherever the parties requested,
whether in or out of the parish.—They frequently chose places of interment out of the parish, and in some instances places two or three miles distant, and
almost always out of the town.
Why was the burial mostly chosen out of the parish?—Generally from a dislike to the places and mode in which paupers were buried; to their being put
into a hole, where, perhaps, fifty others were, instead of having a separate grave. They frequently made it a main condition, that the remains should be
buried out of the parish.

The means to ensure voluntary compliance with all salutary regulations for the better ordering of interments, are
those which ensure real respect to the remains of the interred, and thus to the feelings of the survivors. The
widows’ and the mothers’ feelings of reluctance to part with the corpse would, from such measures, receive
appropriate alleviation.

Proposed Remedies by means of separate Parochial Establishments in Suburban Districts.
§ 103. A set of remedies, as proposed in the Committee of the House of Commons, and agreed to, has been before
the public, and the chief part of them embodied in a bill proposed to the House at the close of the Session of
Parliament of 1842. All the evidence of disinterested persons which I have met with, all paid and experienced
officers connected with parishes, whose interests would perhaps be the least disturbed by parochial establishments,
concur in the conclusion that the measures proposed for creating such establishments would not diminish, but
would rather diffuse, and might even aggravate the evils intended to be remedied.
By the first clause it was proposed to enact—
That the rector, vicar, or incumbent, and the church-wardens of every parish, township, or place in every such city, town, borough, or place respectively,
shall form a parochial committee of health for every such parish, township, or place.

§ 104. The first observation which occurs on this proposal is, that it involves the formation of “a committee of
health,” for the execution of a sanitary measure, requiring the application of a very high degree of the science
applicable to the protection of the public health, and omits all provision of services of the nature of those which
would be required from a well-qualified medical officer. A provision on a parochial scale would indeed preclude
the regular application of such service, except at a disproportionate expense. As a remedy against undue charges on
the smaller parishes, a power of forming unions for the purpose is provided by the clause.
Or it shall be lawful for the rectors, vicars, or incumbents and church-wardens of any two or more parishes, townships, or places therein, to form such
parishes, townships, or places into a Union for the purposes of this Act; and in such cases the rectors, vicars, or incumbents, and church-wardens of each
parish, township, or place so united, shall form a parochial committee of health for such Union; and all the powers hereinafter given to any such
committee may be executed by the majority of the members of any such committee at any meeting.

It is agreed by the most experienced public officers, that even a compulsory power to form unions of two parishes,
but leaving the union beyond that number optional, would be equivalent to a provision, that two and no more shall
unite; but that a merely permissive power to unite would be nugatory, except perhaps in the case of the smallest
parishes: in other words, since there are in the district to which the enactment would apply, in the metropolis,
upwards of 170 parishes, it would imply the establishment of upwards of 100 places of burial in such places as the
following clauses would enable the parishes to provide.
And be it enacted, that every such committee may provide a convenient site of land for the burial of the dead of the district for which such committee
shall be formed, which land shall not be in or within the distance of two miles from the precincts or boundaries of the city of London or Westminster, or
the borough of Southwark, or in or within one mile of any other city, town, borough, or place; and no land which shall be purchased for such purpose
shall be within 300 yards of any house of the annual value of 50l., or having a plantation or ornamental garden or pleasure-ground occupied therewith
(except with the consent in writing of the owner, lessee, and occupier of such house).

An undertaker who has an extensive business, states that he has for some time been desirous of purchasing a piece
of ground for interments in the suburbs of the metropolis, as a private speculation of his own, and that he had been
three years in looking out for a plot that was suitable and purchasable, but has hitherto been unable to procure one.
Other witnesses, on similar grounds, doubt the practicability of parishes procuring land, unless at enormous prices.
Supposing it were possible to procure separate plots for all the parishes which will require them in the suburbs,
there are preliminary objections to the plan which relate to the suburbs themselves.
§ 105. The suburbs, it may be submitted, not only require careful protection on their own account, but on account
of the population of the crowded districts of the metropolis, which are relieved by the growth of the suburbs. The
progress of the new increments to towns is, therefore, as a sanitary measure, entitled to favourable protection. But
the appropriation of vacant places, without reference to any general plan, must create very frequent impediments to
the regular or systematic growth of the suburbs, and can scarcely fail ultimately to deteriorate them. And by the
proposed measure the place of interments being removed, not only without any securities for the adoption of new
measures of precaution, such as will be shown to be requisite in the formation, and also in the management, of
places of burial for a large population, and the proposed machinery being such as to render it very nearly certain
that no improved arrangements can be executed in such burial-grounds, the measure would simply effect the
transference of common grave-yards from the old to the midst of new suburbs; and this transference must be
accompanied by the creation of a new and apparently economical, but really extravagantly expensive and
permanently inferior, agency, for the management of the new ground.
§ 106. These results admit of proof derived from the actual trial of a system of parochial interments apparently
differing in no essential point, and especially in the nature of the agency and the scale of establishments, from the

plan proposed.
In the parishes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, St. George, Hanover-square, St. James, Westminster, and St. Martin’s-in-
the-Fields, over-crowding of the burial grounds within the parish, between forty and fifty years ago, led the parish
officers to obtain local acts for the establishment of burial grounds in the suburbs. The spaces then obtained were
apart from any buildings. They are all now closely surrounded by them. The burial grounds of the parish of St.
Giles-in-the-Fields having been the subject of an investigation before the Committee of the House of Commons, I
have not made any inquiries with relation to them. In the suburban burial ground which belongs to the parish of St.
George, Hanover-square, which consists of two acres of land, the interments have been for many years at the rate
of about 1000 corpses per annum. It is now in the centre of a dense town population. It has become the subject of
complaints similar to those made in respect to burial grounds in the ancient parts of the metropolis; and it appears
that there are equally good grounds for the discontinuance of the practice of interment there, and for the selection
of a burial place at a greater distance, notwithstanding that the payments from individuals produce to the collective
funds of that parish a surplus beyond the expenditure of the management of the ground.
§ 107. The arrangements for burial in the parishes of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, which has a population of 25,000,
and of St. James, Westminster, which has a population of 37,000, where the suburban burial grounds have not been
crowded to the same extent, may be adduced as a high class of examples of a change of practice to extra-mural or
suburban burials, and of management by a parochial machinery. In the parish of St. James, Westminster—
The gross expenditure of the chapel and ground between the years 1789 and 1835 (46 years) amounted to £73,879 1s. 11d., and it is estimated that the
cost of maintaining the chapel and ground during that period over and above the receipts was not less than £50,000, the whole of which was drawn from
the churchwardens under authority of the Act of Parliament.

But the chapel attached to the burial ground of this parish has been converted into a chapel of ease, for the
accommodation of the inhabitants of the parish where it is situate. The vestry clerk of the parish states—
The pew rents, which formerly averaged only £150, now amount to upwards of £500 per annum, while the burial fees have decreased, and are still
decreasing in amount.
The interments of the middle class and more wealthy among the inhabitants of the parish of St. James, which do not take place either in the vaults or
grounds of or belonging to the parish, are presumed to be made in the neighbouring cemeteries, while the labouring class resort chiefly, as I am informed,
to the burial ground in Spa Fields, where the fees are less by 2s. 9d. than at the Hampstead Road ground, the undertaker’s charges being the same for
each.
Is the church to be considered part of the burial ground?—Yes; it is. The Act apparently contemplated only a place for the performance of a service over
the dead, not for services to regular congregations. The minister has a house on the ground, and derives a portion of his emoluments from pew rents,
derived from persons who attend the chapel from the immediate neighbourhood—parishioners of St. Pancras parish; very few, if any, of the parishioners
of St. James, have pews there. The minister, Dr. Stebbing, has a moiety of the pew rents, which now amount to nearly £500 per annum. His proportion of
the burial fees may be about £70 per annum.
Since the commencement, has the income defrayed the expenses of the burial ground?—Since Dr. Stebbing has been the minister it has only just paid the
expenses; but I am apprehensive that it will not continue to do so. By the Act for the regulation of the chapel, any deficiency in the expenditure is
directed to be made good out of the moneys in the churchwardens’ hands. Since the establishment of the chapel it has been a drag on the funds: a very
severe one.
When the chapel was established were there any houses round it?—Not any.
What is its condition in that respect now?—It is now in the midst of houses which are increasing in numbers.

When asked, what was the condition of the burial ground, notwithstanding the expenditure made upon it, he states
that—
The ground, consisting of four acres, is in a very watery condition, but is considered capable of being effectually drained, the expense being the only
obstacle.
Is it considered that the ground will hold more than it does?—Many more; and a much larger amount of burials for a number of years.
What are the objections to the ground?—One objection among the higher classes, and a very serious one, is that it is very wet. After a grave has been
dug, the water in it has risen, and the coffin is lowered into the water.
Has there been any expenditure upon it for rendering it attractive by planting or ornamenting it?—In former years it was planted with trees or shrubs; but
as compared with the cemeteries it cannot pretend to any attractions.
Is there anything in the circumstances of the establishment of the burial ground and chapel for St. James which do not render it a fair example of any
similar measure for an equivalent population in these times?—There appear to be no circumstances to prevent it being considered a fair example.

§ 108. The following is the account of the St. Martin’s suburban burial ground, given by Mr. Le Breton, the clerk
to the guardians of the parish:—
What is the provision made for the burial of the poorer classes in the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields?—The burial ground in Drury-lane in 1804 was
considered to be full, when four acres of ground, situate at Camden-town, were purchased and used as a cemetery. The plot was then in what was
considered the country: the distance of the spot is rather more than two miles from the workhouse. Since its institution it has been completely surrounded
by houses, and they are now building close against the wall of the burial ground. Originally it was designed as a better sort of burial ground, but since
loss has been incurred by it and it has not been found to be attractive; two hundred pounds have recently been expended upon it in planting it. Formerly it
was so wet that when persons went to funerals there they often found that the coffin was let down several feet in water or mire. This created an

unpleasant sensation, and the ground was drained at a great expense into the Fleet-ditch. The objection as to the wetness of the ground does not now
exist.
What have been the expenses, and the numbers of interments and charges of the burial ground?—(The following statement was given in answer to this
question.)

The original cost of forming ground, &c., was about £2,000
£100 =
The price is a perpetual rent-charge of, for the 4 acres, per annum
£3,000
Establishment Charges:—
Chaplain’s salary per annum £60
Sexton’s salary per annum £50
Keeping up ground by gardener £20
Paving rate per annum £30
Compensation to St. Pancras £5
The chaplain and sexton have houses to dwell in, which are kept in repair, insured, and the taxes
£30
paid by the parish at a considerable expense
A private Act of Parliament was obtained, but at what cost does not appear.
The burial ground was formed in 1804, and the charges of it to this date have exceeded £10,000 beyond the fees received.

From 20th March, 1806, to 1st December, 1842.

Total number of burials at Camden-town since the formation of the ground 10,982
Of these were non-parishioners 1,987
Of these were paupers 4,624
Of these were buried in the cheapest ground where monuments are not allowed 1,062
All burials for St. Martin in the Fields, 1841 522
Registered deaths, 1841 589
Beyond the expense of the establishment, have any inconveniences been the subject of complaint by the parishioners?—Yes; that the hours appointed by
the chaplain are not those most suited for interments; that they are often driven off until late in the evening, and in consequence of the time being limited
the service is performed in a hurried manner. In respect to position, the cemetery appears to be convenient, and no one within the district complains of
any offence arising from it. My own view is that there ought to be a central or some other supervision over cemeteries: if there be not there will only be
abuses and grounds of dissatisfaction.
Do you conceive that the experience of the parish of St. Martin, of a separate parochial cemetery, is applicable as an index to the general charge upon the
rate-payers in the other parishes of the metropolis, resulting from the simple prohibition of interments in the town, and the permission to any two or more
parishes to provide cemeteries for; in other words, to the transference of burial grounds from the centre of the town to the midst of the suburbs?—Yes, I
do consider it applicable: moreover, that at the present time, it would be still more difficult to obtain sites within a reasonable distance than it was in
1804: the expenses of separate parochial grounds must therefore be much more considerable.

§ 109. The Rev. Wm. Stone, the rector of Spitalfields, whose position, as the minister of a large and populous
parish, possessing one of the best managed places of burial in the metropolis, gives him peculiar opportunities of
judging of the most advantageous administrative arrangements, and entitles his observations to peculiar weight,
concludes his testimony in the following terms:—
1. As the clergyman of a poor and populous parish, I should regret the necessity of imposing any additional rate upon my parishioners, especially any one
which was likely to be regarded as a church rate; and I feel certain, that a rate assessed for the burial of the dead, and collected under the authority of the
rector and churchwardens, would be so regarded. Under our present system, the burial of the dead is a source of profit; it yields an annual surplus
towards defraying the other expenses of the church; and it thus conspires with other circumstances to make the church-rate fall light upon my
parishioners. But in a population like mine any additional impost would be felt; and confounded, as in such a population it certainly would be, with
church-rate, it might operate mischievously or even fatally against the church establishment of my parish. The same objection would apply in principle to
all poor and populous parishes. As a clergyman, too, I might add more personal considerations; for, though the incumbent, as the only permanent member
of the committee of health, might have some local prominence and weight, more, perhaps, than might everywhere be satisfactory to dissenters; yet, in
imposing pecuniary charges on his parishioners, and levying penalties for the non-payment of those charges, he would have duties unpopular enough to
outweigh the advantage of any distinction conferred on him.
2. If it is said, that a rate of 1d. in the pound would be too light to be felt; it may be said also that it would be too much so to answer its purpose. It is
commonly calculated, that, in my parish, a rate of 6d. in the pound realizes barely 500l., yet the population to be provided with interment is above
20,000. And as all the parishes about us are in much the same circumstances this objection would apply equally to a union of parishes.
3. There is much that is objectionable in the proposed local committees of health.
A local board would be less likely to possess the confidence of the people. Indeed, it would be exposed to the influence of personal interest and local
partialities; and still more so, if the majority of its members were in office for a year or two only. A board of this kind may be said to exist already in my
own parish, where a local Act of Parliament places the burial ground in the hands of the parish officers. And it is but a few years since my attention was
forcibly called to the insecurity of this local arrangement by one of my parishioners. This parishioner, who was intimately and practically acquainted with
the working of our parochial system, represented to me the necessity of adopting increased precautions for the protection of our burial ground, “for,” said

he, “a partial or interested parish officer might do almost anything he pleased with it;” and he proceeded to name an individual, who had even intimated
his intention to do so as soon as he should come into office. There can be no doubt, indeed, that any individual might do so. It is impossible to say, to
what extent a tradesman so disposed might oblige his friends and customers, and benefit himself; for as senior officer of the year he would have the sole
disposal of the burial ground, and receive all payments for burials, private graves, vaults, and the erection of monumental tablets, without any demand
upon those receipts, but a limited sum payable to the rector, and without any inspective control over them but that of a board of auditors chosen from his
brother vestrymen. From my own observation, I do not think that parish auditors are generally very accurate in their investigations. But on a subject like
the one in question, they hardly could be so. Even supposing what is seldom, if ever, the case, that they had a practical knowledge of the subject, and
conducted their investigations with the authorized table of fees before them, they might in many instances be eluded. During the first four years of my
incumbency, the parish officers reported their receipts for burials at the average amount of 215l. a-year, which sum, after the deduction of 125l. secured
to the rector, left an annual surplus of 90l. At that time it was generally held to be a point of official honour, that the amount of this surplus should be kept
secret out of doors. It was kept secret even from the rector; and it may serve at once to show the impolicy of secrecy, and the extent to which local
authorities are distrusted, that my predecessor always had his misgivings on the subject. Though remarkable for the mildness and amiability of his
disposition, he could never surmise any more innocent misapplication of this surplus, than that it was alienated from the church for the relief of the poor
rate.
A constant change in the majority of a local board would be most unfavourable to uniformity of system, efficiency, and economy. Upon this ground I
believe the church to be a great loser by the office of churchwarden. An individual charged with raising and expending the ecclesiastical finances of a
parish for a year only is little likely to perform those duties as well as if he had a more permanent authority. To say nothing of his having more temptation
to indolence, and to an ostentatious or interested profusion, he labours under the unavoidable disadvantage of inexperience. By the time that he becomes
efficient in his office, he is called upon to retire from it.
A local board would want many other advantages of a more publicly constituted authority. Supplied with members by the casualties of parochial office, it
could not always command a high order of intelligence. It would necessarily be limited in its opportunities of observation; and, as it could not make its
purchases and regulate its current expenditure to the same advantage as if it acted on a more extensive scale, it would, of course, prove less economical to
the public.
In fact, from all my local observation, I am led to hope that, in removing the interment of the dead from populous towns, the Legislature will adopt not a
parochial but a comprehensive national plan for the purpose.

Mr. Drew, the vestry clerk and superintendent registrar of Bermondsey, makes similar objections to the proposed
machinery; that “the persons nominated to carry out such a measure in parishes would not be satisfactory to the
inhabitants, even if they were disposed to act.”
Mr. Corder, the clerk to the Strand Union, was asked upon this subject—
What do you believe to be the prevailing opinion in your Union on the subject of town interments?—I believe there is a strong and growing opinion
against the practice of interring in London and its immediate environs. I believe that public feeling generally is opposed to that custom, as being
prejudicial to health, and often more distressing to the feelings of the survivors than interments would be in a more distant and less familiar and
frequented spot.
Do you think the parishioners of London parishes would approve of separate and distinct parochial cemeteries?—No, I think they would prefer having
one or more cemeteries on a very extensive scale to having parochial cemeteries which, in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, would, I think, be found
almost impracticable.
Do you think that parishes generally would object to the expense of providing cemeteries?—I think that if separate parochial cemeteries were
established, the expense incurred would be so serious as to induce parishes almost to submit to the evils resulting from town interments rather than incur
so heavy an expenditure. One of the advantages of having one or more cemeteries on a large scale would be that the expense would be thereby
proportionably and very considerably diminished.

George Downing, a mechanic, and secretary to a burial society, it will be found, represents sentiments extensively
prevalent amongst persons of his own class in the metropolis.
Do you conceive that any arrangements for the improvement of interments would be carried on more acceptably to the labouring classes if they were
conducted by officers connected with the parish, or by a larger and superior agency?—The working people would sell their beds from under them sooner
than have any parish funerals: it is heart-rending to them, and they would prefer any other officers to the parish officers.
Do you find that they are prepared to have interments in the towns prohibited?—Yes, it has been very much debated upon since the scenes in the
churchyards are made known, and they wish the bill to be carried. I am confident that every man in our club would petition to have the bill carried, so
that such scenes may be put a stop to. I find the opinion of the working men on the subject is quite universal about it. They expect that Government will
provide the grounds and some means of conveyance.

Mr. Dix was asked—
Is it the expectation of the labouring and poorer classes that large public cemeteries will be provided?—Yes, that I think is the general opinion.
Do you conceive that large cemeteries, on a national scale, will be more acceptable to the labouring classes than parochial burial grounds, whether in the
present grounds or in burial grounds in the suburbs of the metropolis?—I think the national cemeteries will be much more popular.
If the burials of the working population could be performed in the more ornamented and attractive cemeteries, such as those at Highgate and Kensal
Green, at the same expense as in any of the grounds within the town, would there be any who would not be buried there?—I think very few.

Unequivocal proof is given of the dispositions of the labouring classes in this respect by the fact that the number of
interments of persons of those classes in cemeteries is increasing, even under increased charges. For example, on
examining the mortuary registries of the Westminster cemetery, to see what were the class of persons interred, it
appeared that the majority of the persons interred in that, which is the cemetery most heavily charged with burial
fees, was of the labouring classes from St. George’s, Hanover-square. The fees for interment, in the suburban
burial ground in the Bayswater-road, belonging to their own parish, were 15s.; and interments in the trading burial
grounds might have been obtained at lower rates: but the fees paid for interment at the more distant cemetery are

30s. for each burial. The registries contained similar evidence in an increasing number of interments of the
labouring classes from immediately adjacent suburban parishes, such as Chelsea, Brompton, and Kensington, of a
disposition to make sacrifices, to obtain interments in places that are more free from offensive associations to them
than those which attach to the parochial burial grounds.
Mr. Wild was asked—
So far as your experience goes, does the practice of interment in cemeteries result from motives of economy or from choice of situation?—From choice
of situation, or from dislike of the parochial burial-grounds; in nine cases out of ten from preference of the situation and mode of interment in cemeteries;
the choice would indeed be general, if it were not for the increased charges made by undertakers. The undertakers have generally increased the funeral
charges at the cemeteries above one-third. The number of men taken out, whose whole day is occupied, make up the increased charge.
You state, that but for the increased charge, the custom of interment in cemeteries would be general; has the strength of the attachments to the parochial
churchyards diminished?—Yes, under the recent inquiries and exposures of the state of the churchyards they have almost vanished. But at no time was
the attachment to the parochial churchyards in town so strong as in the country. In the country, even the poorer classes will pay the sexton a fee of from
1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d., for “keeping up the grave.” This cannot be the case in the towns for want of space; parties who appoint their places of burial, generally
select a place on account of its quiet.
Do you believe that the wish to be buried where kindred are buried, is, or would continue to be stronger, than a desire to be buried in well-provided
cemeteries?—No; this is shewn by the increasing frequency with which parties who have family vaults, desire to be buried in the cemeteries. Very
recently I performed the funeral of a lady belonging to a family who had a vault in a church at Westminster—her husband had been buried in it. By her
will she desired to be buried at Kensal Green, and she had requested that if the churchyard at Westminster was closed, her husband’s remains might be
brought and placed next to hers in the cemetery. There were other members of the family besides her husband buried in the family vault. Such instances
are now becoming very frequent.
Inasmuch as interments in cemeteries have generally increased the charges of interment, is it not to be apprehended that unless some regulations on a
larger scale than of small localities be adopted, the inconvenience arising in towns will increase the charges of these calamities to the poorest of the
middle classes and to the working classes, not to speak of the charges on the poor’s rates, for the interments of paupers will also be increased by districts?
—Yes; it has occurred to me that it will be so.

He expresses his conviction, however, that so strong is the feeling at present against parochial interments, that if
there should be no legislative provision or interference for the public protection, the parochial burial places being
left open to the competition of private and trading burial grounds, in a very short time not one-third of the present
number of burials would take place in the parochial grounds.
§ 110. The expense to the rate-payers of parishes for the transference of the interments to the suburbs would be
necessarily very high; the expense of numerous separate parochial establishments, if only on the scale of the
establishments for the performance of the funeral ceremony, and for such imperfect care of the ground as that
given in those described would be, at the least, between 25 and 30,000l. per annum. The proposed regulation of the
distance of cemeteries from human habitations—that they shall in every case be two miles, not from houses, but
from the metes and bounds of London and Westminster, and “of any other city, town, or borough,” as defined by
the Municipal Act, and “which shall contain more than 500 houses, the occupiers of which shall be rated to the
relief of the poor more than 10l. or upwards,” appear to be made without any local examination, or reference to
proper observations or experience.—Vide post, §§ 162, 163, and 164. The metes and bounds of several towns and
places include common lands and sites, sufficiently distant from any collections of houses, to be the most eligible
sites, and suitable soils for cemeteries, which according to the best ascertained rule, should be at distances
proportioned to the numbers of inhabitants and probable burials, varying according to these numbers, from 150 to
500 paces. All unnecessary increase of distance must be attended with proportionately increased charges of
interment to the poorer classes: arrangements for preventing an increase of the expense of conveyance of the
remains to distant places of interment, though practicable under general regulations for large national cemeteries,
would be impracticable on the plan of numerous places of interment with small separate establishments. Mr.
Jeffryes, an undertaker, who chiefly inters the poorest classes in the Whitechapel district, where the parochial
interments are generally diminishing, was more particularly questioned on this topic.
What has been your experience in respect to the interment of people of the working classes at cemeteries, and at a distance from their residence, as
compared with burials near their residence? At what cemeteries have you interred persons?—At Mr. Barber Beaumont’s cemetery, which is about a mile
and a half from Whitechapel; and also at the cemetery which is at the Cambridge Heath, Cambridge Road. I have attended, but not on my own account,
funerals at all the other cemeteries—Highgate, Kensal Green, and others.
Supposing that interments within towns be prohibited for all classes, and that funerals for the future must be performed beyond the gas lamps or the
pavements; judging from the cases you have already had, what must be the effect on the funerals of the labouring classes;—supposing that no other
arrangements are made than that of allowing parishes, or any two of them, to provide cemeteries at a distance from town?—It will certainly increase the
expenses to the labouring classes, and increase the expenses to the parishes generally. I perform funerals for the working classes at one-third less than
most others; yet I find that the extra expense of a funeral only a mile or a mile and a quarter distance, is about one pound per funeral extra; this consists
chiefly of the extra expense of conveyance.
Have you seen carriage conveyances or hearses for the conveyance of bodies to the cemeteries without the use of bearers?—Yes, I have: but to get a
coffin out of the house, which sometimes has to be got down stairs, and is very heavy, four men at the least will be required, and then four men will be
required to take it from the hearse at the cemetery, so that men’s labour cannot be much less, even if they provide bearers at the cemeteries, which is
talked of: there will still be the extra expense of the carriage, whatever that is.

§ 111. From the practical evidence already cited, §§ 87, 88, it will be perceived, that notwithstanding this increase
of expense, the chaplain or curate, if unaided, cannot be expected to perform the service in a manner that will be
more satisfactory to the survivors than in those parochial grounds which are now the subject of complaint. The
numerous successive services that may be expected to arrive on the Sunday must often unavoidably have the
appearance of being hurried over, and without assistance and appropriate superintendence will sometimes really be
so, whilst the funeral of the person of better condition which takes place separately, and at an appointed time, has
its separate attention under circumstances, giving rise to the appearance and creating the feeling of an undue
“acceptation of persons,” which it is said ought not to be, and which the examination of practical examples will
show, need not be. Inasmuch as, in the present mode, the clergyman’s attention must be absorbed with his own
clerical duties, the grave-yard and the material offices connected with it must be left to be managed, as it is now,
by a sexton and common gravedigger. No multiplication of the numbers of such poor men in numerous extra-
mural and parochial establishments will give them education, or elevate their minds to act without
superintendence, up to the solemnity and delicacy of the duties to be performed in any proposed alteration of
custom. In such hands the institution and service for the reception and care of the dead, (which, with all its
appliances, is one of the most elevated that can adorn the civic economy of a large and civilized community,)
would be impracticable, or would become a common “dead-house,” or a revolting charnel. It may be confidently
affirmed, that to accomplish what is needed to satisfy the feelings of the population, on the points on which they
are so painfully susceptible, and to gain the public confidence requisite to carry out all the sanitary appliances and
improvements that are requisite in connexion with the practice of interment, would task the zeal and ability, and
unremitting attention of any, the best staff of educated medical men that could be procured for such a service. The
improvements which appear to be practicable, may be perceived on a consideration of the information hereafter
submitted, as to what is already gained under arrangements of a comprehensive character.
§ 112. The chief conclusions in respect to the proposed suburban parochial interments deducible from the present
experience appear then to be,
1. That the change of the practice of interments on the plan of suburban parochial or establishments of separate
unions of parishes, while it gave immediate relief to the centre of the town, would create impediments to the
regular growth of the suburbs, and, ultimately, as the interments increase, diminish the salubrity of the suburbs. §§
107, 108.
2. That it would not ultimately diminish any injurious effects arising from the practice of interments amidst the
abodes of the living; and that its chief effect would be to transfer such evils from the districts where they now
prevail to the midst of the population of other districts. §§ 105, 110.
3. That these results would only be obtained at a considerable expense to the rate-payers of the parishes from
whence the practice of interments is transferred. §§ 107, 108.
4. That if burial in parochial grounds were transferred to such a distance as not to interfere with the growth of the
suburbs, the increased distance of interments would occasion a proportionate increase of the expense of interments
to the labouring classes of the community. § 110.
5. That inasmuch as the difficulty of obtaining the means of defraying the expense of such classes of interments is
frequently a powerful means of increasing the evil of the long delay of the interments, the measures proposed
would tend to increase the most extensive and direct source of injury to the health and morals of the survivors of
the labouring classes—the long retention of the corpse in their crowded and ill-ventilated places of abode. §§ 43,
44.
6. That interment by a parochial agency would aggravate or leave untouched the other objections to the present
practice of interments in the metropolis. §§ 98, 99, 111.

Practicability of ensuring for the Public superior Interments at reduced Expenses.

The subject which may next be presented for consideration is how far the pecuniary burthens may be reduced
consistently with the sentiments expressed by Jeremy Taylor, who deems it “a great act of piety, and honourable, to
inter our friends and relatives according to the proportions of their condition, and so to give testimony of our hope
of their resurrection. So far is piety; beyond, it may be the ostentation and bragging of grief to serve worse ends. In
this, as in everything else, as our piety must not pass into superstition or vain expense, so neither must the excess
be turned into parsimony, and chastised by negligence and impiety to the memory of their dead.”
§ 113. It appears, from detailed inquiries, made of tradesmen of experience and respectability, who have answered
explicitly the questions put to them, that the expense of the materials at present supplied for funerals admit of a
reduction under general arrangements of, at the least, 50 per cent. The practical experience of these witnesses
would justify a dependence on their testimony as to the possible reduction of expenses, especially in case the
public feeling should be gained to change from the practice of having processions through the town to the practice
of processions nearer to the cemeteries, by which the expenses of conveyance included in Mr. Wild’s estimate
would be diminished. It is stated by the latter that the disposition evinced by the higher classes, is to reduce
expensive trappings. He states:—
Is it not an occurrence of increasing frequency amongst the respectable classes to express in their wills a wish to be buried plainly, and at moderate
expense?—Yes, it is; and they sometimes fix sums. They fix such a sum as £150, where it has been usual to expend such sums as £400 or £500. Parties of
respectability now begin to object to wearing cloaks and long hatbands. They are also beginning to object to the use of feathers, and to the general
display. The system of performing funerals by written contract is also becoming very prevalent. It is so frequent with me that I must have some printed
forms.

Mr. J. Browning of Manchester, member of the large society alluded to, as comprehending 150,000 members,
states that they have evinced similar tendencies.
I have belonged to the Odd Fellows’ Society and to the Foresters’ Society, and have served office in both in this town, Manchester. I have belonged to
them about 13 years.
Do you find any alteration in the dispositions of the members of those societies in respect to the ceremonies observed and the array at funerals?—Yes, a
very great alteration.
In what respect?—In Manchester and Liverpool it used to be the practice, when a member of either society died, that the members and the officers
attended decorated with their regalia, and followed the corpse in procession. They used to assemble in bodies, as many as two or three hundred, and there
was a great deal of drinking. Now these sort of processions are put a stop to by members, and there is no regalia or processions used. Only a few
members attend the deceased member, and they attend only with black scarfs, white gloves, and a black silk hatband, which is considered respectful. But
in some of the country places they still follow the practice, and they will have the processions.
But the general tendency is to render the ceremony more simple?—Yes, and there is much less drinking in the towns.

§ 114. These manifestations are ascribable to a consciousness of the incompatibility of funereal displays through
the crowded streets of populous districts, and are consistent with the desire to obtain proper respect for the
deceased, shown in the objections to brief, meagre, and hurried services, and in the selection of secluded and
decorated places of burial; it is shown, indeed, by the removal of the meretricious trappings, which have lost their
effect, and the preference of a more quiet simplicity which, under such circumstances, forms a better means of
ensuring that respect.
§ 115. Assuming the practicability of the accomplishment in this country of administrative arrangements such as
have been accomplished, and are in habitual execution, abroad, to the great satisfaction of every class of society, a
primary regulation, which would be practicable, would be to obtain for the public the opportunity of obtaining, at
various scales, supplies of goods and services for funerals. To Mr. Wild the following questions were put:—
Do you believe it to be practicable, by proper regulations, greatly to reduce the existing charges of interments?—Yes, a very great reduction indeed may
be made—at least 50 per cent.
May it be confidently stated that under such reductions, whatever of respectability in exterior is now attached to the trapping, or to the mode of the
ceremony, might be preserved?—Oh, yes; I should say it might, and that they could scarcely fail to be increased.
Might not the expenses of the funerals of the labouring classes be greatly reduced without any reduction of the solemnity, or display of proper and
satisfactory respect?—Very considerable reductions may be made, and attention to propriety very greatly increased. One large item of expense is the
expense of bearers: they cost, for a walking funeral of an adult, 12s. Nine shillings of this expense would be dispensed with if the burial were at a
cemetery. This would go towards the expense of conveyance, and contribute to the compensation: besides, it would avoid for the mourners the
inconvenience and annoyance of walking through the crowded streets, often in wet weather. One circumstance attending burial in cemeteries would be, a
diminution of the number of mourners: this would occasion a diminution of the expense of funeral fittings.
What is the lowest price for which a coffin is made?—The lowest priced coffin at this time, is the adult pauper’s coffin, with a shroud, but with no cloth
or nails, or name-plate or handles, and costs 3s. 6d.; the contract is usually for deal, inch thick, but they never are; if they were, they could not be
supplied under 4s.; they often break when taken to the grave.

What would be the price of a coffin deemed respectable by the labouring classes, with name-plate and appropriate fittings complete, if manufactured for
an extensive supply?—The average price of such coffins is now about 35s.; but the same quality of coffin might be supplied on a large scale for about
17s.
What would be the price of coffins for persons of the middle class, if supplied on a similar scale?—The prices vary with them from 3l. to 10l.; they have
frequently double coffins; the same coffins might be supplied from 30s. to 5l., or 50 per cent. less.

§ 116. Mr. Hewitt, whose testimony has already been referred to, states, that under general arrangements, it would
be practicable to alleviate the evil of the expense to an extent which would appear incredible. He says—
I have so far carefully considered the subject, that I should be ready to take a contract for the performance of burials at the following rates:—For a
labouring man, 1l. 10s. without burial fees; for a labourer’s child, 15s., for a tradesman, 2l. 2s.; for a tradesman’s child, 1l. 1s.; for a gentleman, 6l. 7s.
6d.; for a gentleman’s child, 3l. 10s. These expenses are for “walking funerals;” the expenses of hearses and carriages would depend on the distance, and
would make from one to two guineas each carriage extra.
All these, with the same descriptions of coffins, and with the same respectability of attendance?—Yes, on the scale of about half the existing burials in
the metropolis; if it were for the whole, it might be done much better, and in some instances perhaps at a greater rate of reduction.

§ 117. Mr. Wild gives, on similar grounds, the following estimate of the practicable rates of expenses of interment
with all decent appliances:—
Tradespeople. Mechanics.
Adults. Children. Adults. Children.
From. To. From. To. From. To. From. To.
£. s. £. s. £. s. £. s. £. s. £. s. £. s. £. s.
Coffin 1 5 4 4 0 15 1 10 0 17 1 5 0 10 0 15
Fittings, &c. 0 15 2 0 0 10 1 0 0 10 0 15 0 5 0 10
Sundries
Conveyance 1 1 4 4 1 1 2 2 0 17 1 1 0 10 1 1
Totals 3 1 10 8 2 6 4 12 2 4 3 1 1 5 2 6
§ 118. Next to the arrangements practicable for the regulation of the supplies of goods, the most important
practicable arrangements for reduction of expense are those which may regulate the services necessary for
interments. The item set forth in the above estimate of the charge for conveyance is on the supposition of separate
conveyance in the present mode to the distant cemetery. With reference to the charge for the poorer classes, Mr.
Wild was asked—
Might not several sets of mourners be carried in one conveyance?—Yes; that has often occurred to me, and it would tend to reduce the expense
materially. When two or three children have died in one street, and they have had to be buried in the same cemetery, I have asked the parents whether, as
they had to go to the same place, they objected to go in the same conveyance, and they have frequently stated that they had no objections. These were of
the more respectable classes of mechanics.
In the fittings up of the coffins, is it considered that these would be as good as those now used?—Quite as good.

§ 119. One large item in the expense of funerals in the metropolis and populous districts is the expense of hearers,
§ 115, who are provided for each separate funeral. This expense is about 12s. for a set of bearers for the funeral of
an adult of the working classes. Formerly common bearers were provided by the several parishes in the metropolis.
Any arrangements of a national character would include the provision of a better regulated class of bearers at a
greatly reduced expense. In the course of the examination of Mr. Dix, the following information was elicited:—
It has been suggested that, if the hearse were always used, the expense of bearers would be dispensed with in walking funerals. What do you conceive
would be the case?—I conceive that that would not be the case, inasmuch as it would require bearers to remove the body from the house to the hearse,
and from the hearse to the grave. But this difficulty might, I would suggest, be, to a great extent, obviated by the establishment of public bearers, who
should have the exclusive right of removing all corpses, and whose rate of payment should be fixed.
What is the present rate of payment of bearers to the grave for the labouring classes?—It is 2s. 6d. each.
If public bearers were appointed, what might be the expense?—Much less than one-half.
Do you think that this principle of management would be satisfactory to the working classes?—It is in fact an old method. Formerly there were bearers in
all parishes, appointed by the churchwardens. In the parish of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, and in most of the city parishes, the practice continues to this
day. In the form of bills of the various parish dues the charge for bearers remains to the present day.
Were these parish bearers less expensive than others?—No; they were not.
Why were they discontinued?—In consequence of these bearers often becoming undertakers themselves, which created a jealousy amongst the trade,
who refused to employ them, and the parishes had no power to compel their employment. Also in consequence of the men being elected by the
churchwardens; they were seldom elected until they became of an age that rendered them incapable of performing the duties properly. They were not
properly dressed, and were under no control. In recommending public bearers, I presume they would be under a different control than a parochial one or
than the churchwardens. I would add, however, that as one set of bearers cannot carry a corpse more than a mile, I would only propose them in aid of the
hearses.

§ 120. Mr. Wild, who had previously volunteered the suggestion as to the means of reducing the expenses of
conveyance, by arrangements on an extensive scale, observes, further, in reference to the bearers—
“My first view as to the possible economy of funerals, was derived from seeing that parish bearers were often made use of. The present charge for
bearers for mechanics is 12s. for the adults, or 3s. per bearer. I was asking one of the parish bearers what he was allowed, as the charge was included in
the burial dues, which were 1l. 5s. 6d. He told me they were paid 6d. per bearer, or 2s. the set. He told me that they had borne six to the grave that
morning, and he had earned 3s. himself. This at the usual charge would have been 3l. 12s.; but properly provided bearers at the cemetery might reduce
the charges still further, perhaps to 3d. each case.”

§ 121. Before submitting for consideration any detailed arrangements for securing, in a manner satisfactory to the
people, better funerals at less oppressive charges, it is necessary to premise, that there appear to be no grounds to
expect the extensive spontaneous adoption of improved regulations by the labouring classes without aid ab extra.
The labour of communicating information to them, to be attended to at the time it is wanted, would be immense.
Their sources of information on the occurrence of such events are either poor neighbours, as ignorant as
themselves, or persons who are interested in misleading them and profiting by their ignorance, to continue
expensive and mischievous practices. As against such an evil as the undue retention of the bodies amidst the living
the usual mode of effecting a change would be simply by a prohibitory ordinance, § 91, of which information
would be conveyed practically by the enforcement of penalties for disobedience of the law, which it is assumed
they know. The appointment of a responsible agency, which would be respected, to convey the information of what
may be deemed requisite for the protection of the living and exercise influence to initiate a change of practice,
appears to all the practical witnesses examined, § 102, to be a preferable course, as being the most suitable to the
temper of the people, and as being the least expensive, as well as the most efficient. The very desolate and
unprotected condition of the survivors of the poorest classes, on the occurrence of a death in large towns, appears
to render some intervention for their guidance and protection at that moment peculiarly requisite, as a simple act of
beneficence. Mr. Wild was asked—
Amongst the poorer classes, is not the widow often made ill during the protracted delay of the burial?—Yes, very often. They have come to me in tears,
and begged for accommodation, which I have given them. On observing to them, you seem very ill; a common reply is, “Yes, I feel very ill. I am very
much harassed, and I have no one to assist me.” I infer from such expressions that the mental anxiety occasioned by the expense, and want of means to
obtain the money, is the frequent cause of their illness. My opinion is, that unless the undertaker gave two-thirds of them time or accommodation for
payment, they would not be able to bury the dead at all.
You state that they have no persons to assist them; do they frequently, or ever, on such occasions, see any persons of education, or of influence, from
whom they might receive aid or advice?—I never hear of such persons unless they happen to be connected with some local association, when the
survivors are visited and get advice, and sometimes relief.
If any gentleman were to visit them as a public officer, as the officer of a board of health, would his recommendations have influence with them?—Very
great: the doctor now has the greatest influence with them, but he does not attend them after the death.

John Downing, a mechanic, the secretary of a Burial Society, whose duty it was to visit the remains of the
deceased members, was asked—
After the death of the party have you ever, in visiting the deceased, met any professional person or any gentleman attending to give advice or consolation
to the widow?—No. Never to my knowledge.
Then on what advice will the widow act on the occurrence of a death?—On the advice of the poor people in the neighbourhood, or of any friends or
relatives that may chance to call upon them; but I never knew either medical man or minister attend professionally to give advice or consolation.
Is any notice of the death sent to the minister?—The working-classes never think of that; the first thing and the only thing thought of by them is to scrape
together the money for the funeral.
Do you think that a medical officer, an officer of public health, attending gratuitously to inspect the body and register the cause of death, and to give
advice as to the proper means of conducting the funeral, and the steps to be taken for the health of the living would be respectfully received and have
influence?—I am very confident that he would have a very hearty welcome. I think a deal of benefit would be derived from it to the feelings as well as
the health of the parties.

§ 122. The curate of a populous district mentioned to me, as illustrative of the practice in the crowded
neighbourhoods in the metropolis, that he had for a time lived in a house let off in lodgings to respectable persons
in the middle ranks of life, and though his profession was known in the house, yet three deaths had taken place in it
of which he had no notice whatever, and only knew of them at the time of the funeral. All the witnesses who have
had experience amongst the labouring classes, concur in the expression of confidence that the visits and
intervention of a public officer would at such a time be well received by the poorest classes.
Mr. Hewitt was asked—
Do you conceive that respectable officers visiting the house of all classes of the deceased immediately after the death, as medical officers and officers of
public health, to inquire as to the causes of death and register them, would long fail to acquire powerful influence in the suggestion of voluntary and
beneficial sanitary arrangements?—I think that an officer appointed from the first class of physicians would be better received than a local medical man
—as an officer of the public health, whose opinions would be more prized, and consequently would be sure to be received by all most respectfully. Such
an officer is calculated to do more good than can easily be conceived, and would be able to execute such duties over an extensive district.
Would they have that sort of faith in a physician that they would not have in any local medical officer?—They would receive well any gentleman, and
would act upon his advice.

On the occurrence of a death, is there any one person of education, or of superior condition in life, who comes near the working classes?—Not one that I
am aware; no one attends for such a purpose; if any such person comes it must be accidental.
It may perhaps be presumed that it is rare that any death occurs without some medical man or medical officer having attended the case?—Very few, and
in those cases inquests are usually held.
In the majority of cases, therefore, the labouring classes, on the occurrence of a death, are left either to the advice of any interested person who may come
amongst them, or to the influence of their equally uninformed neighbours?—Yes, certainly, that is the case.

§ 123. The principle of the measure proposed, i. e. a certificate of the fact, and the cause of death, given on view of
the body, and the non-interment without such certificate, has been in operation perhaps during two centuries. In the
year 1595, orders were issued by the Privy Council to the justices, enjoining them, that wherever the plague
appeared, they would see that the ministers of the church, or three or four substantial householders, appointed
persons to view the bodies of all who died, before they were suffered to be buried. They were to certify to the
minister or the churchwarden, of what disease it was probable each individual had died. The minister or the
churchwarden was to make a weekly return of the numbers in his parish that were infected, or had died, and the
diseases of which it was probable they had died. These returns were to be made to the neighbouring justices, and
by them to the clerk of the peace, who was to enter them in a book to be kept for the purpose. The justices, who
assembled every three weeks, were to forward the results to the Lords of the Privy Council. It is supposed that this
scheme of registration gave rise to the bills of mortality, which have been preserved without interruption from the
year 1603 until the present period. It is conjectured also, that the appointment of “searchers” originated at the same
time. The alarm of the plague having subsided, the office of searcher was, until the recent appointments of
registrars under the new Registration Act, given by the parish officers to two old women in each parish, frequently
pew-openers, who, having viewed the body, demanded a fee of two shillings, in addition to which they expected to
be supplied with some liquor, and gave a certificate of the fact and cause of death as they were informed of it, and
this certificate was received by the minister as a warrant for the interment.
§ 124. The Rev. Mr. Stone observes on this topic—
It would be well if the burial of the dead could be expedited by some agency created for the purpose; something, for instance, like the obsolete office of
searcher. I never heard but one person make an objection even to those inferior functionaries, and that one was an educated person, who would probably
have withdrawn the objection, had the agency been one of a more refined, intelligent, and conciliatory character. It might be a more delicate matter to
secure the removal of the corpse to be deposited elsewhere for any considerable time before the burial; though, judging from one practice, which has
fallen under my observation, I feel justified in supposing, that even this would not be met with universal repugnance. A similar thing is now often done
spontaneously from a pecuniary motive, and for the purpose of evading burial dues. In my parish ground, and, I believe, in others, the fees for the burial
of a non-parishioner, or person dying out of the parish, are double those payable for a parishioner. But, if the undertaker employed is a parishioner, this
extra payment is easily evaded, by his accommodating the corpse on his own premises. It is brought there some time before the burial, and frequently
from a considerable distance; it then becomes a resident parishioner, and forthwith claims the privilege of a parishioner. It claims to be admitted into our
burial ground at single fees; and, of course, the claim so made cannot easily be disallowed. Indeed, by a little management, this smuggling of dead bodies
may be effected so that my clerk and sexton, the only officers in my preventive service, may themselves know nothing about it. It is probable, however,
that such sanitary arrangements as those adverted to would be best facilitated, and it is certain that much mischief would be entirely prevented, by a
reduction in the amount of burial expenses. Indeed these expenses ought, if possible, to be reduced for the sake of all classes, whether they arise from too
high a rate of burial fees, from the prejudices of the people, or from the advantage that may be taken of those prejudices or other circumstances by a class
so directly and deeply interested as the undertakers.

§ 125. Several physicians of eminence in the metropolis, who are conversant with the state and feelings of families
of the middle and higher classes on the occurrence of a death, have expressed their confidence, that the most
respectable families, who are stunned by the blow, and are ignorant of the detail of the steps to be taken when a
death has occurred, would gladly pay for the attendance of any respectable and responsible person, on whose
information they might, under such circumstances, rely. As already stated, the physician takes no cognizance of the
arrangements for interments, and knowing the feelings that commonly arise when the undertaker’s bill is
presented, carefully avoids giving advice, or doing anything that may implicate him with the arrangements for the
interment.
§ 126. In opening the consideration of remedial measures, it appears incumbent to represent that there are many
who, viewing what has been accomplished abroad, and the inconvenience experienced in the metropolis in respect
to the oldest private trading burial grounds, object on principle to the abandonment of acknowledged public
functions and services, and to leaving the necessities of the public as sources of profit to private, and (practically
for every-day purposes) irresponsible associations. They submit, that if the steps in this direction cannot be
retraced, the public have claims that at all events they shall be stayed. Such opinions may, perhaps, be the best
represented in the following portion of the communication from the Rev. Wm. Stone.
It may be thought that, in alluding to these private burial grounds, I have expressed myself strongly, and indeed I am not anxious to disavow having done
so. The subject seems to me to justify such a tone of expression. In all ages and nations, the burial of the dead has been invested with peculiar sanctity. As
the office that closes the visible scene of human existence, it concentrates in itself the most touching exercise of our affections towards objects endeared
to us in this life, and the most intense and stirring anxieties that we can feel respecting an invisible state. And, appealing thus to common sympathies of
our nature, it has been universally marked by observances intended to give it importance or impressiveness. The faith and usage of Christians have given
remarkable prominence to this duty. The ecclesiastical institutes of our own country indicate a jealous solicitude for the safe and religious custody of the

receptacles of the dead; and there are few of us, perhaps, to whom those receptacles are not hallowed by thoughts and recollections of the deepest
personal interest. It is reasonable, then, that the reverential impressions thus accumulated within us should shrink from the contact of more selfish and
vulgar associations. And one may be excused for thinking and speaking strongly in reprobation of a system which degrades the burial of the dead into a
trade. Throughout the whole scheme and working of this system, there is an exclusive spirit of money-getting, which is revoltingly heartless; and in some
of its details there is an indecency which I have felt myself compelled to allude to in the tone of strong condemnation.
It is surely desirable that a state of things so vulgar and demoralizing, should be put an end to, but at present there seems no prospect of it. Of course,
during the continuance of a competition such as I have described, our parishioners will never return to our parish burial grounds, and I have already
remarked, that if they did, they might not get interment there, inasmuch as it would, perhaps, be found impossible to make our parochial system meet the
wants of any crowded population. There is little better chance of the present offensive system of burial being superseded by the joint stock cemeteries;
for to the mass of our population these cemeteries hold out hardly any advantages which are not possessed by the private burial grounds, while they have
to compete with those grounds under disadvantages greater, in some instances, than those which our churchyards have to contend with.
Indeed, even if it were practicable, I should be sorry to see our people handed over for burial to a joint stock company. I am very far from saying this out
of any sympathy with the popular, and often indiscriminate and unreasonable jealousy felt towards all joint stock companies. Nay, I see obvious reasons
why the cemeteries of such companies should be a great improvement upon the present system of private speculation in burial grounds. And it may be
thought that, as a clergyman and an interested party, I may naturally prefer these cemeteries, because their proprietors, unlike the private speculators, are
required to indemnify the clergy for loss of fees by some amount of pecuniary compensation. But I do sympathize with the common repugnance to
consign to joint stock companies the solemnities of Christian burial; and I believe that this repugnance is not more common than it is strong. “And so,”
said a highly intelligent gentleman, pointing to a cemetery of this class, “the time is come when Christian burial is made an article of traffic.” And since
the legislature has been reported to be contemplating the removal of burials from populous places, it has been commonly suspected of having been led to
entertain the measure through the influence of joint stock cemetery proprietors. In fact the repugnance in question is no more than what I have already
adverted to. It is the state of feeling which shrinks from associating the touching and impressive solemnities of burial with the profits of trade. So far as
the trading principle is involved, the joint stock company is no better than the private speculator. However disinterested may have been the motives
which have induced some to become shareholders in these companies, and I have been assured upon authority which I respect, that many have done so
without any expectation or hope of profit upon their shares, yet the primary and effective character of these associations is undeniably that of trading
associations, and they cannot be rescued from that character by even numerous individual exceptions. Their managers, like the proprietors of the private
grounds, are assiduous in soliciting attention to their lists of prices; and affiches, painted in large letters, and placed at various outlets of the metropolis,
with genuine mercantile officiousness, direct the public, as in a case close by my own parish, “To the E. L. Cemetery, only one mile and a-half.” Surely
we may say, that this system also involves much that is inconsistent with reverential impressions of the sanctity of burial, much that must either offend or
deteriorate the better feeling of our population. Then again, as regards burial services, and other details in the working of the system, with what security
can we consign these to the tender mercies of a trading company? Why should not the money-getting principle eventually come to operate upon these
points also, and, as in the private burial grounds, tempt shareholders to sanction indecent and mischievous condescensions to the interests, habits, tastes,
and caprices of the people? What security, at least, is there equal to that which is afforded by a clergy and parochial establishments, responsible to the
civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the country, or which would be afforded by what, for reasons before mentioned, I should think still preferable, a
national plan of burial, placed under a departmental control of Government?

The remedial measures hereafter submitted for consideration have been deduced directly from the actual
necessities experienced within the field of inquiry, and such only are submitted as clearly suggested themselves
without reference to any external experience. The following preliminary view of the experience of other nations is
presented for consideration on account of the confirmatory evidence which it contains, as well as the instances to
be avoided.

Examples of successful Legislation for the Improvement of the Practice of Interment.

§ 127. It appears that the evil of the expensive interments consequent on the monopoly which the nature of the
event, and the feelings of survivors, gives to the person nearest at hand for the performance of the undertaker’s
service, is checked by special arrangements in America. In Boston, and most of the large towns in America, there
is a Board of Health which nominates a superintendent of burial grounds, who is invariably a person of special
qualifications, and generally a medical man. All undertakers are licensed by the Board of Health, by whom the
licence may at any time be revoked. The sexton of the church which the deceased attended is usually the
undertaker. The bills of the undertaker are made out on a blank form, furnished by the public superintendent of
interment, to whom all bills are submitted, and by whom they are audited and allowed, before they are presented
for payment to the relations or friends of the deceased. Previous to interment, the undertaker must obtain from the
physician who last attended the deceased, a certificate specifying the profession, age, time of illness, and cause of
death of the deceased. This certificate is presented to the superintendent of funerals. An abstract of these
certificates, signed by the superintendent of funerals, is printed every week in the public journals of the city. The
cost of a funeral for a person in the position of life of the highest class of tradesmen in Boston, is about fifty
dollars, or 10l. English, exclusive of the cost of the tomb. The price of a good mahogany coffin would be fifteen
dollars, or 3l. 5s. The price of a most elegant mahogany coffin would be perhaps double that price. The price of a
pine coffin, such as are used for the persons of the labouring classes, would be about four dollars. There is a
peculiarity in the coffins made in the United States,—that a portion of the lid, about a foot from the upper end,
opens upon a hinge. This, when opened, exposes to view the face of the deceased, which is covered with glass. The
survivors are thus enabled at the last moment to take a view of the deceased, without the danger of infection. In
Germany, the coffins are nailed down, every blow of the hammer frequently drawing a scream from the female
survivors.
§ 128. In the chief German states it is adopted as a principle, that provision shall be made, and it is made
successfully, for meeting the necessities of the population in respect to the undertakers’ supplies of service and
materials; and that on the occurrence of a death, those necessities shall not be given up as the subject of common
trading profits to whatsoever irresponsible person may obtain the monopoly of them. At Franckfort provision is
made for these services and supplies of material at the lowest cost to the public as part of a series of arrangements
comprehending the verification of the fact of death on view of the body, the edifice for the reception and care of
the dead previous to interment, and the public cemeteries, all under the superintendence of superior and
responsible medical officers. The expenses of the supplies of materials are reduced so low under these
arrangements, that they no longer enter into serious consideration as a burthen to be met on such occasions.
§ 129. At Berlin, a contract is made by the Government with one person to secure funeral materials and services
for the public at certain fixed scales of prices. The materials and services are stated to be of a perfectly satisfactory
character; and yet the undertaker’s charge for a funeral such as would here cost for an artisan 4l. and upwards, is
not more than 15s. English money; the charge for a middle class funeral is about 2l., and for a funeral of the
opulent class of citizens is about, 10l. And yet I am assured that the contractors’ profits on the extensive supplies
required are deemed too high, and that the Government will, on the renewal of the contract, find it necessary to
protect the poorer classes by a contract at a lower rate.
§ 130. At Paris, interments are made the subject of a fisc; but a contract is made with one head to secure services
and supplies to the private individual at reduced rates, and so far the system works advantageously to the public.
§ 131. The whole of the interments are there performed, and the various burial and religious dues collected and
paid under one contract, by joint contractors for the public service at regulated prices, called the Service des
Pompes Funèbres. This establishment annually buries gratis, upwards of 7000 destitute persons, or nearly one-
third of all who die in the city. The funerals and religious services are divided into nine classes, comprehending
various settled particulars of service, for which a price is fixed. The appointed service for any of these classes may
be had on the terms specified in a tariff. This is found to be a great benefit to testators and survivors, as it enables
them to settle the ceremonial with certainty, and without the possibility of any extortion. The first class of funerals
are of great pomp: they include bearers, crosses, plumes, eighteen mourning coaches and attendants, grand mass at
church, 120 lbs. of wax tapers, an anniversary service, and material of mourning cloth; and also the attendance of
Monsieur le Curé, two vicars, twenty-one priests, six singers and ten chorister boys, and two instrumental
performers, at a cost of 145l., for a funeral superior in magnificence perhaps to any private funeral in England. The

charge for the service and materials of the ninth class, in which there is the attendance of a vicar and a priest, and
of a bass singer or chorister for the mass, is about 15s. of English money. In the service ordinaire there is less
religious service, and that is performed gratuitously. The only charge made is the price of the coffin, which is five
or seven francs, according to the size: the coffin is covered by a pall, and carried on a plain hearse, drawn by two
black horses. This funeral is conducted by a superintendent and four assistants, exclusive of the driver. The
following is the scale of charges, and the numbers interred under each, during two years:—
Total of
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th the Servi
Class. Class. Class. Class. Class. Class. Class. Class. Class. nine Ordina
Classes.
£. £. £. £. £. s. £. £. £. s. s.
Religious
Funeral 24 19 11 8 5 10 2 1 0 16 11
Service
Anniversary
Religious 26 20 12 9 6 0 3
Service
Undertaker’s
Material
95 83 49 23 14 10 5 3 1 11 4
and
Service
Total
145 122 72 40 26 0 10 4 2 7 15
Expenses
Number of
23 52 138 256 828 1,457 2,523 141 530 5,958 14,
{ 1839
Burials {
30 47 188 201 816 1,655 2,377 78 715 6,107 14,
1841
§ 132. On the number of burials in Paris for 1841, the gross income would be about 80,000l. per annum. Out of
this sum the contractor pays the fixed salaries of the staff of officers, which consists of a chief inspector of funeral
ceremonies, of 27 other directors besides, 78 bearers, one inspector of cemeteries and four keepers; officers chiefly
appointed by the municipality. The total amount of the salaries which he pays is 5862l., English money. He keeps
an establishment of 30 hearses and 76 carriages, with suites of minor attendants properly clothed, and inters the
7000 of the pauper class gratuitously. The last contractor paid annually to the municipality 17,000l., which sum
was chiefly devoted to ecclesiastical objects. The large profits which he realized led to considerable competition,
and a new contract was recently sealed for nine years, securing for public purposes an annual income of 28,000l.
Besides this amount, there is a revenue of about 20,000l. per annum derived by the municipality from the sale of
tombs, and from the tax on interments, which is twenty francs for the interment of every adult, and ten francs upon
children under seven years of age. One-fifth of this revenue, or about 4000l., is devoted to the hospitals.
§ 133. The remains of those who die in the public hospitals in Paris, and are not claimed by their friends, are, after
dissection, merely enclosed in a coarse cloth and deposited in the ground, without any funereal rites. This number
amounts, as stated, to no less than 7000 annually. The total average deaths in Paris is from 28,000 to 30,000
annually. This, in a population of 900,000, gives about one burial to every thirty of the population annually, which
is nearly as large a proportion of annual deaths and burials as that in Manchester. The deaths and burials in the
British metropolis (though varying in different parts, from 1 in 28, as in Whitechapel, to 1 in 56, as in Hackney,
chiefly according to the condition of the locality) average for the entire population of 1,800,000 inhabitants, one
death or burial in every forty-two of the inhabitants, or one-fourth less of burials than at Paris in proportion to the
population. In Paris the average number of inhabitants to every house is 36. If the mortality were there in the
proportion of London there would be 7,000 fewer burials yearly. An assertion may be ventured, that more than this
excess of mortality is ascribable to the still lower sanitary condition of the labouring population in Paris, which has
its concomitant in a still lower moral condition than yet prevails amongst the population of our large towns.[26]
§ 134. In Paris the law requires that the dead shall be interred within twenty-four hours after the decease, but this
law may be evaded by neglect to give notice of the death. The general practice, however, appears to be, that
interments take place within two days.

§ 135. In America, the later regulations manifest the tendency of the general experience to connect the regulations
of interment with the general regulations for the protection of the public health, and to do this by single, specially
qualified, paid, and responsible officers, rather than by Boards, or by any unskilled and honorary agency. The
revised statutes of Massachusetts introduce the alternative of the appointment of a single officer. Every town is
empowered to appoint a Board of Health, “or a health officer:” and the Board so appointed may appoint “a
physician to the Board.” The Board acting by such officer may destroy, remove, or prevent, as the case may
require, all nuisances, sources of filth, and causes of sickness. “Whenever any such nuisance or source of filth, or
cause of sickness shall be found on private property, the Board of Health, or health officer, shall order the owner or
occupant thereof at his own expense to remove the same within twenty-four hours, and if the owner or occupant
shall neglect so to do, he shall forfeit a sum not exceeding one hundred dollars,” c. 21, s. 10. In cases of the refusal
of entry into private property, on complaint to a magistrate, the magistrate may thereupon issue his warrant,
“directed to the sheriff, or either of his deputies, or to any constable of such town, commanding them to take
sufficient aid, and being accompanied by two or more members of the said Board of Health, between the hours of
sunset and sunrise, to repair to the place where such nuisance, source of filth, or cause of sickness complained of
may be, and to destroy, remove, or prevent, the same, under the direction of such members of the Board of
Health.” The cleansing of the streets and houses is in most cases included in the functions of the Board of Health,
or of the health officer, who regulates the removal of all refuse. Sec. 14, c. 21.
Every householder, when any of his family are taken ill, is required, on a penalty of one hundred dollars,—and
every physician in the like penalty, on ascertaining that any person whom he visits is infected with the small-pox,
or other disease dangerous to the public health,—to give immediate notice to the officers of public health, and they
may, “unless the condition of such person is such as not to admit of his removal without danger of life,” remove
him at once to the public hospital, whatever may be his station in life. Sec. 43 and 44, c. 21.
I have been favoured by Dr. Griscom, the inspector of interments at New York, with the copy of a report on the
sanitary condition of the population of that city; which points out the great extent of deaths that are preventible by
the adoption of means similar to those recommended in the General Report for the improvement of the sanitary
condition of the population in Great Britain. This report, revealing extensive causes of death in New York, of
which a large proportion of the population must have been unaware, may be adduced in proof of the immense
services derivable from such an office, when zealously executed, in guarding against evils more destructive than
wars.[27]
§ 136. In Munich, and in other towns in Germany, the visits and verification of the fact of death as the warrant for
interment, is felt to be an important public security, and is highly popular; but one cause of its popularity is the
jurisprudential functions of the officer of health, as means of preventing premature interments, and the escape of
crime; for comparatively little attention appears yet to have been given to the practical means afforded by the
office of tracing out and removing the causes of disease. The difficulty appears to be in respect to the
jurisprudential functions of the officers of health to satisfy the public anxiety for the exercise of solemn care in
every case of a multitude, where only one case in that multitude will, on the doctrine of chances, be a case calling
for intervention; and where it is not provided, as it may and ought to be, that the discovery of that one shall be a
matter of deep personal interest, instead of a mere source of trouble to the officer himself, his examinations may be
expected to degenerate into a routine in which the intended security will fail in the less obvious cases.
In later times very comprehensive regulations as to the sites and management of cemeteries, and the service of
officers of health, who have charge of the cemeteries, have been adopted throughout the Austrian dominions, and it
is stated that they work very satisfactorily. On the occasion of every death by accident or violence, or of suspicion,
a close inquiry as to the causes is made by the town physician. In Vienna a strict inquiry is made into every such
death by the following officers, who all attend for that purpose;—namely, the town physician, the surgeon in chief,
the professor of pathological anatomy, a lawyer, and in some cases, when analyses are required, a chemist. The
results of their examinations are set forth in a “protocol,” a carefully prepared document, “bien motivé,” which
sometimes takes two or three days in drawing up. The effect of this inquiry is the prevention, to a great extent, of
crimes of violence, and the production of public confidence. It is stated to be highly popular.
§ 137. In Paris some cases have of late occurred, which have created much public uneasiness by the evidence they
afforded of the defective organization of the service of the officers of health, and occasioned it recently to undergo
an examination with the view to the adoption of better securities. It appears that, from a very early period, to
satisfy the public solicitude, the law required the fact of the reality of a death to be verified by the personal visit
and inspection of the Maire of the district of the city where the death had taken place. Subsequently, the Maires
were allowed to delegate this duty to officers of their own nomination, persons qualified for the duties by a

medical education, and who were called Officiers de Santé. But the appointments thus made by the Maires did not
give public satisfaction; and in the year 1806 it was required that the persons appointed as “officiers de santé” by
the Maires, should be chosen by them from amongst the doctors in medicine and surgery who were attached to the
public hospitals. They appear, however, to have been mostly chosen without reference to public qualifications,
from their own medical friends in private practice. This arrangement of appointing persons in private practice
appears to have prevailed in other countries, and to have frustrated much of the benefits otherwise derivable from
the institution. Thirty-five of these private practitioners are now appointed to perform the duty. Reports have
gained ground that from negligent discharge of the duty, persons had even been buried alive, and that the
verification had been given in cases of murder. On a recent commission of inquiry, the celebrated surgeon, M.
Orfila, thus speaks of the necessity of the verification of the fact of the decease.
“It is possible to be interred alive! Interments may take place after murder, committed with the knife or by means of poison, without a suspicion being
created that the death has been occasioned by violence. Ignorance or malevolence may attribute to crime deaths that have occurred from natural causes!”

After referring to ancient cases in which evidence was recorded of parties having been buried alive, he adduces the
following recent instances of parties having been interred without due verification of the cause of death by the
Officier de Santé:—
“We all know the case of the death of the grocer in the Rue de la Paix, who died of poison by arsenic. The interment took place after the verification of
the death. In about a month afterwards I was called upon to examine the body as to the poison. Although the putrefaction of the corpse of the person who
was of a very full habit had been much advanced, I was enabled to discover the presence of the arsenic by which the crime had been perpetrated.
“The widow Danzelle, of the Rue Beauregard, was found dead in her bed on the 1st of January, 1826. The certificate of the decease was given in due
form to the relations to authorise the interment. In that certificate, given to M. le Commissaire de Police, the medical practitioner declared, ‘the death has
taken place, and it appears that it has been occasioned by a commotion of the brain with hæmorrhage.’ ‘The deceased’ added he, ‘lived alone; she was
found dead in her chamber, where she appeared to have fallen down.’ The municipal authorities caused the interment to be adjourned, and required a new
examination of the body in the presence of the Commissioner of Police, assisted by two doctors in medicine. The result of the examination was, ‘that
Madame the widow Danzelle had fallen under the blows of an assassin; the corpse bore five recent wounds in the neck, made with a cutting instrument,
and the carotid artery had been divided.’
“In the month of July, a child of Dame Revel, Rue de Seine Saint Germain, died very suddenly. The authorities being informed that the child had been
the subject of much ill-treatment on the part of the parents, ordered an inquiry and une expertise medico-legale. The examination of the body showed that
the rumours as to the barbarous conduct of Dame Revel, the mother, were but too well-founded. Dr. Olivier testified to the fact, that the body bore
twenty-seven recent contusions on the body and members, and a fracture of nearly five inches in extent, which almost entirely broke through one of the
bones of the cranium.
“The death of this poor child, which was three years and three months old, awakened suspicions which had arisen on the death of its eldest brother, of
eight years of age, which had been interred on the 28th of February preceding. The body was disinterred, and Dr. Olivier, to whom this second
examination was confided, notwithstanding the length of time that had occurred since the death, found traces of numerous contusions on the body and
members, and a wound above the right ear, with a fracture and disjunction of the bones of the cranium.”

And notwithstanding in this, as in the other case, the interment was effected without observations.[28]
After giving instances where the innocent were justified or suspicions were allayed by post mortem examinations,
which proved that deaths suspected to have been from murder had occurred from natural causes, M. Orfila
concludes by stating:—
“I do not believe that it often happens that persons are interred alive in Paris, though I must admit that such events may take place; but I am convinced
that the earth has covered and continues to cover crimes without any suspicion being raised in respect to them.”

§ 138. Another report imputes the neglects of the “officiers de santé,” to the forgetfulness of duties, the force of
habit or routine, the results of age and infirmities; and the chief remedy recommended, and now apparently in
course of adoption in Paris, is the erection on the unsubstantial foundation of service by a number of private
practitioners, of two additional stages as securities, namely, of three paid medical officers, who are to devote their
time to the superintendence of the performance of the public duties by the private practitioners, and, secondly, a
certain number of high honorary officers, who are to superintend both classes of paid officers. This is an example
of one of those superficial alterations, in which, from want of firmness on the part of the legislature to compensate
fairly and amply the interests which it is obviously necessary to disturb, and from not duly regarding and
estimating the immense amount of pain and public evil which requires measures of alleviation of corresponding
extent and efficiency; consequently from allowing that amount of pain and mortality to weigh as dust against local
patronage and latent sinister interests,—that evil is only masked, and more widely and deeply spread by the
intended remedy. Of a certainty the attention of every private practitioner, as he gains practice, whilst acting as a
public officer, must every hour of the day be from his public duties, and with the means of adding to his
emoluments. That the least possible time may be taken from them, the public duties are slurred over, conclusions
are snapped from the readiest superficial incidents; extensive and removable, but latent causes of evil, the
development of which would require sustained and laborious examination, are perpetuated, by being stamped
authoritatively as “accidental” or arbitrarily classed under some general term assigning the evils as the results of
some inscrutable cause. The three superior paid inspectors will not long be able to stimulate the thirty-five private

practitioners to a close attention to their public duties against their paramount and ever-pressing interests, or will
soon tire of doing so. The service will become one of mere routine and of short and easy acquiescence in all except
the most extraordinary cases which present an appearance of danger to the officer himself if he overlook them.
Under such arrangements, the functions of the office degenerates into a highly prejudicial form, protracting the
evil, by creating an impression from the fact of the existence of the office, that all has been done in the way of
prevention or remedy that can be done by such an officer. The admixture of private practice with important public
duties in such cases, is attended with further evil in depriving the public of much volunteer service from the whole
class of private practitioners, for many who would give information to advance science, or to aid the public
service, can scarcely be expected to give cordial aid that may add to the credit and promote the interests of a rival.
To the people themselves such services, from a locally connected private practitioner, are generally less acceptable
than those of an independent and responsible public officer. The official service must, in time, fail to inspire
confidence, for it must fail to elicit evidence to justify public confidence. The additional expense of the three
additional officers will only have created an additional interest, in slurring over cases that may have been
overlooked by the other class of officers, involving blame for remissness to the superior officers. When exposures
do take place, these two classes of officers will only add to the means of perplexing public attention, and of
dividing and weakening responsibility. If less than half the number of officers, devoting their whole time to the
service, would be sufficient (as will be shown they would), for the efficient discharge of these highly important
duties in London, less than one-third of the number would suffice in Paris.
§ 139. Except in the regulation of the expenses of the funerals, there appears to be nothing in the practice of
interments in Paris, that deserves to be considered with a view to imitation. Indeed, the whole arrangements there
are now under revision, and exertions are being made for their improvement. The little account that appears to
have been at any time made of the feelings of the labouring classes, and the burial after dissection, of the poor
dying in hospitals, without funereal rites, the almost total omission of any marks of sympathy or respect towards
their remains,—cannot but have a most demoralizing effect on the survivors. The mode in which the evil of the
retention of the corpse amidst the living is provided for by the law, which requires that interments shall take place
within twenty-four hours after notice, must frequently oppress the feelings of the dying and of survivors, and
harass them with alarms which the medical inspection provided, as we have seen, § 137, is not of a character to
allay. The intermediate stage of removal provided at Franckfort and other German towns; the retention of the
corpse in a separate room warmed and ventilated, and watched at all hours, and lighted during the night; the
regular medical attendance and inspection, and other cares bestowed until there are unequivocal signs of
dissolution, and the minds of all classes are satisfied, appears to be a superior arrangement, salutary in its effect
and principle.[29] Beyond these benevolent arrangements may be commended the acts of real good will and charity
by which the feelings of the labouring classes are consulted and satisfied by community of sepulture, and the
benevolent care and spirit of good will in which it appears to be maintained.

Experience in respect to the sites of Places of Burial, and sanitary
precautions necessary in respect to them.

There appear to be very important questions connected with the
consideration of the site of the place of burial to populous districts.
§ 140. The question of the distance of places of burial (irrespective of
convenience of conveyance) appears to be dependent on the numbers buried,
—on the composition and preparation of the ground,—on the elevation or
depression of the place of burial,—and its exposure to the atmosphere and
the direction of the prevalent winds for the avoidance of habitations.
§ 141. The extent of burial ground requisite for any district will be
determined by the rate of decomposition.
§ 142. At Franckfort and Munich, and in the other new cemeteries on the
continent, where qualified persons have paid attention to the subject, the
general rule is not to allow more than one body in a grave. The grounds for
this rule are,—that, when only one body is deposited in a grave, the
decomposition proceeds regularly,—the emanations are more diluted and less
noxious than when the mass of remains is greater; and also that the
inconvenience of opening the graves, of allowing escapes of miasma, and the
indecency of disturbing the remains for new interments, is thereby avoided;
and in the case of exhumations, the confusion and danger of mistaking the
particular body is prevented.
§ 143. The progress of the decay of the body is various, according to the
nature of the soil and the surrounding agencies. Clayey soils are antiseptic;
they retain the gases, as explained by Mr. Leigh; they exclude the external
atmosphere, and are also liable to the inconvenience of becoming deeply
fissured in hot weather and then allowing the escape of the emanations which
have been retained in a highly concentrated state. Loamy, ferruginous, and
aluminous soils, moor earth, and bog, are unfavourable to decomposition;
sandy, marly, and calcareous soils are favourable to it. Water, at a low
temperature, has the tendency, as already explained, to promote only a
languid decomposition, which sometimes produces adipocire in bodies: a
high and dry temperature tends to produce the consistency and permanency
of mummies. A temperature of from 65 degrees Fahrenheit and upwards, and

a moist atmosphere, is the most favourable to decomposition. The remains of
the young decompose more rapidly than those of the old, females than males,
the fat than the lean. The remains of children decompose very rapidly. On
opening the graves of children at a period of six or seven years, the bodies
have been found decomposed, not even the bones remaining, whilst the
bodies of the adults were but little affected. The process of decomposition is
also affected by the disease by which the death was occasioned. The process
is delayed by the make of some sorts of coffins. The extreme variations of
the process under such circumstances as those above recited is from a few
months to 30 years or half a century. Bones often last for centuries.
§ 144. The regulation of the depth of the graves has been found to be a
subject requiring great attention, to avoid occasioning too rapid an evolution
of miasma from the remains, and at the same time to avoid its retention and
corruption, to avoid the pollution of distant springs, and also to avoid
rendering increased space for burial requisite by the delay of decomposition
usually produced by deep burial, for the ground usually becomes hard in
proportion to the depth, and delays the decomposition. Attention to these
circumstances by qualified persons in Germany has led to different
regulations of the depth of graves at different ages. At Stuttgart the different
depths are as follows: for bodies of persons—
ft. in.
Under 8 years 3 9
8 to 10 years 4 7
10 to 14 years 5 7
Adults 6 7
At the Glasshutte, in the Erzgebirge, the depths are as follows:
ft. in.
Under 8 years 3 8
8 to 14 years 4 7
Adults 5 0
At Franckfort the average depth prescribed for graves is 5 ft. 7 in.; at Munich
6 ft. 7 in.; in France 4 ft. 10 in. to 6 ft.; in Austria 6 ft. 2 in., if lime be used.

§ 145. Space between graves is also a matter requiring attention to avoid the
uncovering of the coffin in one grave in opening another, and to avoid the
accidents arising from the falling in of the sides of the graves: this space
must vary according to the consistency of the ground and the depth of the
graves. At Munich and Stuttgart the space prescribed, is in round numbers,
rather more than 32 square feet to each adult. To avoid treading on the
graves, and to allow the access of friends, spaces must be allowed also for
walks.
These circumstances considered, the space requisite for the interments in a
town may be determined by the multiplication of the average square
superficies of a grave, by the average yearly mortality, and the period of
years which the grave is to remain closed. “As an example,” says Dr. Reicke,
“of the mode of calculating the necessary space for the burial ground of a
populous district, I will take a town of 35,000 inhabitants. Accordingly of
this number it may be reckoned there will yearly die 1000. Of the number
500 will be adults, 50 children, from 7 to 14, and 450 children from 0 to 7
years. For the adults, allowing more than the most economical space, I
calculate graves of 48 square feet Wirtemburg (i. e. 54·72 square feet
English); for the children between 7 and 14 years, 24 square feet (27·36
English feet); and for those under 7, 20 square feet (22·80 English). For the
adults I take a period of 10 years, for the youth 8 years, for the infants 7
years, as the time during which periods the grave must not be opened.”
According to this calculation the space required for the interment of the
several classes would be—
English English
Numbers
Square Years. Square
Dead.
Feet. Feet.
1.
54·72 × 500 × 10 = 273,600
Adults.
2.
27·36 × 50 × 8 = 10,944
Youth.
3.
22·80 × 450 × 7 = 71,820
Infants.

Total 356,364

“According to the usual calculation the requisite space would be:—

39·90 × 1,000 × 10 = 399,000.

So that, by the above calculation and classification, there is a saving of
42,636 square feet.
“I must, however, beg to be understood that this calculation is only meant to
serve as an example, and that the factors on which it is grounded must
undergo the necessary variations, according as the soil is more or less
favourable to decomposition, and therefore requiring a longer or shorter
period of rest; and according to the greater or less consistency of the soil, and
therefore requiring the space between the graves to be greater or less; and,
lastly, according as the average mortality varies, and especially the rate of
mortality of the three classes of ages.”
These factors would give different results for different populations,
according to their different proportions of death. As an example of a town
population, in Whitechapel the proportion of deaths for every 35,000 of the
population will be 1125 deaths yearly. As an example of a rural population,
for every 35,000 of the population in Hereford, there will only be 562 deaths
annually, and the space required for interments for the two populations will
be as follows, at the actual rate of deaths per 35,000 amongst the population
in the Whitechapel Union in 1839:
Total
English Numbe Average
Age of Area in
Square r of Square
Grave. Square
Feet. Deaths. Feet.
Feet.
1.
54·72 × 568 × 10 = 310,810
Adults.
2.
27·36 × 31 × 8 = 6,785
Youths.
3.
22·80 × 524 × 7 = 83,639
Children.

1,123 401,234 39·07

Rate of deaths per 35,000 in the Herefordshire Unions in 1839:
Total
English Numbe Average
Age of Area in
Square r of Square
Grave. Square
Feet. Deaths. Feet.
Feet.
1.
54·72 × 382 × 10 = 209,030
Adults.
2.
27·36 × 16 × 8 = 3,502
Youths.
3.
22·80 × 164 × 7 = 26,174
Children.

562 238,706 44·62

This gives for a rural population 976 graves per acre.
For a town population 1,117 graves per acre.
But in consequence of the smaller proportion of children dying in the rural
district, a larger space is requisite than would appear from a comparative
number of the interments if the graves were of the same size. The average
size of the different graves may be taken as an epitome of the strength of the
same numbers of the two populations: that of the town grave being in round
numbers 39 feet, while the rural grave is 44 feet.
Nevertheless, the extent of land requisite for cemetery, on a decennial period
of renewal, for a population of 20,000 in a rural district would be only 4104
acres, whilst for 20,000 of such a town population as that of Whitechapel, it
would be 7104 acres.
§ 146. In 1838 the deaths in the metropolis were nearly 52,000; and for
round numbers the average maybe taken as 50,000 annually. Such an amount
of mortality would require on the scale proposed by Dr. Riecke, for the
several classes of graves, about 48 acres, or a space of nearly the size of St.
James’s Park within the rails, annually. On the same scale, supposing the
interments generally renewable in decennial periods, the space required for
national cemeteries in the metropolis would be 444 acres, or a space

coextensive with Hyde Park, which has 350 acres, and the Green Park and
St. James’s Park put together; or rather more than one-fourth more than the
Regent’s Park, which has 350 acres; or one-fourth less space than the Hyde
Park and Kensington Gardens taken together. But besides the spaces for the
cemeteries, spaces would be requisite as belts of land surrounding them, and
to be kept clear of houses.
§ 147. The proper distance of places of interment from houses, is calculable
according to the number of interments. On this subject there have been some,
though not complete observations. There is a church-yard at Stuttgart, in
which 500 bodies are interred yearly, at depths varying with the age,
according to the scale of regulations stated, with no more than one corpse in
each grave, yet a north-west wind renders the emanations from the ground
perceptible in houses distant from 250 to 300 paces. The stench of the carrion
pits at Montfaucon is almost insupportable to a person not used to it, at a
distance of 6500 feet, and with certain winds at double that distance, and
under some circumstances even to the distance of five miles. Besides the
surface emanations, the pollution of the subsoil drainage and springs have to
be regarded. Captain Vetch states, that on some plains in Mexico, where
animals have been slaughtered and buried in pits in permeable ground, the
effects on vegetation were to be seen along the edges of a brook for a
distance of three-quarters of a mile. In some parts they actually slaughtered
and buried animals for the purpose of influencing the surrounding vegetation.
By the best regulations in Germany, as already stated, wells are forbidden to
be sunk near grave-yards, except at certain distances, such as 300 feet. Ante,
§§ 13, 14.
§ 148. On such data as have been obtained, the distance of a cemetery ought
to vary according to its size, or the number of the population for whom burial
is required. The cemetery for a small population of from 500 to 1000
inhabitants, should, Dr. Reicke considers, be not less than 150 paces; for
1000 to 5000 inhabitants, not less than 300 paces; for above 5000, not less
than 500 paces. In Prussia, the distance from houses at which cemeteries may
be built, is fixed at not less than 500 paces; at Stralsund, in Prussia, at 1000
paces.
§ 149. It is recommended that in general public cemeteries should be placed
at the east or the north, or the north-east of a town: the south and south-west
winds, being usually moist, hold the putrefactive gases in solution more

readily than the north, or north-east winds, which are dry. The higher the
elevation of a cemetery, the nearer may it be permitted to a city, as
putrefactive gases are lighter than the atmosphere and ascend. For the same
reason, cemeteries lower than the houses should be at a greater distance. A
site, with a slope to the south, is deemed the best, as it will be drier and
warmer, and facilitate decomposition.
§ 150. Competent witnesses declare, that by a careful preparation of the
ground, and without any appliances that would be otherwise than acceptable
to the most fastidious minds, the escape of miasma may be so regulated as to
avoid all injury to the health, and springs may be protected from pollution by
drainage; and that by these means the necessity of far distant sites, and the
inconvenience and expense of conveyance of the remains, and obstructions
to the access of friends to the place of burial, may be avoided.
§ 151. Amongst these means, one for preventing the escape of emanations at
the surface by absorbing and purifying them, is entirely in accordance with
the popular feeling. The great body of English poetry, which it has been
remarked is more rich on the subject of sepulture than the poetry of any other
nation, abounds with reference to the practice of ornamenting graves with
flowers, shrubs, and trees. A rich vegetation exercises a powerful purifying
influence, and where the emanations are moderate, as from single graves,
would go far to prevent the escape of any deleterious miasma. It is conceived
that the escapes of large quantities of deleterious gasses by the fissuring of
the ground would often be in a very great degree prevented by turfing over
the surface, or by soiling, that is, by laying vegetable mould of five or six
inches in thickness and sowing it carefully with grasses whose roots spread
and mesh together. At the Abney Park Cemetery, where the most successful
attention is paid to the vegetation, this is done; but in some districts of towns
it marks the impurity of the common atmosphere that even grass will not
thrive; and that flowers and shrubs which live on the river side, or in spaces
open to the breeze, become weakly and die rapidly in the enclosed spaces in
the crowded districts. Several species of evergreens, and the plants which
have gummy or resinous leaves, that are apt to retain soot or dust, die
quickly. The influence, therefore, of a full variety of flowers and a rich
vegetation, so necessary for the actual purification of the atmosphere, as well
as to remove associations of impurity, and refresh the eye and soothe the
mind, can only be obtained at a distance from most towns. It occasionally
happens that individuals incur expense to decorate graves in the town

churchyards with flowers, and more would do so, even in the churchyards
near thoroughfares, but that they perish.
§ 152. Mr. Loudon recommends for planting in cemeteries, trees chiefly of
the fastigiate growing kinds, which neither cover a large space with their
branches nor give too much shade when the sun shines, and which admit
light and air to neutralize any mephitic effluvia. Of these are, the Oriental
Arbor Vitæ, the Evergreen Cypress, the Swedish and Irish Juniper, &c. For
the same reason, trees of the narrow conical forms, such as the Red Cedar,
and various pines and firs are desirable. In advantageously situated
cemeteries, some of the larger trees, such as the Cedar of Lebanon, the
Oriental Plane, the Purple Beech, the dark Yew, and the flowering Ash,
sycamores, Mountain Ash, hollies, thorns, and some species of oaks, such as
the Evergreen Oak, the Italian Oak, with flowering trees and shrubs, would
find places in due proportion.
§ 153. There is one point of view in which the site of cemeteries does not
appear to have been considered on the continent, and perhaps in no place
could it be of so much importance as in London, namely, the convenience of
access for processions, including in the consideration the protection of the
inhabitants of particular quarters from an excess of funereal processions, and
the mourners from the conflicting impressions consequent on a passage
through thoroughfares crowded by a population unavoidably inattentive. It
might be found on a survey that the banks of the river present several eligible
sites for national cemeteries, and one pre-eminent recommendation of such
sites would be the superior and economical means of conveyance they would
afford by appropriate funereal barges, for uninterrupted and noiseless
passage over what has been denominated “The Great Silent Highway.”

Extent of Burial Grounds existing in the Metropolis.

§ 154. The rule, as deduced (§ 142.) from the German practice, would give
an average of 110 burials per acre per annum in a town district.
§ 155. In 1834, some returns of the extent of burial grounds and the number
of burials during the three years preceding, in the places of burial within the
diocese of the Bishop of London and the bills of mortality, were laid before
the House of Commons. From those it appeared that the ground occupied as
burial ground within the diocese amounted to 103 acres, and that the average
number of burials was 22,548, or 219 per acre, being from 108 to 117 more
per acre than the preceding rule would give. In some grounds the number of
interments were as high as 891 per acre. But that return did not include the
burials in the whole of the metropolis. From the results of a systematic
inquiry which has been recently made throughout the whole district of the
metropolis (as defined in the report of the Registrar-General) into the extent
of the burial-grounds and the average weekly number of burials at each
place, it appears that the total area now occupied as burial ground, including
the new cemeteries, and the annual rate of burial in each class, is, as nearly
as can be ascertained, as follows:—
Annual Highest Lowest
Average
Number Number Number
Burial Annual
Area of of of
Grounds in Number
in Burials, Burials Burials
the of
Acres. exclusive per Acre per Acre
Metropolis. Burials
of Vault in any in any
per Acre.
Burials. Ground. Ground.
Parochial
176103 33,747 191 3,073 11
Grounds
Protestant
Dissenters’ 8107 1,715 197 1,210 6
Grounds
Roman
0103 270 1,043 1,613 814
Catholics
Jews 9102 304 33 52 13

Swedish
0101 10 108
Chapel
Undescribed 10109 3,197 294 1,109 5
Private
12106 5,112 405 2,323 50
Grounds
Total of
Intra-mural 218101 44,355 203 1,080 46
Grounds
Total of
New 260105 3,336 13 155 4
Cemeteries
Vault
789
Burials
The total numbers of burials, as ascertained by verbal inquiry at each
graveyard, approximate so nearly to the total numbers of deaths as to afford a
presumption in favour of the general accuracy of these returns.[30]
§ 156. The most crowded burial grounds, on the average, are, it appears, the
grounds which belong to private individuals, usually undertakers. In these
places an uneducated man generally acts as minister, puts on a surplice, and
reads the church service, or any other service that may be called for. These
grounds are morally offensive, and appear to be physically dangerous in
proportion to the numbers interred in them. In one of them the numbers
interred appears to be at the rate of more than 2,300 per acre per annum.
Names are given to these places by the owners, importing connexion with
congregations, but without any apparent authority for doing so. They are
repudiated by the most respectable Dissenters. On this point it appears to be
just to submit an extract from a communication (on his individual
responsibility) from the Rev. John Blackburn, Pentonville, one of the
secretaries of the Union of Congregational Dissenters:—
I have no facts to communicate relating to the physical effects produced by the present crowded state
of the old grave-yards, but I am sure the moral sensibilities of many delicate minds must sicken to
witness the heaped soil, saturated and blackened with human remains and fragments of the dead,
exposed to the rude insults of ignorant and brutal spectators. Immediately connected with this, allow
me to mention that some spots that have been chosen both by episcopalians and dissenters, are wet and
clayey, so that the splash of water is heard from the graves, as the coffins descend, producing a shudder
in every mourner. I may with confidence disclaim the imputation that the grave-yards of dissenters
were primarily and chiefly established with a view to emolument. Many grave-yards that are private
property, purchased by undertakers for their own emolument, are regarded as dissenting burial

grounds, and we are implicated in the censures that are pronounced upon the unseemly and disgusting
transactions that have been detected in them.—These are not dissenting but general cemeteries:
dissenters use them for the reasons already stated [which are omitted, being the objections urged by
dissenters against the indiscriminate use of the burial service.] The pastor of the bereaved family
accompanies them to the grave, or meets them there, adapts his ministrations to their known
circumstances, and without fee or reward—except in rare cases—discharges them as part of his
pastoral work. By far the greatest portion of the persons buried in these grounds are not dissenters at
all; and to meet the feelings of their connections the proprietors of these grounds obtain the services of
men, who, without scruple, ape the clergyman, assume the surplice, and read the service of the church;
a fact which is sufficient to show that they are not dissenters themselves, nor seeking to conciliate
dissenting objections. The congregational or independent denomination, to which I belong, have about
120 chapels in and around London, and I believe there is not more than a sixth part of them that have
grave yards attached, and all those are not in the hands of trustees appointed by the people. But, as far
as I know and believe, there are but very few of these open to the sweeping censures that have been
pronounced upon them. At a recent meeting of the congregational ministers of the metropolis they
resolved, “That this board will always hail with satisfaction the adoption of any efficient means to
correct abuses connected with burial grounds, as well general as parochial, where such abuses are
proved to exist;” and I trust that the character of dissenters in general for good citizenship, is sufficient
to assure you that they will never permit their private interests to oppose any great measures for our
social improvement that are really national in their spirit and design.

As the sufficiency of the burial grounds existing within the metropolis does
not properly come into question under the general conclusion that there
ought to be none there, the only observation I at present submit upon the
space of ground now occupied is that it would serve hereafter
advantageously to be kept open as public ground.
§ 157. The well considered regulations then, give about 1452 common
graves per acre for a town population. § 145. In the arrangements made for
cemeteries belonging to a joint stock company, it is calculated that every acre
of ground filled with vaults and private graves, will receive no less than
11,000 bodies. On the average size of coffins of 6 feet 3 by 1 foot 9, the
common estimate is that the floor of an acre will receive 3,887 coffins laid
side by side.
§ 158. Another calculation for the produce of a company’s cemetery, is that
each grave will be 6 feet by 2 feet, or 12 square feet, or 3630 graves to the
acre (which contains 43,560 square feet), and that every grave shall contain
10 coffins in each grave. Twenty-five shillings is charged for each coffin
interred: hence each acre is calculated to produce, when filled (without
reference to the public health), a gross sum of 45,375l. In one instance,
where the burials in a company’s cemetery were five deep, the sales of
graves actually made were at a rate of 17,000l. per acre, gross produce.

§ 159. The retention of bodies in leaden coffins in vaults is objected to, as
increasing the noxiousness of the gases, which sooner or later escape, and
when in vaults beneath churches, create a miasma which is apt to escape
through the floor, whenever the church is warmed.[31] In Austria, and in other
states, interment in lead is prohibited. In the majority of cases in England,
burial in lead, as well as in other expensive coffins, appears to be generally
promoted by the undertakers, to whom they are the most profitable. The
Emperor Joseph, of Austria, on the knowledge of the more deleterious
character of concentrated emanations from the dead, forbade the use even of
coffins, and directed that all people should be buried in sacks; but this
excited discontent amongst his subjects, who agreed in the sanitary principle
of the measure, but complained that, putting them in sacks, was treating them
as the Turks would do, and the regulation was altered for burial in coffins
made of pine, which decays rapidly.
§ 160. It is to be observed as an improved direction of the public mind in the
British metropolis, that on the part of persons who have the means of
defraying the expenses of vaults, an increasing preference of inhumation is
manifested, and that it is found by cemetery companies that catacombs
prepared for sale are not so much in demand as was anticipated from the
proportion in which they were in demand in the parochial burial grounds.
The state of some of the places of common burial has evidently been such as
to lead to the practice of entombment in preference to inhumation. The
associations commonly expressed with inhumation (redditur enim terræ
corpus, et ita locatum ac situm, quasi operimento matris obducitur, Cic. de
legibus) were with a purer earth. In the most carefully regulated cemeteries
in Germany the sale of any portions in perpetuity is entirely prohibited. The
recent investigation of the disorders which have arisen in the management of
the Parisian cemeteries, has led to a conclusion for the adoption of the same
regulation, it having been found that, in time, families become extinct, or fall
into decay; that a proportion of the tombs and vaults are neglected and fall
into ruins, and detract from the general good keeping of the rest. Under such
circumstances the private tombs too frequently raise associations of a
character the very opposite of those intended by the purchasers. Their
numbers at the same time increase and continually encroach on the spaces
for general burial, and would ultimately occupy the whole of the cemeteries;
and in the progress of population would absorb and hold large tracts of most
important land near towns, in what would literally be one of the worst

species of mortmain.[32] It has, therefore, been found necessary to restrict the
sale of perpetuities in vaults or graves, and to give only what may be called
leases for years, renewable on conditions, for the public protection.
§ 161. In the common grave-yards in the metropolis, the bones are scattered
about, or wheeled away to a bone-house, where they are thrown into a heap.
The feeling of the labouring classes at the sight of the removal of the bones
from an overcrowded churchyard was expressed in a recent complaint, that
those in charge of the place “would not give the poor bones time to decay.”
In Paris it is the custom to arrange skulls and bones, in various forms, in
catacombs: but they are offensive objects; and the feelings of the poor man
must be but ill consulted in presenting to him, in these decayed and debased
remains, the prospect of the use of his own skull and bones to form part of a
great and revolting monument. A more beneficial arrangement is that in the
better regulated German cemeteries, where it is the invariable rule to remove
from the sight and to re-inter carefully, all bones, the object being to preserve
the associations of a gradual, inoffensive, and salutary restoration of the
material elements.
§ 162. By the Code Napoleon any one was permitted to be interred in his
own garden, or wheresoever he pleased. By the better considered
jurisprudence in Germany this liberty is withheld: because if the practice
were to become general, such decomposing remains would be spread about
without order, to the injury of the public health: it would facilitate the burial
of persons murdered; many by precipitate and ill-regulated burial would be
buried alive; many would be buried in this mode to evade proper inquiries.
An examination of the circumstances of private and speculative burial
grounds in this country developes many facts, in corroboration of the
soundness of the German jurisprudence on this subject.
§ 163. The information with relation to material arrangements of the public
cemeteries in Germany is submitted, as showing how much there is in their
details of important questions of scientific appliances for consideration,
which, in the new cemeteries as well as in the old burial grounds in this
country, have generally been overlooked: appliances which, even if they
were practicable on a parochial scale of management, would surely be little
understood by the ordinary class of parochial officers. Though the practice in
Germany appears to be on most points in advance, the inquiry has elicited
various suggestions of probable important improvements upon it, which it is

thought unnecessary to discuss, as being more fitted for investigation when
new cemeteries have been determined upon than at present. It may for the
present suffice to state, that a confident expectation is entertained by the best
informed witnesses, that were the attention of the most competent persons
who have hitherto been scared away, secured to the subject, still further
useful improvements would be in a very short time effected.
§ 164. The following portion of evidence from Dr. Lyon Playfair, which
adverts to the management of the evil in the common grave-yards, may
however be adduced as an example of the character of some of the
improvements already suggested.
You have examined into the state of certain church-yards with reference to their sanitary effects; have
you not?—I have examined various church-yards and burying-grounds for the purpose of ascertaining
whether the layer of earth above the bodies is sufficient to absorb the putrid gases evolved. The
carbonic acid gas would not in any case be absorbed, but it is not to this that the evil effects are to be
attributed. The slightest inspection, however, shows that the putrid gases are not thoroughly absorbed
by soil lying over the bodies. I know several church-yards from which most fœtid smells are evolved,
and gases with similar odour are emitted from the sides of sewers passing in the vicinity of church-
yards, although they may be above 30 feet from them. If these gases are thus evolved laterally they
must be equally emitted in an upward direction. The worst burying-grounds which have come under
my notice are those belonging to private persons, generally undertakers, who make their livelihood by
interring at a cheap rate. I visited one of these only a few days since. It was about 150 feet long and
about 30 broad, and had been used for 80 years as a burying ground, and was still a favourite place of
interment among the poor. Of course many bodies are placed in one grave, and when the ground
becomes too much raised by bodies, it is levelled, and the boxes, &c., exhumed during the levelling,
are thrown into a large cellar fitted to receive them. This whole ground was a mass of corruption, as
may well be supposed, and it is situated in a densely populated neighbourhood. I mention this case as
one among many other similar cases of private burying-grounds, in order to suggest that attention
should be paid in any alteration respecting the laws regulating interments, to prevent burying-grounds
being kept as objects of pecuniary speculation, at least within towns; for this practice gives much
inducement to violate every feeling of decency and regard for public health in the desire for gain.
Can you suggest any method for preventing the escape of miasmata from graves, or from places for the
interment of the dead?—I cannot suggest any methods as the results of experiment; but, at the same
time, I think it possible that the evil might be much abated by the use of certain materials. For example,
in a theoretical point of view, chloride of lime would be quite effectual, but it might not be applicable
in practice, both from its expense, and from its great tendency to be decomposed. A cheap method of
absorbing putrid effluvia, is by a mixture of charcoal from burnt tar, burnt clay, and gypsum. When
such a mixture is mixed with putrid matter, all smell is immediately removed, and the matter is
rendered inoffensive to health. When this mixture is strewed over decomposing animal and vegetable
matter, it ceases to emit disagreeable odours. In like manner, if a layer of such a cheap mixture as this
were thrown around and over a coffin, it would absorb probably the greatest part, if not all, of the
putrid miasmata arising from the decomposition of the body. It possesses also this advantage, that it
would not impair by keeping, even though the coffin did not burst for some years. I beg, however,
again to state, that I throw this out as a mere suggestion, as I have never tried it in the case of graves,
although I think it would be well worthy of a trial. Vegetation also ought to be encouraged over the
graves. The legitimate food of plants is derived from decaying animal matter; for indeed all the food

existing in the air, from which they derive their nutriment, is furnished to the atmosphere by the decay
of organic matter. Plants assist in absorbing the emanations which escape from graves.

§ 165. It has been mentioned as an objection entertained in Germany to the
use of clayey soils, on the ground that they retain the gases, and prevent that
regular access of air which is necessary (as explained in a portion of
evidence already adduced) to allow decay to proceed without putrefaction,
which is the most dangerous condition. Good sand and good gravel are of
value in the metropolis. It is stated by a gentleman connected with one of the
cemeteries, and it is here mentioned to show the prevalent want of
knowledge, that it is the common practice when sand and gravel are dug out
to form a grave, not to return it, but to fill in with the cheap and coarse, but
retentive, London clay. Now the grave-diggers frequently suffer severely in
re-opening the graves which are thus filled in by the retentive clay, and
require to be stimulated to their work by ardent spirits; and their ghastly
appearance, as Mr. Loudon observes, attests the sufferings which they
undergo. In another new cemetery, where the grass was very poor, the turf-
mounds covering some of the graves was trodden down; on inquiring the
reason, it was stated that sheep had been let in to eat the grass, to save the
expense of cutting it. Some of the trees and shrubs first planted had not
thriven well, and the officers stated that they had not yet been able to
persuade the directors to go to the expense of renewing them. In most other
cemeteries the plantations were in very good order, and several presented
points of improvement, in the architectural arrangements. But, as observed
by Mr. Loudon, “nearly all the new London cemeteries, and most of the
provincial cemeteries, adopt the practice of interring a number of bodies in
the same grave, without leaving a sufficient depth over each coffin, to absorb
the greater part of the gases of decomposition.” It may indeed be confidently
affirmed that there is scarcely one of the new cemeteries in which one or
other of the well established principles of management, in the choice of the
site, or the preparation of the soil, or in the drainage, or in the mode of burial,
or in the numbers interred in one grave, or in respect to the precautions to
prevent the undue corruption of the remains and escapes of dangerous
morbific matter, or in the service and officers, or in jurisprudential securities,
is not overlooked. (§ 20.)
§ 166. In the cemetery at Liverpool, where Mr. Huskisson is interred, it is the
practice to pile the coffins of the poorest class in deep graves or pits, one
coffin over the other, with only a thin covering of earth over each coffin until

the pit is filled, when it holds upwards of thirty, as the sexton expressed it,
about “thirty-four big and little.” The observation of several of the joint stock
cemeteries, and their estimates of future amounts of interments, not of one
body in one grave, but of bodies piled one over the other by five and even ten
deep, without any new precautions in respect to the emanations, the general
experience of the difficulty of effecting any change through commercial
associations that does not promise an immediate return for the expense
incurred, prove that, although they may be kept in a better condition to the
eye, there is no security that they will not be as injurious as any common
burial grounds, and stand as much in need of some regulations for the
protection of the inhabitants of the dwellings which in time may be driven
closer around them.
§ 167. Besides the improvements in formation of the cemeteries and
management of the interments, the regulations of the Franckfort and Munich
cemeteries present instances which it may here be proper to submit for
consideration, of the advantages derivable in aid of the religious service from
a better organized staff of officers in maintaining superior order in the
grounds on all occasions of solemnity.
§ 168. It will have been perceived how little support the clergymen have in
any appointed staff of officers to maintain order in the burial-grounds of the
more populous parishes. §§ 87, 88, and 111. On occasions of several
interments taking place in burial-grounds in the metropolis at the same time,
the master undertakers will volunteer their services to get the crowd of by-
standers into some order, and show how much might be done by other and
better superintendence to add to the impressiveness of the last scene. The
inferior attendants, the grave-diggers, at the interments which I have
witnessed at the new cemeteries, attended, as they usually do at the parochial
grounds, in a disorderly condition—unshaven, dirty in person, in dirty shirts
and in the old and the common filthy dress. During the burial service the
undertakers’ men only concerned themselves in removing the feathers from
the hearse and preparing for an immediate return; all the attendants began
talking on other matters, and went their different ways immediately the
coffin was lowered; the mourners were left with the utmost unconcern,
except by the grave-diggers, who followed them in the attitude of the usual
solicitations of money for drink.

§ 169. A conception of the alterations required and practicable in public
establishments for conducting such a ceremony with due regard to the
feelings of the survivors and the public, may be formed by inspecting the
regulations of the cemetery at Franckfort, from which it will be perceived
that the superintendence of the cemetery, and of the sextons in their various
employments, is given to a cemetery inspector, whose duties are described in
the second section of the regulations, and who must be a person of medical
education, an officer of public health, examined by the Sanitary Board, and
found by them to be qualified. It is specified as an important duty that he
shall be present at the interment, “in order that by his presence nothing may
be done by his subordinates, or by any other person, which should be
contrary to the dignity of the interment or to the regulations.”
The regulations also provide as follows:—
(3.) For the performance of all the necessary arrangements preceding the interment, commissaries of
interments are appointed to take the place of the so called undertakers. These commissaries have to
arrange every thing connected with the funeral, and are responsible for the proper fulfilment of all the
regulations given in their instructions.
(4.) In order to prevent the great expense which was formerly occasioned by the attendance with the
dead to the grave, bearers shall be appointed who shall attend to the cemetery all funerals, without
distinction of rank or condition.
To these bearers shall be given assistants, who shall be equally under the control of the interment
commissaries.
The commissary must see that the bearers are always cleanly and respectably dressed in black when
they appear at a funeral, and must be particularly careful that they conduct themselves seriously,
quietly, and respectably.
He must also see that the carriage of the dead is not driven quickly either in the town or beyond it, but
that it is conducted respectably at a proper quiet pace.
When the dead is covered, and not until then, the commissary and the bearers shall leave the cemetery
in perfect silence.
For any impropriety which may, through the conduct of the bearers, arise during the interment, the
commissary is responsible.
(35.) The sextons must always be respectably dressed in black during the interment, and those who go
to the house of mourning must always appear in neat and clean attire, and must be studious at all times,
whether engaged within or without the churchyard, to preserve a modest and proper behaviour.
Drunkenness, neglect of duty, or abuse of their services, will be punished by the Church Yard
Commission, and on repetition of the offence, the offender will be dismissed.

A Christian attention and civility to all is required from the highest public
officer, without any fees or expense, and mendicancy on the part of the
inferior attendants, and the rapacity of the uneducated and of the ill-educated,

which always rushes in most strongly on the helpless, are equally prohibited.
Of the inspector himself, it is by these regulations provided:—
(17.) It is the duty of the inspector to treat all who have to apply to him with politeness and respect,
and to give the required information unweariedly and with ready good will.
Under no pretext is he allowed either to demand or receive any payment, as he has a sufficient salary.

And in respect to the other officers:—
(40.) Besides, or in addition to the authorised payment printed in the tax roll, and determined by the
Cemetery Commission as the sufficient remuneration of the Inspector, Commissioners of Interments,
the bearers and sextons, no one is on the occasion of a death, either to give money, or to furnish food
and drink.
The practice of furnishing crape, gloves, lemons, &c., by the friends of the dead, is also given up, and
the persons engaged in conducting the interment, must take all the requisites with them, without asking
or receiving any compensation, under pain of instant dismissal.

§ 170. It is now a prevalent complaint, which, so far as the present inquiry
has proceeded, appears to be a just one, that in the management of the
common grave-yards in this country, human remains are literally treated as
earth, by the sextons and gravediggers, and ignorant men to whom that
management falls. The popular sentiments are offended by such open
practices as that of using an iron borer, to bore down and ascertain whether
the ground is occupied by a coffin, and whether it and the contents are
sufficiently decayed for removal. Were proper registries kept of all
interments and their sites, these, and a knowledge of natural operations,
would render such offensive processes unnecessary. There appear to be few
parochial grounds in which the remains of any individual of the poorer
classes could be found with certainty, for exhumation, or for judicial or other
purposes.
§ 171. In the German regulations cited as examples, the public feeling is
carefully consulted, and the general principle is acted upon, that the remains,
so long as they last, are sacred, and must even be dealt with as sentient. Year
after year the regulations for the care of the dead in the house of reception
preparatory to interment are scrupulously maintained, on the presumption
that a revival may take place, and the action upon the presumption is not
relaxed, although perhaps there is no actual probability of such an event
taking place. Persons are kept in attendance at the cemetery on this
presumption, and with respect to them it is expressly provided:—
(7.) If roughness be shown by a nurse to the dead, he must be punished with instant dismissal, and a
notification of the same must be given by the Cemetery Commission, to the police, in order that proper
inquiry and punishment be given.

Moral influence of seclusion from thronged places, and of
decorative Improvements in National Cemeteries, and
arrangements requisite for the satisfactory performance of
Funeral Rites.

§ 172. The images presented to the mind by the visible arrangements for
sepulture, are inseparably associated with the ideas of death itself to the
greater proportion of the population. Neglected or mismanaged burial
grounds superadd to the indefinite terrors of dissolution, the revolting image
of festering heaps, disturbed and scattered bones, the prospect of a charnel
house and its associations of desecration and insult. With burial grounds that
are undrained, for example, the associations expressed by the labouring
classes on the occasion of burial there, are similar to those which would arise
on plunging a sentient body into a “watery grave.” Where there is nothing
visible to raise such painful associations, a feeling of dislike is manifested to
the “common” burial grounds in crowded districts, or to their “dreariness” in
the districts which are the least frequented.
The Rev. H. H. Milman, the rector of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, probably
adverts to these associations when questioned before the Committee of the
House of Commons with reference to the expediency of discontinuing burial
in his own parish.
2744. In reference to the churchyard of St. Margaret’s, is that full or not?—It is very full.
2745. Can you with convenience inter there?—My own opinion is, that interment ought to be
discontinued there for several reasons; not because I have ever heard of any noxious effect upon the
health of the neighbourhood, but on account of the public situation; it is a thoroughfare, and, in point
of fact, it has been a cemetery so long, and it is so crowded, that interment cannot take place without
interfering with previous interments.

Mr. Wordsworth, in a paper first published by Mr. Coleridge, has thus
expressed the same sentiments, and the feelings, which it is submitted, are
entitled to regard, in legislating upon this subject:—
“In ancient times, as is well known, it was the custom to bury the dead
beyond the walls of towns and cities, and among the Greeks and Romans
they were frequently interred by the way sides.

“I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the reader to indulge with me in
contemplation of the advantages which must have attended such a practice.
We might ruminate on the beauty which the monuments thus placed must
have borrowed from the surrounding images of nature, from the trees, the
wild flowers, from a stream running within sight or hearing, from the beaten
road, stretching its weary length hard by. Many tender similitudes must these
objects have presented to the mind of the traveller, leaning upon one of the
tombs, or reposing in the coolness of its shades, whether he had halted from
weariness, or in compliance with the invitation, ‘Pause traveller,’ so often
found upon the monuments. And to its epitaph must have been supplied
strong appeals to visible appearances or immediate impressions, lively and
affecting analogies of life as a journey—death as a sleep overcoming the
tired wayfarer—of misfortune as a storm that falls suddenly upon him—of
beauty as a flower that passeth away, or of innocent pleasure as one that may
be gathered—of virtue that standeth firm as a rock against the beating waves,
of hope undermined insensibly like the poplar by the side of the river that has
fed it, or blasted in a moment like a pine tree by the stroke of lightning on the
mountain top—of admonitions and heart-stirring remembrances, like a
refreshing breeze that comes without warning, or the taste of the waters of an
unexpected fountain. These and similar suggestions must have given
formerly, to the language of the senseless stone, a voice enforced and
endeared by the benignity of that nature with which it was in unison.
“We in modern times have lost much of these advantages; and they are but in
a small degree counter-balanced to the inhabitants of large towns and cities,
by the custom of depositing the dead within or contiguous to their places of
worship, however splendid or imposing may be the appearance of those
edifices, or however interesting or salutary may be the associations
connected with them. Even were it not true, that tombs lose their monitory
virtue when thus obtruded upon the notice of men occupied with the cares of
the world, and too often sullied and defiled by those cares; yet still, when
death is in our thoughts, nothing can make amends for the want of the
soothing influences of nature, and for the absence of those types of
renovation and decay which the fields and woods offer to the notice of the
serious and contemplative mind. To feel the force of this sentiment, let a man
only compare, in imagination, the unsightly manner in which our monuments
are crowded together in the busy, noisy, unclean, and almost grassless
churchyard of a large town, with the still seclusion of a Turkish cemetery in

some remote place, and yet further sanctified by the grove of cypress in
which it is embosomed.”
§ 173. Careful visible arrangements, of an agreeable nature, raise
corresponding mental images and associations which diminish the terrors
incident to the aspect of death. Individuals who have purchased portions of
decorated cemeteries for their own interment in the metropolis, make a
practice of visiting them for the sake, doubtless, of those solemn but tranquil
thoughts which the place inspires as personally connected with themselves.
The establishment of a cemetery at Highgate was strongly opposed by the
inhabitants, but when its decorations with flowers and shrubs and trees, and
its quiet and seclusion were seen, applications were made for the purchase of
keys, which conferred the privilege of walking in the cemetery at whatever
time the purchaser pleased. If the chief private cemeteries in the suburbs of
the metropolis were thrown open on a Sunday, they would on fine days be
often thronged by a respectful population. Such private cemeteries as have
been formed, though pronounced to be only improvements on the places of
burial in this country, and far below what it would yet be practicable to
accomplish, have indisputably been viewed with public satisfaction, and
have created desires of further advances by the erection of national
cemeteries. Abroad the national cemeteries have obtained the deepest hold on
the affections of the population. I have been informed by an accomplished
traveller, who has carefully observed their effects, that cemeteries have been
established near to all the large towns in the United States. To some of these
cemeteries an horticultural garden is attached; the garden walks being
connected with the places of interment, which, though decorated, are kept
apart. Those cemeteries are places of public resort, and are there observed, as
in other countries, to have a powerful effect in soothing the feelings of those
who have departed friends, and in refining the feelings of all. At
Constantinople, the place of promenade for Europeans is the cemetery at
Pera, which is planted with cypress, and has a delightful position on the side
of a hill overlooking the Golden Horn. The greatest public cemetery attached
to that capital is at Scutari, which forms a beautiful grove, and disputes in
attraction, as a place for readers, with the fountains and cloisters of the
Mosques.
§ 174. In Russia, almost every town of importance has its burial place at a
distance from the town, laid out by the architect of the government. It is
always well planted with trees, and is frequently ornamented with good

pieces of sculpture. Nearly every German town has its cemetery at a distance
from the town, planted with trees and ornamented with public and private
monuments. Most of the cemeteries have some choice works of art or public
monument, which alone would render them an object of attraction. For
instance, at Saxe Weimar, the cemetery contains the tombs of Goethe and
Schiller placed in the mausoleum of the ducal family. In Turkey, Russia, and
Germany the poorer classes have the advantages of interment in the national
cemeteries. In Russia it is the practice to hold festivals twice a-year over the
graves of their friends. In several parts of Germany similar customs prevail.
At Munich, the festival on All Saints’ Day (November the 1st) is described as
one of the most extraordinary spectacles that is to be seen in Europe.[33] The
tombs are decorated in a most remarkable manner with flowers, natural and
artificial, branches of trees, canopies, pictures, sculptures, and every
conceivable object that can be applied to ornament or decorate. The labour
bestowed on some tombs requires so much time, that it is commenced two or
three days beforehand, and protected while going on by a temporary roof.
During the whole of the night preceding the 1st of November, the relations of
the dead are occupied in completing the decoration of the tombs, and during
the whole of All Saints’ Day and the day following, being All Souls’ Day, the
cemetery is visited by the entire population of Munich, including the king
and queen, who go there on foot, and many strangers from distant parts. Mr.
Loudon states that, when he was there, it was estimated that 50,000 persons
had walked round the cemetery in one day, the whole, with very few
exceptions, dressed in black. On November the 3rd, about mid-day, the more
valuable decorations are removed, and the remainder left to decay from the
effects of time and weather.
§ 175. A review of the circumstances influencing the public feeling, and of
the tendencies marked by the recent changes of practice in this country, and
of the effects of the public institutions for interment amongst other civilised
nations, enforce the conclusion that those arrangements to which the
attention of the population is so earnestly directed, should be made with the
greatest care, and that places of public burial demand the highest order of art
in laying out the sites, and decorating them with trees and architectural
structures of a solemn and elevating character. National arrangements with
such objects, would be followed up and supported by the munificence of
private individuals, and by various communities. It is observable in the
metropolis, and in the larger towns that the direction of private feeling in the

choice of sepulture is less affected by locality or neighbourhood, than by
classes of profession or occupation, or social communion when living, and
that such feeling would tend to association in the grave and monumental
decoration. A proposal has been in circulation for the purchase of a portion of
one of the new cemeteries, for the erection of a mausoleum for persons of the
naval and military professions—members of the United Service clubs. At the
public cemetery of Mayence are interred 150 veteran soldiers, officers and
privates, natives of the town, who were buried in one spot, denoted by a
monument on which each man’s name and course of service is inscribed in
gold letters, and the monument is surmounted by a statue of the general
under whom they served. At Berlin there is a cemetery connected with the
Invaleiden haus founded by Frederick the Great, in which many of the
generals are buried with the private soldiers. The ground is well laid out, and
ornamented with monuments, the latest of which are executed by Tieck, and
other celebrated sculptors. This cemetery forms the favourite walk of the old
soldiers. The great moral force, and the consolation to the dying and the
incentive to public spirit whilst living, derivable from the natural regulations
of a public cemetery, is almost entirely lost in this country, except in the few
cases where public monuments are provided in the cathedrals. In the
metropolis it would be very difficult to find the graves of persons of minor
fame who have advanced or adorned any branch of civil or military service,
or have distinguished themselves in any art or science. Yet there are few
occupations which could not furnish examples for pleasurable contemplation
to the living who are engaged in them, and claim honour from the public.
The humblest class of artisans would feel consolation and honour in
interment in the same cemetery with Brindley, with Crompton, or with
Murdoch, the artisan who assisted and carried out the conceptions of Watt; or
with Emerson, or with Simpson, the hand-loom weaver, who became
professor of mathematics at Woolwich; or with Ferguson, the shepherd’s son;
or with Dollond, the improver of telescopes, whose earliest years were spent
at a loom in Spitalfields; or with others who “have risen from the
wheelbarrow” and done honour to the country, and individually gained
public attention from the ranks of privates; such for example as John Sykes,
Nelson’s cockswain, an old and faithful follower, who twice saved the life of
his admiral by parrying the blows that were aimed at him, and at last actually
interposed his own person to meet the blow of an enemy’s sabre which he
could not by any other means avert, and who survived the dangerous wound
he received in this act of heroic attachment. The greater part of the means of

honour and moral influence on the living generation derivable from the
example of the meritorious dead of every class, is at present in the larger
towns cast away in obscure grave-yards and offensive charnels. The artisans
who are now associated in communities which have from their beneficent
objects a claim to public regard, might if they chose it have their spaces set
apart for the members of their own occupation, and whilst they derive
interest from association with each other, they would also derive consolation
from accommodation within the same precincts as the more public and
illustrious dead.
§ 176. It is due to the memory of Sir Christopher Wren, to state that extra-
mural or suburban cemeteries formed part of his plan for the rebuilding of
London after the great fire. “I would wish,” says he, “that all burials in
churches might be disallowed, which is not only unwholesome, but the
pavements can never be kept even, nor pews upright: and if the church-yard
be close about the church, this is also inconvenient, because the ground being
continually raised by the graves, occasions in time a descent by steps into the
church, which renders it damp, and the walls green, as appears evidently in
all old churches. It will be inquired where, then, shall be the burials?—I
answer, in cemeteries seated in the outskirts of the town; and since it has
become the fashion of the age to solemnize funerals by a train of coaches
(even where the deceased are of moderate condition), though the cemeteries
should be half a mile or more distant from the church, the charge need be
little or no more than usual; the service may be first performed in the church:
but for the poor and such as must be interred at the parish charge, a public
hearse of two wheels and one horse may be kept at small expense, the usual
bearers to lead the horse, and take out the corpse at the grave. A piece of
ground of two acres, in the fields, will be purchased for much less than two
roods amongst the buildings. This being enclosed with a strong brick wall,
and having a walk round, and two cross walks, decently planted with yew
trees, the four quarters may serve four parishes, where the dead need not be
disturbed at the pleasure of the sexton, or piled four or five upon one another,
or bones thrown out to gain room. In these places beautiful monuments may
be erected; but yet the dimensions should be regulated by an architect, and
not left to the fancy of every mason; for thus the rich with large marble
tombs would shoulder out the poor: when a pyramid, a good bust, or statue
on a proper pedestal will take up little room in the quarters, and be properer
than figures lying on marble beds: the walls will contain escutcheons and

memorials for the dead, and the real good air and walks for the living. It may
be considered, further, that if the cemeteries be thus thrown into the fields,
they will bound the excessive growth of the city with a graceful border which
is now encircled with scavenger’s dung-stalls.”[34]
§ 177. I might submit the concurrent opinions of several distinguished
clergymen, communicated in reference to the general view of the importance
of a large change in the practice of town interments, and the formation of
suburban cemeteries, as being indeed conformable to the practice of the Jews
and early Christians, and recognised in the words “There was a dead man
carried out.” It was the ancient practice, as is perhaps indicated in the term
exsequies, to bury outside of the town.[35] To this practice it is clear that the
earliest Christians conformed. It was their custom to assign to the martyrs the
most conspicuous places, over which altars or monuments were erected,
where the believers used to assemble for nightly worship, so that it may
rather be said of them that their burial places were their churches, than that
their churches were their burial places.[36] When the temples of the heathen
gods were converted into Christian churches, the bones or relics of these
illustrious persons, together with the altars, were removed and placed within
the churches. The early practice of burial in the cemeteries near the earthly
remains of those holy persons, being deemed a great privilege when those
remains were removed, naturally led to the idea of its continuation, by the
interment of bodies in or about the first accustomed objects of worship.
Nevertheless, interment in the interior of the church was held to be an
unusual piece of good fortune, and when the Emperor Constantine, who had
constituted Christianity the religion of the state, had granted to him a grave
within the porticos of the church, it was esteemed the most unheard-of
distinction. The ancient Greeks and Romans thought that a corpse
contaminated a sacred place, and this idea as to the corpse was retained by
the early Christians. When some persons in Constantinople began to make an
invasion upon the laws, under pretence that there was no express prohibition
of burying in churches, Theodosius, by a new law, equally forbade them
burying in cities and burying in churches; and this whether it was only the
ashes or relics of any bodies kept above ground in urns or whole bodies laid
in coffins; for the same reasons that the old laws had assigned, viz., that they
might be examples and memorials of mortality and the condition of human
nature to all passengers, and also that they might not defile the habitations of
the living but leave it pure and clean to them. St. Chrysostom, in one of his

homilies upon the martyrs, says, “As before when the festival of the
Maccabees was celebrated all the country came thronging into the city; so
now when the festival of the martyrs who lie buried in the country is
celebrated, it was fit the whole country should remove thither.” In like
manner, speaking of the festival of Drossis the martyr, he says, “Though they
had spiritual entertainment in the city, yet their going out to the saints in the
country afforded them both great profit and pleasure.” The Council of Tribur,
in the time of Charlemagne, to prevent the abuse of burying within churches,
decreed that no layman should thenceforth be buried within a church; and
that if in any church graves were so numerous that they could not be
concealed by a pavement the place was to be converted into a cemetery, and
the altar to be removed elsewhere and erected in a place where sacrifice
could be religiously offered to God.
Amongst the distinct clerical orders of the Primitive Church, Bingham (book
iii. chap. 7) reckons the Psalmistæ, the Copiatæ, and the Parabolani. The
Psalmistæ, or the canonical singers, were appointed to retrieve and improve
the psalmody of the church. The business of the Copiatæ was to take care of
funerals and provide for the decent interment of the dead. St. Jerome styles
them Fossarii, from digging of graves; and in Justinian’s Novels they are
called Lecticarii, from carrying the corpse or bier at funerals. And St.
Jerome, speaking of one that was to be interred, “The Clerici,” says he,
“whose office it was, wound up the body, digged the earth,” and so,
according to custom, “made ready the grave.” Constantine incorporated a
body of men to the number of 1100 in Constantinople, under the name of
Copiatæ, for the service in question, and so they continued to the time of
Honorius and Theodosius, junior, who reduced them to 950; but Anastatius
augmented them again to the first number, which Justinian confirmed by two
novels, published for that purpose. Their office was to take the whole care of
funerals upon themselves, and to see that all persons had a decent and
honourable interment. Especially they were obliged to perform this last
office to the poorer people without exacting anything of their relations upon
that account. The Parabolani were incorporated at Alexandria to the number
of 500 or 600, who were deputed to attend upon the sick, and take care of
their bodies in time of weakness.[37] [Cod. Theod., leg. 43:—“Parabolani, qui
ad curanda debilium corpora deputantur, quingentos esse ante præcipimus;
sed quia hos minus sufficere in præsenti cognovimus, pro quingentis sex
centos constitui præcipimus,” &c.] They were called Parabolani from their

undertaking (Παραβολον ἔργον) a most dangerous office in attending the
sick. The foundation of a great city like Constantinople must have brought
the magnitude of the service of the burial of the whole population distinctly
under view, and have necessitated comprehensive and systematic
arrangements of a corresponding extent, by the superintendence of superior
officers through the gradations of duty of a disciplined force, which, even
with the Eastern redundance of service, could scarcely have failed to be
efficient and economical as compared with numerous separated and isolated
efforts. A great prototype was thus gained, and the well-considered
gradations of duty and service of the great city was carried out as far as
practicable in the small parish. In some churches, where there was no such
standing office as the Copiatæ or the Parabolani, the Penitents were obliged
to take upon themselves the office and care of burying the dead; “and this by
way of discipline and exercise of humility and charity which were so
becoming their station.” Bingham, book xviii. cap. 2. The state of
administrative information in these our times may surely be deplored, when
any views can be entertained of making the small parish and the rude and
barbarous service (multiplied, at an enormous expense) of the really
unsuperintended common gravedigger and sexton, the prototypes for this
most important and difficult branch of public administration of the greatest
metropolis in the modern world.
On a full consideration I think it will be apparent that the exclusion of the
burial of corpses in churches or in churchyards, and the adoption of burials in
cemeteries, and the conspicuous interment there of all individuals whose
lives and services have graced communities, will, in so far as it is carried out,
be in principle a return to the primitive practice, restoring to the many the
privilege, of which they are necessarily deprived by burials in churches, of
association in sepulture with the illustrious dead, and giving to these a wider
sphere of attention and honour, and beneficent influence.
On the immediate question of the arrangements for sepulture I beg leave to
submit for consideration the following extracts from a communication from
the Rev. H. Milman, which is more peculiarly due to him, as his examination
before the Committee of the House of Commons does not appear to have
elicited his full and matured opinions on the important subject:—
I cannot but consider the sanitary part of the question, as the most dubious, and as resting on less
satisfactory evidence than other considerations involved in the inquiry. The decency, the solemnity, the
Christian impressiveness of burial, in my opinion, are of far greater and more undeniable importance.

It must unquestionably be a government measure in its management as well as its organization. If you
have understood my evidence as recommending parochial, rather than a general administration, such
was not my intention. I thought that I had left that point quite open. When I stated (2729) the
alternative of cemeteries provided by the national funds, and by parochial taxation, I represented the
unpopularity of the latter mode of taxation: and (in 2782) I suggested certain advantages to be derived
from the more general and public administration. The Committee, however, who seemed to incline
strongly towards the parochial system, went off in that direction, and the questions turned rather on the
practicability of that system, and the manner in which it might be organized.
Further reflection leads me to the strong conviction that the parochial system, even if there were no
difficulties in forming the union of the smaller parishes for this object, could only furnish so loose and
uncertain a superintendence over an affair of such magnitude, and requiring such constant vigilance, as
to be altogether inadequate to the purpose. It is not easy, with their present burthens and
responsibilities, to fill the parochial offices with men competent to the duty, and with sufficient leisure
to devote to it. They are usually filled by men in business of some kind, with considerable sacrifice of
their time, and of that attention which is required by their personal concerns. These duties, however are
confined, onerous as they sometimes are, to their own immediate neighbourhood. But if we add to their
responsibilities, the care of a remote and large churchyard, with all its complicated management, we
impose upon them duties so arduous and so incompatible with their own interests and avocations, that
the conscientious would shrink from undertaking them, and they would fall into the hands of a lower
class of busy persons, anxious for notoriety, or with some remote view of advantage to themselves. It
will be absolutely necessary to relieve the parish officers from a burthen which they cannot undertake
without a sacrifice, which is more than can be expected from men engaged in business or in some of
the active professions. Besides all this, the administration would be constantly passing from one to
another; the objection to the whole parochial system, that a man no sooner learns the duty of his office,
than he is released from it, would apply in a tenfold degree to an affair of such magnitude. The only
way to secure the proper organization and conduct of a remote cemetery, would be by officers,
judiciously selected, and adequately paid, who should devote their whole time to the business. Many of
these objections, as the want of sufficient time without neglecting more serious duties, would apply to
the clergyman of a large town parish, and if the cemetery be made an object of parochial taxation, the
less he is involved in it the better.
On the wise and maturely considered organization, and on the provisions for the careful, constant, and
vigilant superintendence of the whole system, will depend entirely its fulfilment of its great object, the
re-investment of the funeral services, and of the sacred abode of the dead, in their due solemnity and
religious influence. Nothing can be more beautiful, more soothing under the immediate influence of
sorrow, or at all times more suggestive of tranquil, yet deep religious emotion, than the village
churchyard, where the clergyman, the squire, or the peasant, pass weekly or more often by the quiet
and hallowed graves of their kindred and friends, to the house of prayer, and where hereafter they
expect themselves to be laid at rest under a stone perhaps, on which is expressed the simple hope of
resurrection to eternal life, and where all is so peaceful, that the tomb may almost seem as if it might
last undisturbed to that time. I am inclined to think that some of the unbounded popularity of Gray’s
Elegy, independent of its exquisite poetic execution, may arise from these associations. Of these
tranquillizing and elevating influences, so constantly refreshed and renewed, the inhabitants of large
cities are of necessity deprived. The churchyard, often very small, always full, and crowded with
remains of former interments, either carelessly scattered about, or but ill concealed, is in some cases a
thoroughfare, where the religious service is disturbed by the noises, if not of passing and thoughtless
strangers, with those of the din and traffic of the neighbouring street; and the new made grave, or the
stone, which has just been fixed down, is trampled over by the passing crowd, or made the play-place
of idle children. Where, as in some of the larger parishes in the west of London, the burial place is not
contiguous to the church, it is more decent, but then it is secluded within high walls, or perhaps by

houses, and is only open for the funeral ceremony, at other times inaccessible to the mourning
relatives.
But will it not be possible, as we cannot give to the population of the metropolis, and other crowded
towns, the quiet, the sanctity, the proximity to the church of the village place of sepulture, to substitute
something at least decent, and with more appearance of repose and permanence; if not solemn, serious,
and religiously impressive? The poor are peculiarly sensible of these impressions, and to them
impression and custom form a great part, the most profound and universal influence of religion; and to
them they cannot be given but by some arrangement under the sanction, and with the assistance, of the
Government. Private speculation may give something of this kind to the rich, but private speculation
looks for a return of profit for its invested capital. To my mind there is something peculiarly repugnant
in Joint-Stock Burial and Cemetery Companies. But, setting that aside, they are and can be of no use to
the people of the metropolis and the large towns. There always has been, and probably always will be,
some distinction in the burial rites (I beg to say that to the credit of my curates, they refuse to make any
difference between rich and poor in the services of the church) and in the humbler or more costly grave
of rich and poor—
Here lie I beside the door,
Here lie I because I am poor;
Further in the more they pay,
Here lie I as well as they.

But it may be a question whether the very numbers of funerals, which must take place for a large town,
with the extent of the burial places, may not be made a source of solemnity and impressiveness, which
may in some degree compensate for the individual and immediate interest excited by a funeral in a
small parish. That which at present, when left to a single harassed and exhausted clergyman, and one
sexton, and a few wretched assistants, can hardly avoid the appearance of hurry and confusion, might
be so regulated as to impose, from the very gathering of such masses of mortality, bequeathed together
to their common earth, not (let me be understood) in one vault or pit, but each apart in his decent
grave. The vast extent of cemetery which would be required for London (suppose six or eight for the
whole metropolis and its suburbs), if properly kept, and with such architectural decorations, and the
grand and solemn shade of trees appropriate to the character of the ground, could scarcely fail to
impress the reflective mind, and even to awe the more thoughtless. Our national character, and our
more sober religion, will preserve us, probably, from the affectations and fantastic fineries of the Père
la Chaise ground at Paris. From some of the German cemeteries we may learn much as to regulation,
and the proper character to be maintained in a cemetery of the dead.
National sepulture is a part, and a most important part of national religion; of all the beautiful services
of our Church, none is more beautiful (I might wish, perhaps, two expressions altered) than our service
for burial. I could have wished that the Church had taken the initiative in this great question. I trust that
she will act, if the State can be prevailed upon to move, in perfect harmony with the general feeling on
the subject. It is fortunate, that in the Bishop of London we have not merely a person of liberal mind,
and practical views, but one who brings the experience of the parish priest of a large London living to
his Episcopal authority and influence.
One further practical suggestion occurs to me as likely most materially to diminish the expenditure of
funerals of all classes, and therefore to render any great scheme more feasible. A funeral procession
through the streets of a great and busy town can scarcely be made impressive. Not even the hearse, in
its gorgeous gloom, with all the pomp of heraldry, and followed by the carriages of half the nobility of
the land, will arrest for an instant the noise and confusion of our streets, or awaken any deeper
impression with the mass than idle curiosity. While the poor man, borne on the shoulders of men as
poor as himself, is jostled off the pavement; the mourners, at some crossing, are either in danger of
being run over or separated from the body; in the throng of passers no sign of reverence, no stirring of

conscious mortality in the heart. Besides this, if, as must be the case, the cemeteries are at some
distance, often a considerable distance, from the homes of the deceased, to those who are real
mourners nothing can be more painful or distressing than this long, wearisome, never-ending—perhaps
often interrupted—march; while those who attend out of compliment to the deceased while away the
time in idle gossip in the mourning coach, to which perhaps they endeavour to give—but, if their
feelings are not really moved, endeavour in vain to give—a serious turn. Abandon, then, this painful
and ineffective part of the ceremony; let the dead be conveyed with decency, but with more expedition,
under trustworthy care, to the cemetery; there form the procession, there assemble the friends and
relatives; concentrate the whole effect on the actual service, and do not allow the mind to be disturbed
and distracted by the previous mechanical arrangements, and the extreme wearisome length of that
which, if not irreverent and distressing, cannot, from the circumstances, be otherwise than painfully
tedious.
It may be worth observing that, in London, even the passing bell seems almost lost in the din and
confusion. This is the case even in the old churches, which retain their deep, full, and sonorous bells.
The quick shrill gingle, or the feeble tone of those which are placed in the chapels of the more recent
burial-grounds, instead of deepening to my ear, are utterly discordant with the solemnity of the service.
In the country nothing can be finer than the tolling from some old grey church tower—
Over some wide watered shore,
Swinging slow with solemn roar.

What would be the effect of a bell as large as St. Paul’s, heard at stated times, or in the event of the
funeral of some really distinguished persons, from the distant cemetery?

§ 178. The formation of national cemeteries would give the means of more
special and appropriate service for the interment of the dead than it is now
possible to provide by small parochial establishments. In the more populous
parishes, the service is unavoidably hurried. In all, the feelings of survivors
require the most full, respectful, and impressive service. In many of the rural
districts, the friends and fellow-workmen of the deceased accompany the
remains to the grave, and one object of subscriptions to burial and general
benefit clubs is to secure the advantages of arrangements for the attendance
of fellow-workmen, who are members of the same club. When a waterman
dies, to whom his brethren would pay respect, the body is conveyed by them
in an eight-oared cutter, to the churchyard by the water-side. On their return,
the seat which the deceased would have occupied is left vacant, and his oar,
tied with a piece of crape, is placed across the boat. One of the most popular
and impressive of funeral ceremonies is that on the interment of a private
soldier. When a private of the metropolitan police dies, a number of members
of the force, and a superior officer, attend his funeral in their uniforms. It is
not unfrequent when a member has been invalided and left the force, that he
will make it a dying request that his funeral may be attended by the officer
and men with whom he served. This request is generally complied with. Old
soldiers who have been invalided frequently make it a dying request to the

commanders of the regiments in which they have served that they may be
buried as if they had died in the service; and unless there be an exception to
the respectability of their conduct, the honour and consolation is bestowed.
§ 179. In Scotland, it is a subject of intense desire on the part of the
labouring classes to gain the attendance of some person of higher condition
at their funerals. When an aged and exemplary member of a congregation
dies, it is not unfrequent that the minister’s eldest son will pay respect, by
acting as one of the bearers of the corpse. In many of the rural districts in
England, the persons composing the procession will sing hymns. In the
churches, anthems are still sung, and funeral discourses given in the manner
described by the Rev. Dr. Russell, the rector of Bishopsgate.
When I was a boy (says the reverend gentleman), nothing was more common, in the parish of which
my father was rector, than for the body to be brought into church before the commencement of the
evening service on Sundays. The psalms and lessons appointed for the burial service were read instead
of the psalms and the second lesson of the evening. At the time of singing, a portion of those psalms
which have reference to the shortness of life was sung; and sometimes an ambitious choir would
attempt a hymn—‘Vital spark of heavenly flame,’ or the like. Since I have been in orders, I have
myself occasionally, in the country, buried persons with a similar service. Sometimes funeral sermons
were preached.

§ 180. The natives of the provinces, when they attend the remains of their
friends to the grave in London, frequently express a wish to have anthems or
such solemnities as those to which they have been accustomed.[38]
§ 181. The formation of national cemeteries would enable the ecclesiastical
authorities to provide means for complying with the desire thus expressed.
Under general arrangements, with reduced expenses, it will be seen that
ample pecuniary provision for it may be made to give to the funerals of the
many the most impressive solemnity. On this subject, the Rev. Mr. Stone,
rector of Spitalfields, observes—
Should the legislature determine upon removing the burial of the dead from populous places, it would
get rid of these mischiefs; and should it adopt a national system of burial instead of the highly
objectionable parochial system sketched out in Mr. Mackinnon’s Bill, it might do much more—it
might greatly add to the solemnity of our burial obsequies, and so make them at once more impressive
and more attractive. This might be done by concentration; instead of the parochial clergyman, hurried
to the performance of this affecting service, when his time, attention, and sympathies are engaged by
other duties, summoned desultorily to it, and often compelled to repeat it over and over again at the
same grave, just as the interest or the convenience of undertakers, the caprice, the bigotry, or the
carousals of mourners may choose to prescribe, let ministers appointed to officiate in national
cemeteries perform the service over great numbers at once, and at two or three stated hours in every
day. But the performance of the burial service over great numbers at the same time would add
incalculably to its solemnity. In the present state of things, simultaneous interments are supposed, as
they certainly are primarily intended, merely to save the time and labour of the clergy; and they may

sometimes be hurried through in a manner so careless, slovenly, and unfeeling, as not even the
necessities of the clergy can excuse. But it is quite a confusion of ideas to suppose that the practice
itself is slovenly and unfeeling. On the contrary, I find it more impressive in its effect upon myself; and
I think it must prove so to others. Two or three coffins, placed with their sable draperies in the body of
the church, are in themselves an awful spectacle; and the attendant mourners, occupying the
surrounding pews clothed in the same livery of death, form a congregation at once appropriate, and
large enough to give effect to a religious service. By their numbers, too, they operate against the
intrusion of idle gossips and inquisitive gazers, and, associated as they are with each other in a
bereavement of the same kind, they are thus brought into a contact calculated to kindle emotions of
social sympathy and religious sensibility. Assembled in the burial ground round the same grave, or
disposed in groups by the side of graves within a reasonable distance of each other, they form a picture
of the same affecting and impressive character. If the sympathy of a public assembly is perceptible or
intense in proportion to the numbers that compose it, this aggregation of burials need only be limited
by the effective power of the human voice.
Judging from an experiment of my own, I think that these salutary effects would be heightened to a
thrilling degree by music. And from the practice of the highest civil and ecclesiastical authorities, I
presume that the introduction of music into the burial office is not inconsistent with the rubric. At a
burial already alluded to, I acceded to a special request by allowing the introduction of some organ-
music; and, having no rubrical directions on the point, I selected two parts of the service as those in
which music seemed to me to be most admissible, and most likely to prove impressive. After the
officiating minister has preceded the corpse from the entrance of the church and read the introductory
sentences, there is an interval, during which he ascends the desk, the mourners take their places in the
pews assigned to them, and the corpse is deposited in the body of the church; and there is a still longer
interval, during which the melancholy procession leaves the church for the burial ground. I found that
both these intervals, which are unavoidably disturbed by somewhat bustling and noisy arrangements,
were most usefully and effectively filled up by the introduction of music. The subjoined scheme of the
music performed at royal burials will prove that I was not mistaken in supposing music consistent with
the rubric, nor much so in selecting those parts of the service, at which I prescribed its introduction. It
will also serve to show to what an extent music might be made to give effect and attractiveness to a
national burial of the dead.

Parts of the Service. Musical Composer.
“I am the resurrection,” &c. Sung Croft.
“I know that my Redeemer liveth,” &c. Ditto Croft.
“We brought nothing into this world,” &c. Ditto Croft.
The Psalms are chanted Chant in G minor Purcell.
After the lesson, and before the removal of the corpse from its station in the
choir, an anthem is introduced ad libitum.
“Man that is born of a woman,” &c. Sung Croft.
“In the midst of life,” &c. Ditto Croft.
“Yet, O Lord God, most holy,” &c. Ditto Croft.
“Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets,” &c. Ditto Purcell.
“I heard a voice from heaven,” &c. Ditto Croft.

Immediately before the Collect, “O merciful God,” or sometimes, though
very seldom, before “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” an anthem is
introduced ad libitum.
At the close of the service, while the mourners are moving off, the Dead
March in Saul is played on the organ.
The anthems usually selected are two of the following:—
“When the ear heard,” &c. Handel.
“I have set God always before me,” &c. Blake.
“The souls of the righteous,” &c. Dupuis.
“Hear my prayer,” &c. Kent.
On the burial of esteemed members of the cathedral choirs, the other
choristers have sung the highest and most solemn of the church music.
§ 182. Where the circumstances described, in respect to the Protestant
population, have prevented compliance with the popular desire for hymns or
anthems to be sung or sermons to be spoken at the burial at the parochial
churches in London, interment has been purchased for the express purpose of
obtaining them at the trading burial grounds. And yet it may be submitted
that the desire is consistent with the earliest recognized practice for all
classes,[39] and that a system of national cemeteries would in proportion to the
numbers interred in them, furnish valuable cases as examples for its
beneficial exercise, and must, to a great extent, prevent the misapplication of
the service to such cases as have apparently caused it to fall in public esteem.
“The honour,” says Hooker, “generally due unto all men maketh a decent
interring of them to be convenient, even for very humanity’s sake. And
therefore so much as is mentioned in the burial of the widow’s son, the
carrying him forth upon a bier and accompanying him to the earth, hath been
used even amongst infidels, all men accounting it a very extreme destitution
not to have at least this honour due to them.” * * * * “Let any man of
reasonable judgment examine whether it be more convenient for a company
of men, as it were, in a dumb show to bring a corpse to a place of burial,
there to leave it, covered with earth, and so end, or else to have the exsequies
devoutly performed with solemn recitals of such lectures, psalms, and
prayers, as are purposely framed for the stirring up of men’s minds into a
careful consideration of their estate both here and hereafter.

“In regard to the quality of men, it hath been judged fit to commend them
unto the world at their death amongst the heathen in funeral orations;
amongst the Jews in sacred poems; and why not in funeral sermons amongst
Christians? Us it sufficeth that the known benefit hereof doth countervail
millions of such inconveniences as are therein surmised, although they were
not surmised only, but found therein.” * * * “The care no doubt of the living,
both to live and die well, must needs be somewhat increased when they
know that their departure shall not be folded up in silence, but the ears of
many be made acquainted with it. The sound of these things do not so pass
the ears of them that are most loose and dissolute in life, but it causeth them
one time or other to wish, ‘Oh that I might die the death of the righteous, and
that my end might be like his.’ Thus much peculiar good there doth grow at
those times by speech concerning the dead; besides the benefit of public
instruction common unto funeral with other sermons.”—Hooker,
Ecclesiastical Polity, b. v. ch. lxxv.
“When thou hast wept awhile,” says Jeremy Taylor, in his Holy Dying,
“compose the body to burial; which, that it be done gravely, decently, and
charitably, we have the example of all nations to engage us, and of all ages of
the world to warrant; so that it is against common honesty and public fame
and reputation not to do this office.”—“The church, in her funerals of the
dead, used to sing psalms and to give thanks for the redemption and delivery
of the soul from the evil and dangers of mortality.”—“Solemn and appointed
mournings are good expressions of our dearness to the departed soul, and of
his worth and our value of him, and it hath its praise in nature, and in
manners, and in public customs; but the praise of it is not in the gospel, that
is, it hath no direct and proper uses in religion; for if the dead did die in the
Lord, then there is joy to him, and it is an ill expression of our affection and
our charity to weep uncomfortably at a change that hath carried my friend to
the state of a huge felicity.”—“Something is to be given to custom,
something to fame, to nature and to civilities, and to the honour of deceased
friends; for that man is esteemed to die miserable for whom no friend or
relation sheds a tear, or pays a solemn sigh. I desire to die a dry death, but am
not very desirous to have a dry funeral; some flowers sprinkled on my grave
would do well and comely; and a soft shower, to turn those flowers into a
springing memory or a fair rehearsal, that I may not go forth of my doors, as
my servants carry the entrails of beasts.” * * * *

“Concerning doing honour to the dead the consideration is not long.
Anciently the friends of the dead used to make their funeral oration, and
what they spake of greater commendation was pardoned on the accounts of
friendship; but when Christianity seized on the possession of the world, this
charge was devolved on priests and bishops, and they first kept the custom of
the world and adorned it with the piety of truth and of religion; but they also
ordered it that it should not be cheap; for they made funeral sermons only at
the death of princes, or of such holy persons ‘who shall judge the angels.’
The custom descended, and in the channels mingled with the veins of earth,
through which it passed; and now-a-days, men that die are commended at a
price, and the measure of their legacy is the degree of their virtue. But these
things ought not so to be; the reward of the greatest virtue ought not to be
prostitute to the doles of common persons, but preserved like laurels and
coronets to remark and encourage the noblest things. Persons of an ordinary
life should neither be praised publicly, nor reproached in private; for it is an
offence and charge of humanity to speak no evil of the dead, which I
suppose, is meant concerning things not public and evident; but then neither
should our charity to them teach us to tell a lie, or to make a great flame from
a heap of rushes and mushrooms, and make orations crammed with the
narrative of little observances, and acts of civil, necessary, and eternal
religion. But that which is most considerable is, that we should do something
for the dead, something that is real and of proper advantage. That we perform
their will, the laws oblige us, and will see to it; but that we do all those parts
of personal duty which our dead left unperformed, and to which the laws do
not oblige us, is an act of great charity and perfect kindness.”—“Besides this,
let us right their causes and assert their honour:” * * “and certainly it is the
noblest thing in the world to do an act of kindness to him whom we shall
never see, but yet hath deserved it of us, and to whom we would do it if he
were present; and unless we do so, our charity is mercenary, and our
friendships are direct merchandise, and our gifts are brocage: but what we do
to the dead, or to the living for their sakes, is gratitude, and virtue for virtue’s
sake, and the noblest portion of humanity.”

Necessity and nature of the superior agency requisite for private
and public protection in respect to interments.

§ 183. Having given a view of the evils arising from the existing practice in
respect to interments in towns, and an outline of what appears to be justly
desired as necessary objects to supply the wants of the population, I now beg
leave to submit for consideration the information collected as to the practical
means of obtaining them.
§ 184. The most pressing of the evils being physical or sanitary evils, the first
means of amendment required is the appointment and arrangement of the
qualifications, powers, and duties and responsibilities of an officer of health,
to whom the requisite changes of practice may be most safely confided.
The functions of such an officer, as marked out by the evidence of existing
necessities, may be divided into the ordinary and the extraordinary. The
immediate necessities are those which arise from the want of a trustworthy
person who maybe looked up to for counsel and direction to survivors in the
event of a death, §§ 121, 122, 123, 124, and guide a change of the practice of
interment. It is only by an arrangement that will carry a man of education, a
responsible officer, to the house of even the poorest person in the
community, just at the time when a competent and trustworthy person is most
needed to give advice, that the effect of ignorant or interested suggestions
may be prevented, and the beneficent intentions of the legislature, or the
salutary nature of any public arrangement for the general advantage can be
made known with certainty.
§ 185. The ordinary service of such an officer would consist of the
verification of the fact and cause of death, and its due civic registration.
From the exercise of these duties would follow the extraordinary duties of
directing measures of immediate precaution and prevention, which it is to be
feared whatsoever general sanitary measures might be adopted would, at the
outset, and for too long a period, constitute ordinary and every-day duties.
Out of the ordinary duties of the officer of health, would arise extraordinary
jurisprudential duties of protecting the interests of the community in cases of
deaths which have occurred under circumstances of suspicion or of manifest
criminality.

§ 186. Assuming the necessity of the establishment of adequate national
cemeteries at proper sites, it is proposed that a body of officers properly
qualified by service, as in the example § 185, should have charge of the
material arrangements, and take the place of the churchwardens and
overseers in respect to all places of burial, and be responsible for the control
of the servants of the establishment, and shall, moreover, be enabled to
regulate and contract for supplies, at reduced prices, of materials and service
of the nature of those now supplied by the undertaker. §§ 150, 153, 154, 155.
§ 187. In order that the officer of public health may be brought to the spot, it
is proposed that the last medical attendant on the deceased should, on a small
payment, be required to give immediate notice of the death, in a form to be
specified, or in case there happened to be no medical attendant, it should then
be incumbent on the occupier of the house, or the person having charge of
the body, to give the required notice.
Before particularising the course of practice of such an officer, it appears
requisite to state other grounds on which intervention appears requisite for
the verification of the fact of death, and the mode of death, by the inspection
of the body previously to interment.
§ 188. It is admitted that some additional arrangements are yet wanting for
the complete attainment of the proper civic and technical purposes of
registration:—as depositaries of pre-appointed evidence of the fact of death,
to determine questions of private rights:—as depositaries of evidence for
purposes of medical science and public health, to show the extent and
prevalence of common causes of disease incident to different occupations
and different localities—and of the data for tables of insurance, as well as for
the recovery of sums assured, where the proof of age is not admitted in the
policy. Any one who is unknown to the local registrar may go and register as
a fact his own death, of which a certified copy of the registry will, according
to the 38th clause of the Act, be evidence in a court of law. Cases of the
registration of false statements have already been detected; some have been
made with the view to successions and to the obtainment of property. False
registrations have been made amongst the labouring classes as to the place of
death, to gain interments in distant parishes at cheaper rates. Fictitious deaths
have been registered to defraud burial societies, and the registrar’s certificate
of such deaths have got in use by vagrants as a means of obtaining alms. In
Manchester a woman having obtained and used one certificate of a fictitious

death, soon after obtained another similar certificate, and in order to deter
parties from visiting the house, she got the cause of death registered as
“malignant fever.”
§ 189. On the continent, wherever the mortuary registers are well kept, and
arrangements are made for the protection of the public health, the fact and
time of death, and the identity of the deceased, is verified on the spot, by
inspection of the body by a competent responsible officer of public health.
Vide instance and effects at Geneva, stated in the General Sanitary Report, p.
174.
§ 190. It is proposed that the verification of the fact of death, and
ascertaining its cause, by inquiry on the spot, should be confided to the
officer proposed to be appointed as an officer of public health. The present
local registrars might act as auxiliaries; the proposed appointment would be
an additional security for the accuracy of the mortuary registration, and
would improve that branch of the local machinery for registration.
Postponing the consideration of other collateral grounds for the appointment
of a district officer of health, and to illustrate more clearly the course of
alteration of the practice of interments, we will suppose the physician or
officer of health brought by the proper notice to the habitation where the
body lies in the presence of the survivors.
§ 191. In visiting the habitations of the labouring classes, he would be more
careful to denote his office, profession, and condition, by his dress, and in his
address, even than with other classes. On his arrival at the place of abode of a
person of the working class, he would, after announcing his office and duty,
inspect the body, and then require the name, age, occupation, and
circumstances of the death of the deceased, enter them, and take the
attestations of witnesses present. If the death occurred from any ordinary
cause, he would, nevertheless, speak of the expediency of the early removal
of the body to the chapel or house of reception, where it would be placed
under proper care until the appointed time of the attendance of the relations
and friends at the interment. The exercise of a summary power of removal in
the case of rapid decomposition of the corpse, or in case of deaths from
epidemic disease, for the protection of the living, is frequently suggested and
claimed by neighbours. On inquiry in Manchester as to the periods during
which the bodies of persons dying in the poorest districts were retained in the
rooms where they died, the superintendent-registrar, Mr. Gardiner, observed,

“they are not retained so long in these districts, because the houses to which
the rooms belong are generally inhabited by several families, and those other
families feel the inconvenience of the retention of the body amongst them,
and they press for an early interment.” With females or survivors who cannot
endure to part with the remains, the exercise of a friendly will would
sometimes be necessary, and if properly exercised would generally be
effectual. The name of an officer of public health would carry with it very
general voluntary obedience to whatever he recommended, and in a majority
of cases the prostrate survivors would be glad that he should order
everything, and would feel it a relief if he were to do so. He would be
prepared with a tariff of the prices of burial, and with instructions as to the
regulations adopted for the public convenience, and for the more respectful
performance of the ceremony of interment, and should be empowered and
required, on the assent or application of the parties, to carry them out
completely, as he might do with very little inconvenience or expenditure of
time. He might be empowered to take such a course as this. Speaking to the
widow or survivor of the lowest class, he might say—
“The inspectors of public health have been empowered to regulate the
practice and the charges for interment, and to contract for and on behalf of
the public to ensure the means of burial in a proper and respectful manner for
the highest, as well as for the most humble classes. Formerly, the charge for
the funeral of a person of the condition in life of your husband was four or
five pounds, but by the new regulations, an equally respectable interment is
secured to you for little more than half the amount. You are, nevertheless, at
liberty to obtain the means of burial from any private undertaker. You may
also, if you prefer it, have burial in any private cemetery, or elsewhere.”
§ 192. It is anticipated that, except on private canvass, and that only for a
time, interment under the auspices of a public officer would be preferred in
the great majority of cases, if the business were conducted with moderate
care, in a manner really satisfactory, and if the minor but really important
conveniences of all classes were duly consulted. For example, one frequent
cause of the delay of interments amongst the poorer classes in crowded
districts, is the delay of notification of deaths to distant relatives and friends,
whose attendance may be required. More than one-half of the poor cannot
write, and many of all classes who can write are unable to collect their
thoughts even for a simple announcement of the event. The poorer classes
generally get some one to write for them; and the regular payment for each

letter is fourpence and a glass of liquor, or sixpence, exclusive of paper and
postage. In the charges for funerals of the labouring classes in Scotland, five
shillings is set down as the item of expense of letters of notification of the
death of an artisan, and fifteen shillings for the notifications of the deaths of
persons of the middle ranks of life. Under practicable regulations, such
notifications might be prepared in a manner suitable to persons of every
condition, at the rate of threepence per letter, or at one-half the ordinary rate
of payment, paper, and envelope, and postage stamp included. The service
might be rendered at an expense of a few minutes’ time to the officer in
taking down a list of the names and addresses of the persons to be sent to.
This list he would on his return to his office, hand to a clerk, by whom they
would be immediately prepared and despatched in proper and well
considered form. The Inspector might, therefore, add—
“If you will give me the names and addresses of those relatives and friends
who may be desired to attend the funeral, I will cause notice of the time and
places of attendance to be sent to them. Amongst the highest classes it is now
the practice to diminish the number of followers to the grave, and to commit
that duty only to a few; and it is desirable, for the sake of preventing
unnecessary expense, that too many should not be invited. All the friends of
the deceased who attend at the national cemetery will have an opportunity of
joining in with the procession. Besides, the requests to attend, I can also, if
you wish it, and will give me the names and addresses, cause notifications of
the fact of the death to be sent to any persons in any part of the country.”
In the cases of illness amongst the survivors, or of a death from epidemic
disease, indicating an infected atmosphere, he might add—
“For the protection of your own health, and the health of your children and of
your neighbours, it is requisite that the body be immediately removed to a
place where it will be kept under the care of a physician, and inspected until
the appointed time of interment, when it will be received by the friends and
relations who attend.”
§ 193. It is considered that, in general, this course would be complied with,
but it is considered by physicians, that if it were found necessary in the first
instance, in the case of the poorest and most ignorant and highly-excitable
people, to concede the point, the officer might give directions to have the
body enclosed with cloth of a material to resist the immediate escape of
effluvia, and to be closed down, which might be done at a few shillings extra

expense. Mr. R. Baker, the surgeon, who has paid great attention to the
means for the improvement of the sanitary condition of the population at
Leeds, observes—
I believe that where persons die of epidemic diseases, there is not much regard paid to the necessity of
early interment. There is what is called the making up of the body, which is often done very early after
death, and even in some cases of supposed contagion, before it is absolutely necessary. But an
application is used in coffins of those whose friends can afford it which deserves naming, because it is
at once safe and economical, and renders any sanitary precautions unnecessary, where there is a desire
from any requisite family arrangements to keep the body; it is to place the body in a deal shell, and
then to place this shell within the coffin, between which and the shell are affixed at the sides and
bottom, a few pieces of circular wood about the thickness of two crown pieces, here and there, to keep
the shell and coffin apart, forming a considerable interstice, which is filled in with boiling pitch. The
lid of the shell is then laid on, having a glass over the face, and over this is poured more pitch till the
shell is incased in a pitch coffin between the wooden ones. The cost of this process, which is next to
that of embalming, is about 9s. 6d., and is easily paid out of the seven or ten pounds which the club
supplies. I would only add that this experiment deserves well of every one’s consideration, being far
superior to lead, and equally useful, in all ordinary interments, and admirable for the purpose of
avoiding contagion, while it admits the opportunity of keeping the body for any arrangement that is
required to be made. If this plan could be enforced upon all occasions where death had occurred from
contagious disease, I look upon it, that a great benefit would be conferred upon the community.

§ 194. In the cases where decomposition, as sometimes occurs, commences
even before death and proceeds with extreme rapidity after it, even an
immediate removal is not effected without producing depressing effects on
the bearers; and when there is an in-door church service, in some districts in
the metropolis, it is not unfrequently necessary to have the body left at the
church door, on account of the extremely offensive smell which escapes from
the coffin. These coffins are generally constructed without knowledge, or
care, or adaptation to the circumstances of the remains, or to any sanitary
service. Mr. W. Dyce Guthrie, surgeon, who has paid much attention to some
of the structural means for the protection of the public health, specifies
various modes in which the evils arising before interment, as well as after,
may be prevented, at a cost so inconsiderable as not to be sensibly felt, even
by the poorest classes, and yet be as efficient as the most expensive
arrangements now in use. For example: “Coffins may,” he says, “be rendered
perfectly impervious to the escape of all morbific matter, at an expense not
exceeding 1s. 6d. or 2s. each, by coating the interior over with a cement
composed of lime, sand, and oil, which soon sets and becomes almost as
hard and resisting as stone. Pitch, applied hot, would answer the same
purpose as the compound I have mentioned, but it would be more
expensive.” In the cases of such rapid decomposition as bursts leaden
coffins, or renders “tapping” necessary, he recommends the application, at a

few shillings expense, of safety-tubes to the foot of the coffin, so as to secure
and carry away into a chimney flue, or a current created by a chauffer, the
mephitic matter. These are adduced as instances of the detailed appliances of
which the officer of health would judge in each case on the spot and suggest
to the survivors, and if necessary write directions, or a prescription, for their
appliance.
§ 195. A cause of the delay of interments might, it is stated, be diminished by
arrangements, under which coffins of every size being kept prepared, one
might be brought to the house, with the name of the deceased, and his
obituary duly inscribed on a plate, in about one-third the time that is now
usually employed for the purpose. By this service, the rapid progress of
decomposition, and the escape of noxious effluvia would be arrested.
§ 196. Before leaving the abode of the deceased, the officer of health would,
in the case of death from diseases likely to have been originated or
precipitated by local causes, inspect the premises, inquire closely as to the
antecedent circumstances of the decease; and note directions to be given in
respect to the premises to officers having charge of drainage or sewerage, or
public works, for cleansing and lime-washing the premises, at the charge of
the owner, before renewed occupation.
In respect to the poorest classes, those who stand the most in need of
protection: the measure of prohibiting burial, except on a verification of the
fact and cause of death, by a certificate granted on the sight and
identification of the body at the place where the death occurred, has its chief
importance as being the means of carrying a person of education into places
rarely, if ever entered, by them, except by accident. The functions of the
officer of health when there are marked out by instances of acts done by
force of humanity and charity, which as yet have no authority in law, or in
administrative provision. For example, in the following instance, of a house
owned by a landlord of the lowest class.
Shepherd’s-court consists of about six houses. It was notorious that fever had prevailed to a great
extent in this court; in the house in question, several cases of fever had occurred in succession. The
house is small, contains four rooms,—two on the ground-floor and two above; each of these rooms
was let out to a separate family. On the present occasion, in one of the rooms on the ground-floor there
were four persons ill of fever; in the other room, on the same floor, there were, at the same time, three
persons ill of fever; and in one of the upper rooms there were also at the same time three persons ill of
fever; in the fourth room no one was ill at that time. It appeared that different families had in
succession occupied these rooms, and become affected with fever; on the occasion in question, all the
sick were removed as soon as possible by the interference of the parish officers. An order was made by
the board of guardians to take the case before the magistrates at Worship-street. The magistrates at first

refused to interfere, but the medical officer stated that several cases of fever had occurred in succession
in this particular house; that one set of people had gone in, become ill with fever, and were removed;
that another set of people had gone in, and been in like manner attacked with fever; that this had
occurred several times, and that it was positively known that this house had been affected with fever
for upwards of six weeks before the present application was made. On hearing this, the magistrate sent
for the owner of the house, and remonstrated with him for allowing different sets of people to occupy
the rooms without previously cleansing and whitewashing them; telling him that he was committing a
serious offence in allowing the nuisance to continue. The magistrate further gave the house in charge to
the medical officer, authorizing him to see all the rooms properly fumigated, and otherwise thoroughly
cleansed; and said that, if any persons entered the house before the medical officer said that the place
was fit to be inhabited, they would send an officer to turn them out, or place an officer at the door to
prevent their entrance. The landlord became frightened, and allowed the house to be whitewashed,
fumigated, and thoroughly cleansed. Since this was done the rooms have been occupied by a fresh set
of people; but no case of fever has occurred.[40]

This occurred seven years since, and on a very recent inquiry made at this
same house, it was stated that comparative cleanliness having been
maintained, no fever had since broken out, no more such deaths have been
occasioned, no more burthens had been cast upon the poor’s rates from this
house. The law already authorizes the house to be condemned, and its use
arrested, when it is in a condition to endanger life by falling; if it be deemed
that the principle should be applied to all manifest causes of disease or death,
or danger to life, then, instead of the remote and practically useless remedy
by the inspection of an unskilled and unqualified ward inquest (Vide General
Sanitary Report, p. 300), the skilled and responsible medical officer, with
such summary powers and duties of immediate interference, as were
successfully exercised in the case above cited, should be appointed.
§ 197. It is proper to observe, that it occurs not unfrequently that such scenes
arise from negligences and dilapidations of a succession of bad tenants, of
which the chief landlord is himself unaware: but whether aware of it or not,
the prompt intervention of an officer of health in such cases would not be
without its compensation to the owner. A bricklayer, who himself owned
some small houses occupied by artisans, which he had himself built, was
asked in the course of another inquiry:—
In what periods do you collect the rents?—Some monthly; about one-third monthly; the rest we collect
quarterly.
What may be your losses on the collections?—They will average, perhaps, about one-fifth; we lose
rather the most on the quarterly tenements.
What are the chief causes of your losses from this class of tenants?—Loss of work first; then sickness
and death; then frauds.
Are the frauds considerable?—Not so much as the inabilities to pay. I find the working classes, if they
have means, as willing to pay and as honourable as any other class. Within the last 18 months there

have been a great many people out of work; at other times there is as much loss to the landlord from
sickness as from any other cause. Three out of five of the losses of rent that I now have, are losses
from the sickness of the tenants, who are working men.
When children are sick, there is of course no immediate interruption to the payment of rent?—Very
seldom.
What sort of sicknesses are they from which the interruption to work and to the payment of rent
occurs?—Fevers, nervous disorders, and sickness that debilitates them.
Then anything which promotes the health of the tenants will tend to prevent losses of rent to the
owners of the lower class of houses?—Yes, I have decidedly found that rent is the best got from
healthy houses.

In some of the cellar dwellings in Manchester the losses of rent, chiefly from
sickness, amounted to 20 per cent.
§ 198. In all cases of deaths from epidemic diseases, one of the first duties of
the officer of health would be to inquire whether there were any other
persons in the house attacked with disease, and examine them. In all such
cases as those cited, §§ 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, he should have adequate
power, which, that it may be efficient must be summary, to take measures to
protect the parties affected and others, by ordering their immediate removal
to fever wards. It is only in a deplorable state of ignorance of the nature of
the evils which depress such districts that there could be any hesitation in
granting such powers from the fear of abuse; the most serious legislative
difficulty would be to ensure their constant and efficient application. Mr. S.
Holmes, the builder of the Stockport viaduct, and formerly an active member
of the Liverpool town council, gives the following illustration of the extreme
miseries witnessed in that town, and it is certainly not an exaggerated
description of the scenes to which the officer of health must at the
commencement of his duties be frequently carried on the occurrence of
deaths.
The melancholy facts elicited by the corporation clearly show that Liverpool contains a multitude of
inhabited cellars, close and damp, with no drain nor any convenience, and these pest-houses are
constantly filled with fever. Some time ago I visited a poor woman in distress, the wife of a labouring
man. She had been confined only a few days, and herself and infant were lying on straw in a vault
through the outer cellar, with a clay floor, impervious to water. There was no light nor ventilation in it,
and the air was dreadful. I had to walk on bricks across the floor to reach her bed-side, as the floor
itself was flooded with stagnant water. This is by no means an extraordinary case, for I have witnessed
scenes equally wretched; and it is only necessary to go into Crosby-street, Freemasons’-row, and many
cross streets out of Vauxhall-road, to find hordes of poor creatures living in cellars, which are almost as
bad and offensive as charnel-houses. In Freemasons’-row, about two years ago, a court of houses, the
floors of which were below the public street, and the area of the whole court, was a floating mass of
putrified animal and vegetable matter, so dreadfully offensive that I was obliged to make a precipitate
retreat. Yet the whole of the houses were inhabited!

§ 199. In cases of epidemics the saving of life by the prompt intervention of
an officer of health, on the occurrence of the first death, and the immediate
removal of the survivors affected, would be very considerable. In cases of
fever, on the removal of patients to the fever hospital, they are often received
in a state of violent delirium, or in a state of coma succeeding to violent
delirium. After they have been washed in a bath, and placed in a clean bed, in
the spacious and well-ventilated ward of the hospital, in a few hours, often
before the visit of the physician, the violent delirium has subsided, or the
state of coma having passed away consciousness has returned. Although in a
great majority of cases the patients are only sent to the hospital in the last
stage of disease, this mere change in the locality and external circumstances
of the sufferers diminishes the proportion of deaths from one in five to one in
seven. Supposing the cases occurred in equal numbers daily, the functions of
registration in the metropolis would carry the officers of health to upwards of
20 cases per diem of deaths from epidemic disease, for the most part in the
most wretched districts.
§ 200. The principle of this part of the proposed arrangement is in
necessitating visits of inspection, and thence necessitating the initiation of
measures of relief where there has hitherto been, and whence it may safely
be said there will be, no complaint or initiation of measures of relief by the
sufferers themselves. It is observed by Dr. Southwood Smith, in confirmation
of the observations made on the demoralizing effects of the physical evils
which depress the bodily condition of large classes that, as they have not the
bodily vigour, so they have not the intelligence of a healthy class. One of the
most melancholy proofs of this, he observes, is, that they make no effort to
get into happier circumstances; their dulness and apathy indicate an equal
degree of mental as of physical paralysis. And this has struck other observers
who have had opportunities of becoming acquainted with the real state of
these people. “The following statement impressed my mind the more,
because it recalled to my recollection vividly similar cases witnessed by
myself. ‘In the year 1836,’ says one of the medical officers of the West Derby
Union, ‘I attended a family of thirteen, twelve of whom had typhus fever,—
without a bed in the cellar, without straw or timber shavings—frequent
substitutes. They lay on the floor, and so crowded that I could scarcely pass
between them. In another house I attended fourteen patients: there were only
two beds in the house. All the patients lay on the boards, and during their
illness never had their clothes off. I met with many cases in similar

conditions; yet amidst the greatest destitution and want of domestic comfort,
I have never heard, during the course of twelve years’ practice, a complaint
of inconvenient accommodation.’ Now this want of complaint, under such
circumstances, appears to me to constitute a very melancholy part of this
condition. It shows that physical wretchedness has done its worst on the
human sufferer, for it has destroyed his mind. The wretchedness being
greater than humanity can bear, annihilates the mental faculties—the
faculties distinctive of the human being. There is a kind of satisfaction in the
thought, for it sets a limit to the capacity of suffering which would otherwise
be without bound.”
§ 201. In respect to any such services proposed, involving inquiry on the
spot, an objection is apt to be suggested, that the exercise of such functions
would be unpopular and objected to. By the sufferers it certainly would not,
§ 122. With portions of the population, in such a deplorable state of
ignorance as that manifested, even in this country, at the time of the invasion
of the cholera, when they imbibed the notion that the wells had been
poisoned by the medical men, the creation of any monstrous impressions by
others must be admitted to be possible; but the existence of that notion would
have been no justification for closing the hospitals, for staying the work of
beneficence, and suspending the performance of medical duties. Such an
objection, however, implies a very large misconception as to the general
state of intelligence of the working classes. There is, on this point, as regards
the metropolis, the direct and decisive evidence of experience. In
consequence of the difficulty of dealing satisfactorily with common hearsay
evidence, some of the local registrars have, with praiseworthy care,
proceeded to verify the facts of the death by inquiries made at the house
where it took place, which inquiries are strictly supererogatory. The
following evidence, though in part substantially a repetition of scenes already
described, is here adduced less for the descriptions of places visited than as
showing the manner in which these officers were received.
Mr. James Murray, the registrar of births, deaths, and marriages for the
Hackney Road district of Bethnal Green, having stated that sometimes he
made inquiries on the spot for the registration of deaths, speaking of the
poorer population of that district, states that they have usually only a single
room, and that “they never speak of occupying the same house, but the ‘same
room.’”

In what proportion of cases do the bodies of those persons remain in the room in which the persons
live and sleep?—It would depend upon the part of the district, for part of the higher district is highly
respectable. In that district nine-tenths of them have only a single room, and no opportunity of placing
the body elsewhere.
In nine-tenths of the cases the body remains in the same room?—It must be so, they have no other
room.
In a coffin?—Yes; I have seen it so repeatedly.
Is the retention of the body injurious?—I think so.
When you go to register the deaths is it deemed an intrusion, or are you received with civility?—I am
always received with civility in all cases.
It is not considered an intrusion?—Not at all. I myself have rather cultivated the good feeling and
opinion of the working classes; they know me exceedingly well, and I have never met with any
instance of incivility among them.

Mr. John Johnson, the registrar of one part of the Shoreditch district, was
asked—
Of the labouring classes, what proportion of the families have more than two rooms?—I cannot say the
number; but there is a vast number who occupy one room, and some occupy two rooms; some occupy
a kitchen and one room, or a little parlour and kitchen, and some two rooms up-stairs, some one room;
perhaps if they have two rooms up-stairs they have a family in each.
Do you find, on visiting those places, upon the occurrence of a death, that the dead body is retained in
the living and sleeping room?—Frequently we find it so.
And the family are eating and pursuing the ordinary offices of life in the room where the body lies?—
Yes.
Have you found the body retained for a long time?—No, they do not usually keep it longer than five or
six days; but I have known instances where the body has been kept two and three weeks.
But in that time does it not acquire a putrid smell?—Yes, and in rooms where I have gone to register
births I have found the effluvia so bad that I have been obliged to go out of the house without effecting
the register.
It had an effect upon your health for the time being?—Yes.
When you go to register deaths at the houses of the labouring classes, are you on the whole well
received?—Generally very well; they consider we pay them a compliment by calling upon them.
They do not deem your registration or inquiry an intrusion?—Not at all.

Mr. W. H. Wheatley, the registrar for the Old Church district of Lambeth,
was asked—
You think it necessary, in order to ascertain the causes of death with correctness, to go to the spot and
ascertain the fact on the spot?—Yes: I get much more correct information in that way than from parties
calling upon me.
If you were to remain at your desk, without local inquiry, do you conceive your registration would be
at all correct, or would it not be widely different from the fact?—I do not think it would be correct. I
think in every case of death the registrar ought to go to the house, not only for the purpose of
registering the death, but that there ought to be some means of ascertaining from what cause the party
died; that the body ought to be seen by the registrar, or some authorized person, or that it should be

compulsory to produce a medical certificate, certifying the precise cause of death. The searchers, who
were two women, appointed in open vestry, under an old Act of Parliament, to call and investigate
every case of death that occurred, and to examine the body and see that the party had come fairly by
his or her death, have been done away with since the passing of the Registration Act, and there is now
no means of ascertaining how the party has met with his death.
Can you state to the Commissioners instances of error which you have obviated or prevented by going
and inquiring upon the spot, that would have occurred by your not going?—I cannot mention
individual cases; but it has come under my knowledge that parties have called upon me to register a
death, and when I have asked the cause they have said, “I do not exactly know what it was, I believe it
was a fever, or something of that kind.” I have said, “I must trouble you to get me a medical certificate,
or I will call at the house.” I have gone to the house, and found it widely different in many cases from
the statement they gave to me, from error on their parts.
Are you satisfied from the experience of your office, though it has been short, that there can be no
correct registration without examination on the spot, and a sight of the body?—I think so; it would
entail upon the registrars a very arduous and a very unpleasant office, but that the registration would be
more perfect, and it would be a check upon crime, I have very little doubt.
Do you find any obstruction given on the part of the poorer classes to your going to the spot and
making inquiries?—Not the slightest. My opinion is that the poorer classes pay more attention to the
registration than the middling classes.
Have you met with any manifestation of prejudice or bad feeling from the poorer classes?—No, not the
slightest, but really a wish that the registration should be effective.
They do not view the registrar as an intrusive officer?—Not in the least.

In the worst conditioned places the only persons who are seen as public
officers are policemen and the rate-collectors or the tax-gatherers. When
commissioners of inquiry have been seen taking notes in them, the popular
impression was that they were tax-gatherers, an impression which it required
some trouble to remove. In a little time the officer of health would be most
popular and would exercise extensive and beneficial influence. The practical
evidence of the registrars was of an uniform tenor, establishing, as far as
actual experience may establish, not only the acceptability of the more
elevated and extensive service proposed, but that it must develope most
important civil as well as medical facts, the correct knowledge of which is
necessary for the relief of the most afflicted portions of the population.

Jurisprudential value of the appointment of Officers of Health.

§ 202. In the lamentable state of the population, which in England and Wales
produces annually upwards of 700 committals to prison for crimes of
passion, and of these 450 for murder, manslaughter, and attempts upon life, it
may scarcely be deemed necessary to adduce many particular examples of

the importance of the extraordinary jurisprudential services and securities for
life to the community obtainable by the exercise in all cases of the ordinary
functions of the verification, as far as may be, of the fact as well as the cause
of death. On examining the grounds of the fears of life and suspicions of the
poorer classes, inhabiting the worst conditioned districts, it is evident that
obstructions to crime, or safeguards, which are carefully preserved in the
well regulated communities (marked by security of life and the rarity of
crimes of violence) are here absent, and that wide openings are left for the
escape of the darkest crimes. Had there been an officer of public health, and
a verification of the cause of death by him on inspection, as at Geneva,
Munich, or other towns on the continent, and inquiry for registration of the
causes of death, it is probable that, with the certainty of such inspection, the
murders of the children at Stockport or at Little Bolton would not have been
attempted; or, if perpetrated, they might have been detected in the first case.
The whole class of murders verified on examination after disinterment may
be cited as coming within the same category. The crime of burking, which
appears to have originated in Scotland, and was extended to England, could
scarcely have been attempted systematically, except under the temptation of
the absence of such a security; and with such service as that proposed, it is
highly improbable that it could have been carried on to the extent there is
reason to believe it was.
On this point Mr. Corder, the superintendent registrar of the Strand Union,
gives important testimony.
From your knowledge of the actual state of much of the population in the worst part of the metropolis,
derived from your experience in the several local offices you have held, and especially your experience
as a superintendent registrar, do you believe that the inspection of the body to verify the fact of death,
and, as far as inspection and inquiry on the spot may do so, to determine the cause of death, would be
important securities not merely for the truth of the registration, but valuable securities for life itself?—
Most certainly I do. Had there been such an inspection and verification prior to the year 1831, the
horrible system of destroying human beings for the purpose of selling their bodies could not have been
carried on to the extent to which I know it existed at that period. Being then the vestry clerk of St. Paul,
Covent Garden, the officers of which were bound over to prosecute Bishop, Williams, and May, for the
murder of the Italian boy, the duty of conducting the prosecution entirely devolved upon me. In the
course of my inquiries, I elicited beyond all doubt that the practice of burking, as it was then called,
had prevailed to a considerable extent in the metropolis.
Would inspection, do you conceive, and proper inquiry as to the cause of death, have prevented such
murders?—Most effectually so, I conceive. I may mention that they took out the teeth of the younger
subjects, and sold them to the dentists. The Italian boy, it would have been seen, had no teeth; the teeth
had been punched out in such a manner as to have been remarkable.
Though the motives to such dreadful practices are removed under the securities for the public safety
imposed in connexion with the Anatomy Act, yet in cases of other attempts against life, do you

consider that the requiring a certificate of the fact of death, verified on inspection before burial, would
interpose useful practical obstacles for the prevention of murder, and the protection of life?—Most
assuredly.

Mr. Partridge, the surgeon of King’s College, at whose instance the
murderers were taken into custody, in the cases referred to, expresses a
similar opinion as to the importance of the proposed verification of the fact
and cause of death by a proper officer.
§ 203. It may here be stated that only a small proportion of the local
registrars are either medical officers or members of the medical profession;
but the short experience of those registrars who have those qualifications has
elicited abundant indications of the extent to which proper securities are
wanting for the protection of life in this country. Nearly all who have for any
length of time exercised their functions have had occasion to arrest cases of
primâ facie suspicion on the way to interment that had escaped the only
existing security and initiative to investigation, the suspicion of neighbours
and popular rumour. Mr. Abraham, surgeon and registrar of deaths in the City
of London Union, was asked on this subject—
You are Registrar of Deaths in the City of London Union. Since you have been Registrar, have you had
occasion to send notice to the coroner of cases where the causes of death stated appeared suspicious?—
Yes, in about half-a-dozen cases. One was of an old gentleman occupying apartments in Bell Alley. His
servant went out to market, and on her return, in less than an hour, found him dead on the bed, with his
legs lying over the side of it. He had been ailing some time, and was seized occasionally with difficulty
of breathing, but able to get up, and when she left him she did not perceive anything unusual in his
appearance. I went to the house myself, and made inquiries into the cause of death; and although I did
not discover anything to lead to the suspicion of his having died from poison or other unfair means, I
considered it involved in obscurity, and referred the case to the coroner for investigation. Another case
was of a traveller who was found dead in his bed at an inn. The body was removed to a distance of
forty miles before a certificate to authorize the burial was applied for. His usual medical attendant
certified to his having been for several years the subject of aortic aneurism, which was the probable
cause of his sudden death, although the evidence was imperfect and unsatisfactory, and could not be
otherwise without an examination of the body, and I therefore refused to register it without notice from
the coroner.
A third case occurred a few days ago. A medical certificate was presented to me of the death of a man
from disease of the heart and aneurism of the aorta. He was driven in a cab to the door of a medical
practitioner in this neighbourhood, and was found dead. He might have died from poison, and, without
the questions put on the occasion of registering the cause of death, the case might have passed without
notice. There was not in this case, as in others, any evidence to show that death was occasioned by
unfair means, but the causes were obscure and unsatisfactory, and I felt it to be my duty to have them
investigated by the coroner.
But for anything known, you may have passed cases of murder?—Certainly; and there is at present no
security against such cases. The personal inspection of the deceased would undoubtedly act as a great
security.

Mr. P. H. Holland, surgeon, registrar for Chorlton-on-Medlock:—

My district is of the better description, inhabited either by the higher classes or by respectable working
men, in which cases of deaths from crime are not very likely to occur; yet suspicious cases have from
time to time happened (say six or eight annually in my district), to which I have thought it necessary to
call the attention of the coroner. In one case, for example, a father, a labouring man, came to me to
report the death of his infant child, stating the cause to be sickness and purging; there was then no
cholera prevalent, and the rapidity of the disease was unusually great. My suspicion was excited as to
the cause of the death, of which the father could give no clear account, and I sent word to the coroner
that I thought the case was one which required inquiry. An inquest was held, and it turned out that the
child had taken arsenic. The jury were of opinion that the death was entirely accidental,—that there
had been no criminal intention. Had not the cause of the accident been developed by the inquiry, others
of the family might have suffered in the same way. The other cases, which had escaped inquiry, have
been chiefly those of accident, in which the death occurred at long periods subsequently, such as five
or six weeks. I have found that it is a common practice to represent children as “still-born,” who were
born alive, it not being necessary to register still-born children. By passing them off as still-born, burial
is obtained for a smaller fee. But by this means cases of infanticide might be concealed. The fact of a
married woman having been pregnant, and no proof existing as to the issue may hereafter be of legal
importance. I have heard of many suspected cases of the wilful neglect of children, on whose deaths
sums were obtainable from different burial societies. I cannot doubt that by inquiring much infantile
death, which occurs from ignorance and incorrect treatment, would be prevented.
Inspection on the spot would, I consider, operate much more powerfully in prevention than in detection
of crime. It would also occasion the stoppage of many existing but unsuspected causes of death. I have
had reason to believe in the existence of a large amount of the preventible causes of death, with respect
to which I have had no means of inquiry.
I was, during four years, apothecary to the Chorlton-on-Medlock Dispensary, during which time cases
of sickness occurring in houses unfit for healthful habitation were constantly coming under my
observation; many particular localities, affording far more than their due proportion of disease, owing
to imperfect drainage and ventilation. Any one who had gone to inspect the body on the occurrence of
death in those places, with powers to enforce sanitary measures, such as the removal of the survivors,
the drainage and cleansing and ventilation of the premises, would, undoubtedly, have had the means of
preventing much mortality.

§ 204. Mr. Leigh, the surgeon, whose testimony has already been cited, acts
as one of the registrars of Manchester, and adverts to one source of mortality
amongst infants which appears to be widely extended in the town districts. It
is a practice with mothers who go to work to leave their children in the care
of the cheapest nurses, who commonly neglect the infants, and have recourse
to Dalby’s Carminative in large quantities to quiet them. It is his opinion that
a large number of them fall a sacrifice to this and other improper modes of
treatment. For example, says Mr. Leigh,
There is one evil of the extent of whose existence I had no conception, till I had for some time held the
office of registrar. In decrying this, I would beg distinctly to disavow any private professional feeling. I
allude to the great number of cases in which either no medical treatment at all, or what is nearly as bad,
improper medical treatment, had been resorted to. I think, in nearly one-fourth of the deaths of infants
reported to me, on inquiry I find that the little patients had been attended by incompetent and
unqualified practitioners, chiefly retail druggists. Cases of croup and inflammation of the lungs which
are eminently benefited by medical treatment, and in which prompt and decisive measures often
preserve life, are treated by them, and I have reason to know by inquiry into the details of the cases that

bleedings, calomel, and the remedies absolutely requisite in such cases are never, or very rarely,
employed, whereas, under proper medical treatment, most of such cases would recover. Under these
circumstances, these men themselves become fertile sources of mortality to the young.

In a subsequent communication, he states—
I find that in the month of January just passed I registered the deaths of 33 children under 4 years of
age, of these 9 were attended by druggists; I believe all by one who has received no medical education:
this is at the rate of 108 per annum. Three of the children had no assistance at all, making 12 out of 33
that might possibly have been saved. This number 33, however, is below the average of the year, for in
the three months preceding there died in the district, of children under 4 years, 133, or 44 per month;
and during the quarter ending 30th September, 1842, 169, or 56 per month; and the general number of
those having no attendance, or being attended by druggists, is fully one-third, so that 100 per annum is
much below the truth. I some time ago requested Mr. Bennet, the registrar for the Ancoats district, to
make similar notes on the cases reported to him, and on inquiry from him I have reason to believe that
the evil exists to as great an extent in his district as in mine.
I find that in most of the cases no efficient medical treatment was adopted. Cases of pneumonia are
seldom or never bled, or proper remedies applied: the disease is probably not recognized, and if it
were, the treatment and extent to which it should be pursued is not known to the parties prescribing.

A similar practice appears to be prevalent also in the mining districts of
Staffordshire and Shropshire. (Vide Reports of the Sub-Commissioners for
inquiring into employment in Mines, vol. I., pp. 22, 23; articles 182–6; and
pp. 38, 39; pp. 305 to 315, and the recent report respecting the employment
of children at Nottingham.) In the course of some recent inquiries by Dr.
Lyon Playfair he found the increasing sale of opium in the manufacturing
towns was ascribable to the increasing use of it in the form of carminative, or
as it was named “quietness” for children, and that the consumption of opium
by adults had diminished. On inquiring from the druggists who sold the
opium what was the cause of the diminished consumption by the adults, the
uniform answer was, the “distress of the times,” which compelled them to
dispense with luxuries. He however ascertained clearly that from this terrible
practice great numbers of children perish, sometimes suddenly from an
overdose, but more commonly slowly, painfully, and insidiously. He was
struck, however, with the fact of the increased proportions and rapidity of the
births in the places where this infantile mortality was prevalent. It was
remarked by the people themselves. So that there was no diminution of the
numbers of children, but a woeful diminution of their strength and a
proportionate increase of their burdensomeness. Those who escaped with
life, became pale and sickly children, and it was very long before they
overcame the effects arising from the pernicious practice; if indeed they ever
did do so.[41]

The most serious consequences, arise from the omission of proper
administrative securities for the safety of life in Scotland. On these Dr. Scott
Alison states:—
In Scotland there is full opportunity for the perpetration of murder and burial without investigation by
any responsible officer. There is no coroner and no inquest. I have known cases of the occurrence of
deaths from culpable negligence, to say the least of it, which required public proceedings to be taken,
but where interment took place without the slightest notice. I had myself a young man of about 20
years of age under treatment who, in my opinion, died from culpable maltreatment whilst in prison. He
had in a drunken frolic committed an assault, and was imprisoned in a damp cold cell without a fire.
He certainly died of disease which was very likely to be produced by the cold which he then endured,
and to which he ascribed it. Before his imprisonment he was a remarkably strong, fine healthy man. No
inquiry was made or thought of in the case. I have known several cases, and they were not uncommon.
I remember two, within two or three days, of children having been overlaid and killed by their parents
when in a state of drunkenness. They were buried without any notice being taken of the circumstance
by any party, though if punishment were not inflicted upon them public notice would have been of
importance for the sake of the morals of the population.
I have known deaths of grown up people from burning when in a state of intoxication, and deaths from
intoxication take place without inquiry; also deaths from accidents, such as falling into coal pits, deaths
from machinery, as to which in many cases no public inquiry whatsoever was ever made. I have known
cases of children burned to death who were left without any care. It was a common case in Tranent for
persons to drink for a wager who would drink most. I know of the case of three tradesmen who drank
for a wager; two of them died within a few days, and the widow of one of them committed suicide
shortly afterwards; and I was informed that they were all buried without any notice being taken of the
fact. There is certainly a facility for the perpetration of murder in Scotland from the absence of
securities, and for protection of life against culpable negligence. The visits of an officer of public
health would be of very great utility.

Mr. William Chambers observes:—
It seems to me not a little surprising that in Scotland, which is signalized for its general intelligence,
love of order, and I may add really beneficent laws, the country should be so far behind in everything
connected with vital statistics. I have already noticed that it possesses no coroner’s inquest. This is a
positive disgrace. Deaths are continually occurring from violence, but of which not the slightest notice
is taken by procurators fiscal, magistrates, or police; indeed, these functionaries seldom interfere
except when a positive complaint is lodged. Some time ago, the medical gentleman who attends my
family, mentioned to me incidentally that that morning he had been called to look at, and if possible
recover, a lady who had been found hanging in her bed-room. His efforts were ineffectual; the lady
was stone dead; and it was announced by her relatives that she had died suddenly. In the usual course
of things, she was buried. Now, in this case, not the slightest inquiry was made by any public officer,
and whether it was a death from suicide or from murder nobody can tell. The procurator fiscal, whose
duty it is to take cognizance of such deaths, is, of course, not to blame, for he has not the faculty of
omniscience.

The preventive and detective functions of the officer of health would be the
more efficient from the exercise of any such functions being incidental to
ordinary functions of acknowledged every day importance, which must lead
his visits and inspection to be regarded as primâ facie services of
beneficence and kindness to all who surround the deceased. The comparative

inefficiency of officers whose functions are principally judiciary is well
exemplified in some remarks made by Mr. Hill Burton, Advocate, in a
communication on the subject of interments in Scotland.
A prominent defect (as he observes) in the means of inquiry into the causes of death in Scotland
consists in the circumstance that before any investigation can be entered on there must be ostensible
reasons for presuming the existence of violence and crime. On the occasion of a death having occurred
in circumstances out of the ordinary course, the only person authorized to make any inquiry as to its
cause is the officer whose proper and ostensible duty it is to prosecute to conviction. It hence arises
that the simple institution of an inquiry is almost equivalent to a charge of crime, and that the proper
officer, knowing the serious position in which he places those concerned, by taking any steps, is very
reluctant to move, until the public voice has pretty unequivocally shown him that the matter comes
within his province as a public prosecutor. There is no family in Scotland that would not at present feel
a demand by a Procurator Fiscal, or by any individual to inspect a body within their house, as very
nearly equivalent to a charge of murder; and I should think it is of very rare occurrence, that any such
inspection takes place, in a private house, unless when a prosecution has been decided on.
The absence of any machinery, through which an inquiry can be calmly and impartially made into the
cause of death, without in itself implying suspicion of crime, is frequently illustrated in the creation of
excitement and alarm in the public mind, which the authorities cannot find a suitable means of
allaying. I remember some years ago being present at a trial for murder, which, as it involved no point
in law, has unfortunately not been reported. It was a trial undertaken by the Crown for the mere
purpose of justifying an innocent man. Two butchers were returning tipsy from a fair; some words
arose between them, and soon after, one of them was found stabbed to the heart by one of the set of
knives which both carried. On investigation, it appeared that the deceased had fallen on his side, from
the effects of drunkenness, and that one of the knives which hung at his side, dropping perpendicularly
with its heavy handle to the ground, pierced through his ribs to his heart as he fell. It was impossible,
however, to satisfy the public that such was the case. The feeling of the neighbourhood ran high, and
the Crown was induced, out of humanity, or from a desire to preserve the public peace, to concede the
formality of a trial. I know it to be of the most frequent occurrence, especially in the north of Scotland,
that suspicions which must be destructive to the peace of mind of those who are the objects of them,
take wing through society, and can never be set effectually at rest.

§ 205. Mr. W. Dyce Guthrie, after reciting several cases of strong suspicion
which came under his observation whilst acting as a medical practitioner in
Scotland concludes by observing—
Whether on an inquest before a coroner the real truth would have been elicited I cannot determine, but
I think there can be but one opinion as to the propriety of having all obstacles removed which may
presently stand in the way of arriving at the truth of all circumstances connected with sudden and
suspicious deaths. Were it necessary, I could cite many instances of sudden deaths attended by
circumstances of such a nature as not only rendered an investigation highly proper in a legal point of
view, but necessary in charity to those individuals whose characters were tarnished by the cruelly
unjust insinuations of some black-hearted enemies. The business not having been thoroughly probed at
the time of its occurrence leaves great latitude for the villanous conjectures of parties whose interest it
may be to damage others in the estimation of the public.

§ 206. Besides supplying the defect of administrative arrangements in respect
to the cases of suspicion which at present escape inquiry, the proposed
appointment of officers of health presents as a further incidental advantage

the means of abating an evil which has been the subject of much complaint,
namely, the grievous pain inflicted on the relations and survivors, and the
expense to the public by the holding of inquests, which the subsequent
evidence and the terms of the verdicts have shown to have been unnecessary.
In the metropolis, and in many extensive districts inquests are chiefly moved
on the representations of common parish beadles, or by common parish
constables, to whom the inquest is usually a source of emolument. This will
be admitted to be one of the least secure and satisfactory agencies in towns
that could well be employed for so important a purpose. I have been
informed of instances where they have been paid to avoid the annoyance of
inquests in cases where from sudden but natural deaths, as from apoplexy,
inquests might have been held, and that there is reason to believe that such
payments have not been unfrequent. Such agency cannot be said to be a
secure one either as to integrity or discretion.
§ 207. I am informed by Mr. Payne, the coroner for the city of London, that
he has in some cases felt it to be his duty to send a confidential person to
make inquiries for him, before he would act on the ordinary sources of
information in holding inquests. I have also been informed that other
coroners adopt the same laudable practice, and frequently incur the trouble
and expense of previous inquiries by more trustworthy persons, in cases
where the alleged cause of death is not manifest. The appointment of medical
officers of health might be made without the exercise of any new or
anomalous powers to relieve the coroners from such necessity, and at the
same time give the public cause to be better satisfied that no really suspicious
cases were shrouded and concealed, and that none escaped from
inadvertence.[42] I believe that on the uses to be derived from the appointment
of the officers in question most coroners would concur in the opinions
expressed in the following answer received from Mr. Payne.
In reply to your inquiry (respecting the Medical Registrars of Deaths giving notice to the Coroner of
such deaths as may appear to them to inquire to be investigated by him), I beg to say that I have long
felt there has been something wanting in the machinery by which inquiries into deaths are, or ought to
be regulated.
In cases of death from external violence, where the injury is apparent, the constable of the district is
fully aware of the necessity of applying to the coroner; but in cases of sudden or other deaths where
there is no cause apparent to a common observer, there is a necessity for some qualified person
forming a judgment as to the expediency of a judicial inquiry into the cause of death, and I know of
none so well qualified to form such a judgment as a member of the medical profession. The office of
searcher, when properly carried out, was useful as far as it could be in the hands of old women, but
that could only apply to cases in which external violence was apparent to the view on searching the
body. I believe, however, that the office has now ceased to exist, and the present mode of registering

deaths does not supply any means of detecting unnatural or violent deaths. I am therefore quite of
opinion that a Medical Registrar (chosen for his ability and discretion) who would not unnecessarily
annoy the feelings of private families, and yet make himself acquainted with the death by personal
knowledge, would be a valuable addition to the present mode of ascertaining and registering deaths.

Advantages to Science from the Improvement of the Mortuary
Registration.

§ 208. Extending the view from the private and public immediate and
extraordinary necessities which may be met by a staff of well qualified
public officers, exercising the duties and powers proposed, to the ordinary
but higher public wants, it will be found they may in that position obtain in
years, or even in months, indications of the certain means of prevention of
disease, for which the medical experience of ages has supplied no means of
cure, and only doubtful means of alleviation.
§ 209. There is not one medical man who has acted as a registrar of deaths
who has been consulted on this subject, who does not state as a result of his
short experience under the registration of the fact of deaths, and even of the
distant and imperfect statements of the causes of death, that it has given them
such a knowledge as no private practice could give of the effect of habits of
life and of locality in producing disease.
§ 210. As a practical instance of the immediate advantages of placing the
business of registration under the guidance of medical knowledge, may be
cited the following from the statement of Mr. Jones, a medical officer, who
acts as registrar of the Strand Union. Speaking of the working of the
registration, he says—
I find that neither my experience as a medical officer, for many years in the parish, nor my experience
as a private practitioner, give me the same extended view of the causes of death as the mortuary
registration. It brings to my knowledge cases which I could not know as a private practitioner: for
example, as to the occurrence of small-pox or epidemics. In such instances, it is of use to me, as it
sometimes enables me to go to places where I believe children have not been vaccinated, and suggest
to the family the necessity of vaccination as a measure of prevention. When I have received
information of one or two cases of small-pox, I have looked to the register of births, and sent to other
people to warn them of the necessity of vaccination.

§ 211. On the advantages which inquiries for the registration of death would
give, the concurrent opinions of several eminent medical men may be
expressed in the terms used by Dr. Calvert Holland, of Sheffield, who
observes that, “From an inquiry on the spot concerning the train of symptoms

preceding death, the general examination of the body, or from conversation
with the medical attendant, the cause of death, with few exceptions, would
probably be assigned with as much accuracy as by any plan that can possibly
be devised. We should hail such an appointment as one of great value. Even
in those instances in which it is difficult, from the obscurity or undefined
character of the symptoms, to say precisely what is the cause of death, the
inquiry would tend to dissipate the doubts or obscurity in which it might be
involved. The duties of the officer, if he possessed first-rate professional
abilities, would give to him a power of analyzing symptoms, of tracing cause
and effect, which few practitioners possess or can acquire in a long life of
professional exertions. Were the causes of death analyzed and recorded by
one having no other duties, and fitted by his accomplishments to undertake
the task, the medical and statistical inquirer would possess a body of
information on the influence of general local circumstances as well as on
particular agents in connexion with manufactures, the just value of which it
is not possible to appreciate.”
§ 212. For the promotion of the new science of prevention, and the
knowledge of causes necessary to it, a primary requisite is to bring large
classes of cases as may be duly observed, under the eye of one observer. It
would be a practicable arrangement, on the receipt of the notices of deaths, to
direct the visits of one officer chiefly to cases of the same class, for the
purpose of collecting information as to the common causes or antecedents.
The amount of remuneration included in the estimate hereafter given might
be made the means of obtaining additional time and services for carrying the
inspections of the officers of health still further into the circumstances of the
living; as in cases of consumption or fever, where numbers came from the
same place of work or occupation, to visit and ascertain whether there was
any overcrowding or any latent cause of disease.
§ 213. In an important paper which Dr. Calvert Holland has written “On the
Diseases of the Lungs from mechanical causes,” he gives an account of the
physical and moral condition of the cutlers’ dry grinders of Sheffield, whose
case may be cited not only as further exemplifying the large evils, § 200,
which, in the absence of protective public arrangements, will pass without
complaint from the immediate sufferers, but as showing the advantages
derivable from any arrangements which bring large classes of cases within
one intelligent view, i. e. before an officer of health, in presenting clearly
common causes of evil, and in suggesting means of prevention, which in

single cases or smaller groups of cases might not have challenged attention
or justified any confident conclusions as to the remedies available.
It is known that the steel and stone dust arising in the processes of grinding
cutlery, is peculiarly injurious to the class of workpeople engaged in it, and
that those who continue at the work are generally cut off before they are
thirty-five or forty-five years of age. Formerly the same workmen completed
several processes in the making of knives, of which processes grinding was
only one. At that time the “grinders’ disease” was very little known, and the
men lived to about the average age, and were considered the most
respectable class of the Sheffield workmen. As the manufacture advanced the
labour became subdivided, and one class of workmen were wholly occupied
with the destructive process of grinding. Whether their numbers were kept
down by the excessive mortality, or a monopoly were maintained by the
destructive effects of the process, wages were so high as to allow them to
play during a part of the week. Then arose that avidity for immediate and
reckless enjoyment, common to all uneducated minds under the perception of
a transient existence. When trade was good they would only work a part of
the week; they spent the remainder in the riot and the dissipation
characteristic of soldiers after a siege. Many of them each kept a hound, and
had it trained by a master of the hunt, and their several hounds formed a pack
with which they hunted lawlessly, and poached over any grounds within their
reach. The grinders pack is still kept up amongst them. They became reckless
in their marriages. “The more destructive the branch of work,” says Dr.
Holland, “the more ignorant, reckless, and dissipated are the workmen, and
the effects may be traced in the tendency to marry, and generally at
exceedingly early ages.” He further observes of one class of them, that
amongst them “nature appears not only precocious but extremely fruitful.”
Their short and improvident career is attended by a proportionately large
amount of premature and wretched widowhood and destitute orphanage.
This one class of cases was brought fortuitously under the observation of Dr.
Holland, and he has done what a competent officer of health could scarcely
have omitted to attempt to do,—to devise means of prevention and reclaim
their execution.
One benevolent inventor proposed the adoption of a magnetic guard, or
mouth-piece, the efficiency of which consisted in the attraction of the
metallic particles evolved in the process of grinding. But the dust to which

the grinder was exposed consisted of the gritty particles of the stone as well
as of the metallic particles of the instruments ground, and if the invention
had been adopted, it would still have left the men exposed to the gritty
particles. It was not, however, adopted, nor does it appear that any efficient
preventive would be voluntarily adopted by these reckless men. Dr. Holland
invented another mode, which acts independently of the men, and which is
very simple, and, it is confidently stated, that after a trial of some years, it
has proved equal to the complete correction of the evil. It consists of an
arrangement by which a current of air, directed over the work, carries from
the workman clear out of the apartment all the gritty as well as all the
metallic particles. The expense of the apparatus would scarcely exceed the
proportion of a sovereign to each grinder. But it is not adopted; and Dr.
Holland is in the position of an officer of health, on behalf of mothers and
children, to reclaim authoritative intervention and the interests of society to
arrest the suicidal and demoralizing waste of life. Having consulted his
experience on the advantages of such an office as that in question to the
working classes, he speaks in strong and confident terms of the benefits to be
derived from it:—
Perhaps in no manufacturing community is human life, in large classes of men, so shortened or
accompanied with such an amount of suffering or wretchedness as in this town, in connection with
certain staple manufactures. Were the legislature to interfere and enforce the correction of the evils, by
a system of ventilation, which is neither difficult nor expensive to put in operation, the duties of this
officer, if directed to the superintendence of this system, would save numerous lives and prevent an
incalculable amount of misery. At present, in consequence of these evils, a majority of the artisans is
killed off from twenty-five to thirty-five years of age, and numbers annually leaving widows and
children in great destitution, and, in most cases, dependent on the parish. The evils are not inseparably
connected with the occupation; they admit of redress. An officer of health, by maintaining the system
of ventilation in efficient operation, would save numerous lives, would create a better tone of mind
among the artisans—for wretchedness is closely allied with ignorance and immorality—would
diminish the high rate of mortality amongst the young under five years of age—left by the premature
death of the parent unprovided for, and lastly, would greatly relieve the parish funds. The officer,
having the power to remove at once any case of fever from a densely populated locality, as well as to
enforce measures of prevention, such as the removal of accumulated filth, stagnant pools of water, or
the correction of any other local circumstances, would perform duties which would redound
considerably to the advantage of the community.

§ 214. In confirmation of the views of the benefits derivable to medical
science from such arrangements as those proposed, § 211, various instances
might be adduced besides the last cited, § 213, and that already given in the
General Report, p. 355, of the discoveries made, on an examination of 1000
cases, by M. Louis, on the nature of consumption, now generally recognized
as presenting facts at variance with all ancient and previous modern

opinions: but in respect of the views there stated, as to the great public
importance of well-ascertained medical statistics, I submit the high
confirmation derivable from the following statement contained in the
recently published outlines of pathology and practice of medicine, by Dr. W.
Pulteney Alison, fellow and late president of the College of Physicians at
Edinburgh, and professor of the practice of medicine in the University of
Edinburgh:—
“The living body,” he observes, “assumes, in many cases, different kinds of
diseased action, varying remarkably in different periods of life, without any
apparent or known cause; but in the greater number of cases it is generally
believed that certain circumstances in the situation or condition of patients,
before diseases appear, can be assigned with confidence as their causes. The
efficacy of these, however, is seldom established in any other way than
simply by the observation that persons known to be exposed to their
influence become afflicted with certain diseases in a proportion very much
greater than those who are not known to be so exposed.
“This kind of evidence is in many individual cases very liable to fallacy, in
consequence of the great variety of the circumstances capable of affecting
health, in which individuals are placed, and of the difficulty of varying these
so as to obtain such observations, in the way of induction or exclusion, as
shall be decisive as to the efficacy of each. Hence the importance of the
observations intended to illustrate this matter being as extensively multiplied
as possible; and hence also the peculiar value, with a view to the
investigation of the causes of diseases, of observations made on large and
organized bodies of men, as in the experience of military and naval
practitioners. All the circumstances of the whole number of men whose
diseases are there observed, are in many respects exactly alike; they are
accurately known to the observer, and are indeed often to a certain degree at
his disposal; they are often suddenly changed, and when changed as to one
portion of the individuals under observation, they are often unchanged as to
another; and therefore the conditions necessary to obtaining an experimentum
crucis as to the efficacy of an alleged cause of disease are more frequently in
the power of such an observer than of one who is conversant only with civil
life.
“But when the necessary precautions as to the multiplication of facts, and the
exclusion of circumstances foreign to the result in question, are observed, the

efficacy of the remote causes of disease may often be determined
statistically, and with absolute certainty; and the knowledge thus acquired as
leading directly to the prevention of disease, is often of the greatest
importance, especially with a view to regulations of medical police. And if
the human race be destined, in future ages, to possess greater wisdom and
happiness in this state of existence than at present, the value of this
knowledge may be expected to increase in the progress of time; because
there are many diseases which the experience of ages has brought only
partially within the power of medicine, but the causes of which are known,
and under certain circumstances may be avoided; and the conditions
necessary for avoiding them are in a great measure in the power of
communities, though at present beyond the power of many of the individuals
composing these.
“There are, indeed, various cases, of frequent occurrence, in which the study
of the remote causes of disease is as practically important as anything that
can be learnt as to their history, or the effects of remedies upon them. This is
particularly true of epidemic diseases, and of diseases to which a tendency is
given by irremediable constitutional infirmities.”
Having had the honour to be associated with the late Dr. Cowan of Glasgow,
Dr. Alison, and some other gentlemen, in a committee to consider of the
means of obtaining a system of mortuary registration for Scotland, and
having conversed with many qualified persons who have also paid much
attention to the subject, I may state confidently that the exposition above
given of the advantages derivable to the public service from the improvement
of vital statistics would meet with extensive concurrence, independently of
the very high sanction conferred by any expression of an opinion on such a
subject from Dr. Alison. The towns where the greatest mortality prevails
present precisely the opportunities so highly appreciated, of observations on
large and organized bodies of men, § 213, often as similar in the chief
circumstances which govern their condition, as the classes presented to the
observation of medical officers in the army or in the navy.
Lord Bacon observes, in his suggestions for an inquiry into the causes of
death—“And this inquiry, we hope, might redound to a general good, if
physicians would but exert themselves and raise their minds above the sordid
considerations of cure; not deriving their honour from the necessities of
mankind, but becoming ministers to the Divine power and goodness both in

prolonging and restoring the life of man; especially as this may be effected
by safe, commodious, and not illiberal means, though hitherto unattempted.
And certainly it would be an earnest of Divine favour if, whilst we are
journeying to the land of promise, our garments, those frail bodies of ours,
were not greatly to wear out in the wilderness of this world.” It would accord
with his great views that adequate public provision and arrangement should
be made to enable physicians to render the services desired. From the earliest
time to the present, when the subject of sanitary evil and desecration of
grave-yards was brought before the public by the long-continued exertions of
Mr. Walker, members of the medical profession have made the most
strenuous exertions and sacrifices for the attainment of such objects.
It is submitted that, in whatsoever place a proper system of the verification
and registration of the fact and cause of death has not been introduced, as in
Ireland and Scotland, and in all populous and increasing districts, that the
appointment of an officer of health, having charge and regulations of all
interments, would be the most economical as well as the most efficient mode
of introducing it: in every place it must be a measure of paramount
importance.
§ 215. As an instance of the incompatibility of such duties as those of the
proposed officer of public health, with service in connexion with any existing
local administrative body, it may be mentioned that every local Board in such
a town as Sheffield would comprehend some of the chief householders, who
would most probably be the chief manufacturers and employers of the class
of workmen, and that even the official connexion would to such minds as the
workmen expose him to suspicion, and diminish his influence, for the
effectuation of any voluntary changes of practice. On other grounds, such as
the absence of qualification in such Boards to give superior directions; and
such grounds as those specified in p. 322 and p. 349 and 350 of the General
Report, it is submitted that the functions of the officer of health would be the
best exercised, independently of any other local administrative body. He
would, in an independent capacity, be the most powerful auxiliary of any
well-intended and zealous administration of local works, and as his functions
must bring him at once to the chief spots where the consequences of neglects
and omissions would be often manifest in fatal events, he would, as an
independent and yet responsible officer, exercise an extensive influence and
an efficient check on behalf of the public at large.

§ 216. Every efficient measure of improvement of the sanitary condition of
the population, must be in its mere pecuniary results a measure of a large
economy (§ 80). Physicians and medical officers are of opinion that all the
ordinary and extraordinary duties specified, and even more, may be done by
an officer of health with the same average expenditure of time (taking one
case with another), that occurs to a physician in visiting a patient, examining
the case, writing out a prescription and giving instructions to attendants. I
shall be able to show that it may be accomplished at a charge no greater than
that now paid by the labouring classes to one of their body as a steward or
officer of their burial clubs who is required to inspect and identify the body
of a deceased member.

Proximate Estimate of the comparative Expense of Interments under arrangements for National
Cemeteries.
Having shown the chief desiderata in respect to the improvement of the practice of interment, and the means of
protecting the public health, I proceed to submit the substance of the information collected as to the means of
obtaining them.
§ 217. In submitting for consideration a proximate estimate of the extent to which it is practicable to carry that
reduction of the expense of interments, which is so important to the middle and lower classes, the expense of
interments of gentry and persons of the middle class of life is taken at double the amount at which persons of great
experience in providing for the interment of large numbers have estimated they may be executed for without any
reduction of the essentials to a decent solemnity.
§ 218. The estimate takes the existing scale of burial fees of the parish of St. James, Westminster, as fees to be
continued, which would, if received in a fee fund, not only provide compensation for vested interests, but go far to
provide the expense of new services.
§ 219. To the estimate of the expenses of interment is superadded a fee to defray the expenses of medical officers
of a board of public health. The reduction of that great source of waste and expense, the payment of two or three
stages of profits, for materials, &c. of funerals (by placing them under general arrangements), would admit of this
charge, which is really a means to a still greater economy, the economy of health and life, and consequently of the
number of funerals themselves. Objection to these charges would scarcely have place where the pecuniary
economy is immediate. The medical service proposed may be procured to the working classes (supposing it were
necessary to charge the expense on the funeral) at all distances, for the same sum as that which they now pay to the
unlearned inspectors, officers of their clubs, for inspection within short distances, namely, 2s. 6d. It is declared by
competent witnesses, that a respectable officer of public health, a physician, performing such services as those
described, would be welcomed in most families on such a charge as 10s. 6d. for the middle classes, and 1l. 1s. for
the higher classes, charged as a part of the reduced funeral expenses.
Estimated Scale of Charges for Interments in the Metropolis, inclusive of Compensations; the payment for the p
Cemeteries; and new Establishment Charges.

Proposed Annu
Scale of Total
Charge for Charge for Num
Existing Expense for estimated
Officer of New ro
Burial Undertaker’s Scale of
Health and Cemeteries and Case
Dues. Materials Expense of
Registration Establishments. eac
and Services. Burials.
of Death. Clas
£. s. d. £. s. d. £. s. d. £. s. d. £. s. d.

Gentry {Adults 10 10 0 1 0 0 21 0 0 6 0 0 38 10 0 1,
{Children 5 5 0 1 0 0 3 10 0 4 5 0 14 0 0

1st Class {Adults 2 10 0 0 10 0 10 10 0 3 0 0 16 10 0 3,
Tradesmen {Children 1 5 0 0 10 0 2 10 0 2 0 0 6 5 0 3,

2nd Class }Adults 1 12 9 0 6 3 6 0 0 1 10 0 9 9 0 2,
Tradesmen }Children 0 16 9 0 6 3 1 12 6 0 10 0 3 5 6 2,
(Undescribed)}

Artisans {Adults 0 15 6 0 2 6 1 10 0 0 2 0 2 10 0 12,
{Children 0 8 9 0 2 6 0 15 0 0 1 9 1 8 0 13,

Paupers {Adults } 0 13 0 3,
{Children }

Totals

Or an annual saving on the estimated total expense of the interments and parochial charges for the whole metropolis
§ 220. In this estimate the expense of the funerals of the classes “undescribed” in the mortuary registries may be
taken as representing the second or third class of tradesmen. In the estimate of the expense of funerals of persons
of the first class, no account is taken for a long cavalcade of mourning coaches; but those who are conversant with
the details agree that several may be supplied, with a full retinue of hired mourners, and the expense be yet kept
below one-half the present amount of charges. A confident opinion is expressed that interments might be
performed, under general arrangements, with all the advantages specified, and full compensation be given, at a rate
of between 5l. and 6l. each funeral, instead of about 15l., the present average.
§ 221. On the eight chief cemeteries opened in the metropolis by private companies, and comprising about 260
acres, or considerably more than the space occupied by all the parochial and private burial grounds whatever, a
capital of about 400,000l. has been invested. The expenses of litigation and of procuring Acts of Parliament, and
purchasing grounds, must have been excessively heavy; and it appears probable that, for an amount not much
greater or not exceeding it by more than one-fifth, superior national cemeteries, with houses of reception and
appropriate chapels, may be formed on the present scale of expenditure of these companies, and in a style
commensurate with what is due to the metropolis of the empire. If the charge of the purchase of the land and the
structural arrangements be spread over 30 years, and the payment of the money charged, with interest, on the
burials of persons of the higher and middle classes, the amount might be included in the total charges for funerals
above estimated for the several classes, which charges, though so much below the amount at present usually paid,
are yet higher than asserted to be necessary by respectable tradesmen, ready to verify their assertions by sureties to
supply the materials and service of an equal or of a better description for the public than that which they now
obtain. If the charges of the new cemeteries and establishments at such rates as those suggested were taken as
substitutes for the existing rates of charge for graves, the new rates would be for the middle and higher classes
greatly below the charges usually found in undertakers’ bills and executors’ accounts. If those new expenses were
levied in the shape of a poll tax, or as burial dues, a sum of about 5d. per head per annum (exclusive of the expense
of collection) would suffice in the metropolis to repay the principal and interest of purchase-money in 30 years,
and also to defray the annual establishment charges.
§ 222. The establishment charges of the existing eight principal cemeteries amount, it is stated, to about 7500l. per
annum. I believe, that by appropriate arrangements of a public establishment a far more efficient service might be
obtained for national cemeteries for the same money. Assuming that the greatest solemnity and the highest
cathedral service is due to funerals, four full choirs of 20 choristers and four organists to lead them might be
obtained for less than 10,000l. per annum for four national cemeteries to meet the wishes of those who desire a
service of the highest solemnity. The lowest aggregate charge for the separate establishments of parochial and
suburban burial grounds, if only on the scale of that of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, must be at the least 25,000l., and
would probably extend to 30,000l. or 40,000l. per annum. Such an amount in connexion with national cemeteries
would suffice to maintain, in addition to the superior religious establishments above described, a superior
description of intermediate houses of reception for the dead, with houses and offices for the residence of the
officers of public health in care of them: it would beyond that suffice to provide the means for accommodation, on
a large scale, for the reception and treatment of all persons labouring under infectious diseases. It might also
suffice for the establishment of public baths, in which the metropolis is also deficient.
§ 223. The number of the officers of health requisite for the due execution of the service could only be determined
by experience; but, judging from analogous experience, a much smaller staff than on the first view might be
expected would suffice for the performance of all the duties specified, if their whole time were devoted to them.
Medical officers of dispensaries, within their districts, visit, examine, and treat twenty or thirty cases per diem;
physicians in full practice, and driving to distant parts of the town, on the average (which includes cases of short
visits of a few minutes and cases where a long attendance would be required), visit about three cases in the hour.
This appears to be the best analogous experience. On this experience, and considering that it would be good
economy to provide each officer with a one-horse vehicle, he may be expected to visit fifteen cases a-day, one day
with the other, out of the daily number of deaths. The two public medical departments, the navy and the army, have

rendered the highest, if not the only, public service in the prevention of disease—the navy medical department
especially; which service it has been enabled to achieve from having the subjects of its care under the most
complete control. The scale of remuneration to these officers, who, whatever diploma they may possess, are
required to undergo, and do undergo, a special re-examination, is taken for estimating the expense. There are
various grounds that, at all events at the outset, and for their superior responsibility, this class of officers should be
selected. The proposed staff would be as follows:—
Per Annum.
£. s. d.
An inspector of public health, of the rank of an inspector-general of hospitals in the army, or of
657 0 0
fleets in the navy, at full pay of 1l. 16s. per diem, at the rate given after ten years’ service

A deputy inspector-general, at the rate of the army full pay of 1l. 4s. per diem 438 0 0

Eight inspectors of public health, of the rank of staff surgeon, at the rate of the army full pay of
2,774 0 0
19s. per diem

Two supernumeraries, of the pay of regimental surgeons, at the rate of the army pay of 15s. per
547 10 0
diem

Ten single horse vehicles, and ten drivers, at 1l. 1s. per week, total 3l. 3s. per week each 1,638 0 0

Total 6,054 10 0

Ten officers, visiting fifteen cases per diem, would suffice to take order such as described, for the burial of 45,000
persons. They will also be enabled in upwards of 8,000 cases to direct measures for the protection of the survivors
and their neighbours from the spread of contagious disease. Supposing that each class of deaths occurred daily,
with the same regularity that they occur yearly, the distribution of the duties of verification and examination may
be seen from the following table, made from the Registrar-General’s returns.
Liverpool Manchester Leeds Pop.
Metropolis Pop. 1,870,727
Pop. 223,045 Pop. 192,408 168,627
Daily
Daily Weekly Weekly Weekly
Number of Total
Number of Number of Number of Number of
Deaths of Number
Deaths of Deaths in Deaths in Deaths in
Children Daily.
Adults. Liverpool. Manchester. Leeds.
under 15.
Epidemic,
Endemic, and
18 4102 22102 52106 34108 20103
Contagious
Diseases
Sporadic
Diseases:—
Nervous Disease 14106 6106 21102 28107 18 15106
Diseases of the
Respiratory 13102 25106 38106 46108 34106 24
Organs
Diseases of the
Organs of 2104 2107 1108 1101 8
10

Circulation
Diseases of the
Digestive 5105 3108 9103 10105 9105 6101
Organs

Other Sporadic
5104 12107 18101 13105 16 10102
Diseases
Old Age 9104 9104 5101 5107 5106
Violent Deaths 1 2104 3104 3108 4109 2107
Causes not 2 3 5
1
specified 10 10 10

Total 58 1
10 67 2
10 162 8
10 124 8
10 86103
Total Deaths
125104 23102 17108 12103
Daily
Note.—The data upon which this Table is calculated are taken from the Registrar-General’s Fourth Annual Report—the Metropolis, p. 330; Liverpool, p.
281; Manchester, p. 281; Leeds, p. 283. The Metropolis is calculated on the average of the years 1840 and 1841, the other places on the year 1840.

§ 224. The total number of funerals and deaths requiring verification daily would be—for Birmingham about 12,
for Nottingham 5, for Leicester 3, for Derby 3. From the data above given it will be seen at how small an
expenditure of time a well directed force for the prevention as well as the alleviation of misery—vast interests of
the population, that are now neglected—may be placed, under responsible superintendence, and on the most sordid
views of economy of money, immense savings, under proper regulations, be made. In Liverpool alone, in the
business of cure or alleviation there are now engaged 50 physicians, and 250 surgeons, apothecaries, and druggists,
and not one responsible public officer to investigate the causes of disease with a view to prevention. Nor has the
city of London, with a population of 125,000, one such officer, though it has an expenditure of 72,000l. per annum
in hospitals and endowed medical charities alone, for the alleviation of disease.
§ 225. There is much experience to establish the conclusion that very special qualifications are requisite for the
performance of the duties of an officer of the public health. The only safe proof of the possession of such
qualifications is the fact of a person having investigated successfully some scientific question on the prevention of
disease to a practical end, by which the main qualification, the habit of practical investigation, and zeal and ability
for the service of prevention may be placed beyond doubt. It would be no imputation on the merits of a general
medical practitioner that he was found unsuited to the performance of the duties devolving on an officer of public
health. The working of the Parisian administrative arrangements shows the injury done to the public service by the
difficulty of retrieving any mistaken appointment, and suggests the desirableness of an arrangement to facilitate
changes of the officers of health even where there is the security of a previous special examination as to the
qualifications for the office. Cases would occur where officers would themselves choose to withdraw from such a
service, for which they felt unsuited, if they might retire without imputation and without any severe sacrifice. If,
therefore, officers of health were chosen from amongst those who had long served with honour in the army or navy
medical department, the advantage would be gained of a facility of retirement being given to the officer of health
(an office, indeed, which would often be trying to the constitution), and without loss of rank or of the means of
livelihood.
§ 226. The arrangements for the performance of the funereal rites in public cemeteries would, of course, fall to the
proper ecclesiastical authority. The architectural arrangements, and the decoration of the cemeteries, may claim the
highest aid that art can give to the production of solemn religious impressions. Public monuments and works of art
have of late been extensively thrown open to the population, and there is evidence that this course of proceeding
has been productive of beneficial effects on those of the lower classes who have had opportunities of viewing such
monuments during their holidays. But the place of burial is the object to which the views of almost every
individual of that class, as well as of others, is ever most intently directed. All the structural and decorative
arrangements of the national cemetery should, therefore, be made by the highest talent that can be procured, with
the purpose of interesting the feelings, under the conviction that in rendering attractive that place we are preparing
the picture which is most frequently present to the minds of the poorest, in the hours of mental and bodily
infirmity, and the last picture on earth presented to his contemplation before dissolution.
§ 227. It will have been seen that if the tendency of the public mind be followed out by the economical regulation
of funeral expenses, and if the public be protected from the extortions of undertakers, considerable reductions of
expense may be effected, and munificent provision may yet be made for permanent decorations.
These reductions would, also, under practicable regulations of the mode and practice of interment, admit of full
and liberal compensation to all legal and proper interests affected by the proposed change of the practice, and to
whom Parliament might determine that compensation should be awarded.

§ 228. In the case of the ministers of the Established Church in large towns, the surplice fees, including the burial
dues, are to be considered as the main parts of their incomes. They have no tithes, and no other means of
livelihood. But the burial dues are so variously regulated—in some places by custom, in other places by local Acts
—that it is scarcely practicable to lay down any one scale in respect to them that would not operate unequally and
unjustly. Complaints from cemetery companies are made in respect to the existing scales of compensation, which
did not appear to be within my province to investigate. It appeared to me that the only satisfactory mode of
determining the amount of compensation would be an adjudication and examination of the case of each parish.
This would be a service, which the Commissioners for the Commutation of Tithes would be competent to render.
§ 229. The claims of families who have purchased the privilege of interment in private vaults are not, that I find,
maintained to any extent by the possessors, but are rather suggested as obstacles by others. That which at the time
of purchase was deemed a privilege is now proved to be an injury to the community at large, not to speak of the
very families by whom the right of interment in the church which they attend is exercised. When the fact is known
of the deleterious character of the miasma which arises wherever bodies waste away, it were inconsistent with all
religious feeling to maintain, as a privilege, the right of endangering the health of their families, friends, or
neighbours. The same observation is applicable to grave-yards attached to chapels belonging to Dissenting
congregations. Burial there is an injury to the congregations themselves, and the removal of interments a benefit to
them; and although any one may choose to put up with the injury, or refuse to admit the evidence of it, they can
scarcely claim to continue the injury at the expense of others, or against the conviction of the majority of the
community and the opinions and customs of all civilized nations by whom the practice of interments in towns is
prohibited. The overwhelming evidence that what is deemed a privilege is really an injury, precludes all claim to
compensation as for a loss. No claim is set forth by any congregation for compensation as for the loss of a gainful
trade of burial. Setting aside, then, the question of right, it may be submitted in respect to the owners of private
vaults in parochial burial grounds, whether claimants, within a given time, may not be allowed an equal space in
the national cemeteries, and be allowed to transfer the remains of their ancestors thither, and erect suitable
monuments to them. It may also be submitted that the sites occupied as burial grounds may be re-purchased from
the congregations on liberal terms of compensation, to be kept as open spaces for the public use, and that those
congregations may have equivalent spaces allotted to them at a distance from town in the new cemeteries. The
authorities carrying out the change, should be enabled, on the like terms, to re-purchase from private companies
such cemeteries as may be deemed eligible for the public, and engage their officers in the public service, or
otherwise compensate them. The success of national cemeteries, would doubtlessly occasion loss to those who
have subscribed capital in what was at the time a public improvement, and it is further submitted for consideration,
whether the power of re-purchase for the public, from the proceeds of a reduced burial expenditure, might not be
extended to the re-purchase of such sites even where they would not be found eligible for national cemeteries.
§ 230. If it be decided that the protection so much needed by all classes, especially by the poorest, in respect to the
expense of interments shall be given, by empowering officers of health to carry out regulations the same in
principle as those which have given relief and satisfaction in well regulated communities, it may then be submitted
for consideration, whether the cases of the tradesmen who have devoted themselves entirely to the business of
supplying funereal materials and service, and who will be wholly superseded, could not be brought within any
legitimate principles and precedents of compensation, for the loss of their existing multiform monopoly by the
whole or any portion of the supply having been transferred to officers responsible to the public. By means of such
transference, the public gain will, in proportion to its completeness, be immense. Without it there is no apparent
means of change or compensation that will not increase the existing expenses, and also increase the train of
existing evils consequent on those expenses. Whatever may be the sacrifice or inconvenience experienced by this
class of tradesmen from such a transference, it were a lamentable misdirection of sympathy to sustain their
pecuniary interests at the expense of the perpetuation of the enormous pecuniary sacrifices of the poorest and most
helpless classes. But it may be submitted that the large work of charity and justice to the public from the change
proposed, need not be accomplished by the sacrifice of the real principals in the business of undertaking. If the
alterations proposed were not made, it is nevertheless probable that this business will be considerably changed.
The practicability and advantage of the consolidation of the business of the supply of funereal materials and
services under one general management with the cemetery, and the acceptability of the institution of a place for the
reception and care of the dead previous to interment, are attested by the fact of which I am informed, that in
consequence of the proposed measures having been necessarily developed by the course of the present inquiry
from a multitude of witnesses, joint stock companies are now preparing to adopt, as a source of emolument, similar
arrangements. To those persons who are not really principals in the business, as they professed, but agents, whose
only service consisted in conveying orders to real principals, and who extorted large profits from those who

employed them; to those carrying on the business of undertaker only as an addition to their chief trade, and to
whom the orders for a funeral was “an occasional job”—to a large proportion of these classes, the change would
cause no ultimate loss, and to many it must be an eventual gain. The business as at present conducted is in
principle similar to a lottery in the excessive emoluments of death, amounting to upwards of half a million of
money in the metropolis alone, and which is chiefly wrested from the poorer and depressed classes. Such an
amount is annually distributed in prizes, which fall with the deaths, in sums varying from a few pounds to several
hundreds, amongst a crowd of expectants, which even, under the existing management, is five times more
numerous than is necessary (and under the proposed arrangements ten times the number requisite), leaving the
greater number poorly paid for all their waiting, notwithstanding the large sums exacted from the suffering
survivors. It may confidently be pronounced, that to the majority of the class of inferior labourers, the change of
system must be an eventual and very early benefit.
§ 231. As various religious communities would participate in the provision of public cemeteries, it appears
preferable, for the avoidance of jealousy and any pretext for dissatisfaction, and that such different parties may be
freely communicated with, that land should be purchased, and the structural arrangements made, on due
consultation by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests.
§ 232. The sites for national cemeteries would be determinable on consideration of circumstances affecting public
health, and by convenience of access, which the responsible officers of public health should be required to
investigate on a view or survey of the circumstances of the metropolis in these respects as a whole. They would
also set forth the arrangements necessary for the preparation of the ground for interment, for drainage, and the
protection of the springs; and the prevention of the escape of miasma; from which regulations no class of
interments and no places should be exempted.
§ 233. If the whole of the arrangements for sepulture were begun de novo, the most eligible principle for defraying
all the public charges, and perhaps most of those charges which are now private charges, would be, as respects
persons of the lower and middle ranks, by annual payments approximating to an insurance. With the wealthy
classes payment at the time of interment partakes of the nature of a legacy duty, and is then made most
conveniently. With the lower and a large part of the middle classes of society, the death of an adult member of the
family is frequently the loss of the most productive member of the family, which occurs at a time when the family
has, in almost every case, incurred severe expenses for medical treatment during illness. The charges for interment
and for the mourning which custom requires, then press most grievously. A large proportion of the middle and
lower classes endeavour to alleviate this pressure by spreading it over long periods by means of insurance, and
amongst others by such expensive and uncertain modes as those displayed in the regulations of burial clubs. The
commutation of the charge of insurance into an annual charge would be a public insurance, possessing the
advantages of superior security, and the means of superior efficiency as well as of economy. The chief obstacle that
stands in the way of such an arrangement is the want of a machinery for the annual collection of such a tax. It has
been proposed to throw upon the poor’s rates some of the additional charges supposed to be necessary, and, in the
event of the change being made by means of numerous extra-mural parochial establishments, that certainly would
be necessary. But the imposition of such a charge in such a mode as to follow the incidents of the poor’s-rates
would be unequal and unjust. Large districts of cottage tenements, which are now, chiefly to the benefit of the
landlords of those tenements and at the expense of the other rate-payers, exempted from poor’s-rates, would escape
contribution, and it is precisely in such districts that the deaths are most frequent and the burial charges would be
the most burthensome. Lodgers would extensively escape the charges; strangers and foreigners, and the fluctuating
population in large districts, would escape them. If there were a machinery for collection, it is submitted that the
most equitable mode of levying such charges would be, like those of a burial club, i. e. of the nature of a poll-tax,
or burial dues payable, per head, on the number of persons inhabiting each house. These might be fixed for the
whole community at a minimum rate, leaving it to the friends of the deceased to pay for any higher class of funeral
which they think proper.
§ 234. It is, however, to be borne in mind that in burial clubs, and in savings’ banks, large sums are now actually
set apart by the labouring classes for the payment of funeral charges. Provision is, no doubt, also made by will, by
other classes for defraying such charges. In the plan proposed, even including the expense of the new agency of
officers of health the consideration of new sources of additional payments is rendered unnecessary. On the whole,
therefore (although if bodies are immediately removed from the premises in cases where the removal is requisite
for the protection of the lives of the survivors, attempts will be made to shift the expense to the public), it may be
recommended that all new charges and compensations should, for the present, at least, still be defrayed from burial
dues levied upon each interment. And in so far as any new expenses are for objects obviously beneficial (not to

speak of those immediate charges being for the most efficient means of reducing the aggregate expenses), it will
meet with ready acquiescence. I have consulted intelligent persons of the labouring classes, and discussed with
them step by step the proposed changes. They have unanimously declared that these changes would all be a great
gain to them, especially the proposed reduction of the expenses of interments. They have moreover urged that if
they were enabled to have the funerals performed in a satisfactory manner, at a reduced expense, the applications
for parochial aid would be proportionately diminished, the poorest relations would then subscribe to avert the
disgrace of a parochial interment; a large proportion of the applications for such aid being now made by others
than regular paupers, and in consequence of the hopelessness of their being enabled to defray the heavy expenses
which are at present necessary.
§ 235. The conclusions before stated are deduced principally from the facts obtained by inquiries in the metropolis
and the chief towns in the manufacturing districts. The information obtained by correspondence from Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Bristol, Birmingham, Coventry, and several towns in Ireland, tends to the conclusion that the leading
principles set forth in this report are applicable to all crowded town districts, with but few modifications. In all the
practice of interments in towns, the crowded state of the places of burial, the apparent want of seclusion and
sanctity pollute the mental associations, and offend the sentiments of the population, irrespective of any
considerations of the public health; in almost all, this state of feeling is manifested by the increasing resort of
persons of the higher and middle classes to such cemeteries as have been formed out of the towns by private
individuals who have associated, and taken advantage of the feelings to procure subscriptions for the formation of
more acceptable places of sepulture. In Manchester and Edinburgh, and a few other towns, the business of the
undertaker does not appear to be on the same footing as in the metropolis; the expenses of the funerals to the
labouring classes appear nevertheless to be no less oppressive, and the whole arrangements to stand in pressing
need of regulation. In nearly all the towns where the grave-yards are crowded by the burials of an increasing
population, evidence was tendered of outrages perpetrated upon the feelings of the population by the gravediggers
in the disposal of undecomposed remains to make space for new interments. And it follows, from the
circumstances that these men will not allow their own means of livelihood to be curtailed, and will, if they be
permitted, or be unwatched, make way by any means for new interments. The desecrations are suspected, and from
time to time are discovered. It requires a high order of education and mental qualification to maintain habitually
respect for the inanimate remains of the dead and regard to the feelings of the living connected with them. In the
uneducated, any common feelings of respect soon give way to every-day conveniences, and are at once obliterated
by any strong necessities. The common tendencies in this respect are attested by the examples cited, of careful
arrangements made to guard against them. (§ 169.) In all the populous provincial towns the need of the superior
superintendence of the material arrangements for interment, and the exercise of such functions as those described
as falling to a superior officer of public health, appear to be even more urgent than in the metropolis. It is,
however, an error to suppose that the evils of the existing practice of interment are confined to the larger towns.
The burial-ground at Southampton, for example, is represented to me to be full; it is moreover not more than one-
half of the extent requisite for the population of that town, which is about 28,000, and rapidly increasing. The
authorities there are desirous of obtaining grounds and establishing a public cemetery in or near the town, and
would, if practicable, do so without the expense of a private Act of Parliament. The grave-yard of the cathedral of
Ely, for the burials arising from a population of about 7,000 is reported to be inconveniently full, and the very
reverend the dean is stated to be extremely desirous of closing it and procuring a burial-ground at a distance. I have
been informed by several ecclesiastical authorities, that the clergy are often much distressed by the inadequacy of
the old grave-yards to meet the necessities of burial for an increasing population. The data already given as to the
space required for interments will serve to show the adequacy or inadequacy of the existing burial-grounds for any
population. It may be submitted that provision might be made for the relief of any district on the inspection and
under the authority of properly appointed officers of health, for the provision of new and separate places of burial,
on applications showing the inadequacy or unsuitableness of the existing grave-yards.
It were a reproach to the country, and its institutions and its government, and to its administrative capacity, to
suppose that what is satisfactorily done in the German states may not, now that attention is directed to the subject,
be generally done at least as well and satisfactorily in this country; or that the higher classes would not in whatever
depends on their voluntary aid, exhibit as good and practical an example of community of feeling in taking a lead
in the adoption of all arrangements tending to the common benefit, as that displayed in the states which have
achieved the most satisfactory improvement of the practice of interment, by well-appointed officers of public
health.
§ 236. I have thought it unnecessary to occupy attention with many details which would appear to follow the
adoption of the general principles deducible from the information collected. I have given that information so fully

in the text, that I have avoided extending the bulk of the Report by repeating it with prefatory or connecting matter
in the Appendix.
I would now beg leave to recapitulate the chief conclusions which the information obtained under this inquiry
appears to establish. They are—

I. As to the Evils which require Remedies.

§ 237. That the emanations from human remains are of a nature to produce fatal disease, and to depress the general
health of whosoever is exposed to them; and that interments in the vaults of churches, or in grave-yards surrounded
by inhabited houses, contribute to the mass of atmospheric and other impurities by which the general health and
average duration of life of the inhabitants is diminished. (§ 1 to 23.)
§ 238. That the places of burial in towns or crowded districts are usually destitute of proper seclusion or means for
impressive religious service, and are exposed to desecrations revolting to the popular feelings; and that feelings of
aversion are manifest in the increasing removals or abandonment of family vaults and places of burial, and the
preference, often at increased expense, of interments in suburban cemeteries, which are better fitted to raise mental
associations of greater quiet, respect, and security as places of repose. (§ 109.)
§ 239. That the greatest injury done by emanations from decomposing remains of the dead to the health of the
living of the labouring classes, in many populous districts, arises from the long retention of the body before
interment in the single rooms in which families of those classes live and have their meals, and sleep, and where the
deaths, in the greater number of instances, take place; and that closely successive deaths of members of the same
family, from the same disease, are very frequent amongst the labouring classes; and that, where the disease has not
been occasioned by the emanations from the first dead body, as sometimes appears to have been the case, or where
the disease has either arisen from a common cause, or may have been communicated before death from the living
person, the diseases are apparently rendered much more fatal by this practice of the retention of the dead body in
the one living room previous to interment. (§ 24 to 39.)
§ 240. That this practice of the prolonged retention of the dead in such crowded rooms, besides being physically
injurious, is morally degrading and brutalizing. (§ 40 to 42.)
§ 241. That this practice is frequently the most powerfully influenced by the difficulty of raising the expenses of
funerals, which in this country press grievously on the labouring and middle classes of the community, and are
extravagant and wasteful to all classes, and occasion severe suffering and moral evil. (§ 43 to 71.)
§ 242. That, on the best proximate estimates which have been made, the total amount of the whole of the yearly
expenses of funerals in the metropolis cannot be less than between six and seven hundred thousand pounds, and for
the whole of Great Britain between four and five millions sterling per annum. (§ 72 to 74.)
§ 243. That it appears, upon examination in the metropolis, that notwithstanding the great expense of funerals, the
existing arrangements for conducting them are on an unsatisfactory footing, and that great difficulties stand in the
way of any efficient amendment, whilst the practice of interment in the crowded districts is retained. (§ 84 to 89.)
§ 244. That on the occurrence of a death amongst the poorest classes or amongst strangers, the survivors are
commonly destitute of means of precaution against oppressive charges and of trustworthy advice or counsel, as to
the modes of burial such as are afforded by the civic arrangements of other civilized countries. (§§ 121, 122, and
vide Appendix, No. 1.)
§ 245. That on the occurrence of deaths from preventible causes of disease, there are no appointed means for the
detection and removal of those causes, and that strangers and new-comers, having no warning, are successively
exposed, and frequently fall victims to them. (§ 196.)
§ 246. That common causes of diseases which ravage the community, of the extent of operation of which causes it
has a deep interest in knowing, pass unexamined and undetected; moreover, that in many districts there are wide
opportunities for the escape of crimes, by which life is also rendered insecure, chiefly by the omission of efficient
arrangements for the due verification of the fact and causes of death. (§§ 205 to 215.)
§ 247. That the numbers of funerals, and intensity of the misery attendant upon them, vary amongst the different
classes of society in proportion to the internal and external circumstances of their habitations: that the deaths and
funerals vary in the metropolis from 1 in every 30 of the population annually (and even more in ill-conditioned

districts), to 1 in 56 in better-conditioned districts; from 1 death and funeral in every 28 inhabitants in an ill-
conditioned provincial town district, to 1 in 64 in a better-conditioned rural district: such differences of the
condition of the population being accompanied by still closer coincidences in the variation of the span of life, the
average age of all who die in some ill-conditioned districts of the metropolis being 26 years only, whilst in better-
conditioned districts it is 36 years: the variations of the age of deaths being in some provincial towns, such as
Leicester, from 15 years in the ill-conditioned to 24 years in the better-conditioned districts: and as between town
and rural districts 17 or 18 years for the whole population of Liverpool, and 39 years for the whole population of
Hereford; and that the total excess of deaths and funerals in England and Wales alone, above the commonly
attained standards of health, being at the least between thirty and forty thousand annually. (§ 75 to § 80, and
district returns: Appendix.)

II. As to the Remedies available for the Prevention or Mitigation of these Evils.

§ 248. That the most effectual and principal means for the abatement of the evils of interments are those sanitary
measures which diminish the proportionate numbers of deaths and funerals, and increase the duration of life. § 75
to § 82, and General Report, p. 370. But—
§ 249. That on the several special grounds, moral, religious, and physical, and in conformity to the best usages and
authorities of primitive Christianity, § 177, and the general practice of the most civilized modern nations, the
practice of interments in towns in burial places amidst the habitations of the living, and the practice of interment,
in churches, ought for the future, and without any exception of places, or acceptation of persons, to be entirely
prohibited. (§ 1 to § 23.)
§ 250. That the necessities of no class of the population in respect to burial ought to be abandoned as sources of
private emolument to commercial associations, but that national cemeteries of a suitable description ought to be
provided and maintained (as to the material arrangements), under the direction of officers duly qualified for the
care of the public health. (§ 126.)
§ 251. That for the avoidance of the pain, and moral and physical evil arising from the prolonged retention of the
body in the rooms occupied by the living, and at the same time to carry out such arrangements as may remove the
painful apprehensions of premature interments, institutions of houses for the immediate reception, and respectful
and appropriate care of the dead, under superior and responsible officers, should be provided in every town for the
use of all classes of the community. (§ 90 to § 101.)
§ 252. That for the abatement of oppressive charges for funereal materials, decorations, and services, provision
should be made (in conformity to successful examples abroad) by the officers having charge of the national
cemeteries, for the supply of the requisite materials and services, securing to all classes, but especially to the poor,
the means of respectable interment, at reduced and moderate prices, suitable to the station of the deceased, and the
condition of the survivors. (§ 186, § 115 to § 120.)
§ 253. That for these purposes, and for carrying out the physical arrangements necessary for the protection of the
public health in respect to the practice of interment, officers of health qualified by medical education and special
knowledge should be appointed. (§ 223.)
§ 254. That in order to abate the apprehensions of premature interment, § 92 to § 96, to bring responsible aid and
counsel, and protection within the reach of the most destitute survivors, §§ 121 and 122 and § 198, to protect the
people against continued exposure to ascertained and preventible causes of disease and death, the principle of the
early appointment of searchers be revived, and no interment be allowed to take place without the verification of the
fact and cause of death by the officer of health. (§ 123, 124, 125, 126, to § 216.)
§ 255. That in all clear and well ascertained cases of deaths from immediately removable causes of disease and
death, the officers of health be invested with summary powers, and be responsible for exercising them, for the
removal of those causes, and for the protection of strangers from continued exposure and suffering from them.
§ 256. That the expenses of national cemeteries should be raised by loans bearing interest.
§ 257. That the repayment of the principal and interest should be spread over a period of [thirty years?]—and be
charged as part of the reduced expenses for future interments.
§ 258. That all burial fees and existing dues be collected on interment, and form a fund from whence be paid the
compensations which Parliament may award to such existing interests as it may be necessary to disturb, including

the payment of the establishment charges, and the principal and interest of the money expended for the erection of
new cemeteries; and that any surplus which may thereafter accrue may be applied to the means of improving the
health of the living.
§ 259. That, on consulting the experience of those cities abroad where the greatest attention has been given to the
arrangements for the protection of health connected with interments, it appears that by the appointment of medical
officers, unencumbered by private practice, as officers of health, and qualified by the possession of appropriate
science for the verification of the fact and causes of death, and by committing to them the regulation of the service
of interments in national cemeteries, the several defects above specified may be remedied, and that new and
comparatively salubrious places of burial may be procured, together with appropriate religious establishments,
wherein the funeral service may be better solemnized, and that the expense of funerals may be reduced, in the
metropolis, at the least, to one-half of the existing amount, and full compensation be given to all who may have
legitimate claims for compensation for losses on the alterations of the existing practice. (§ 219 to § 225.)
§ 260. That the agency of properly qualified officers of health necessary for abating the evils of the practice of
interments would also serve powerfully to promote the application of those sanitary measures which in some
districts would, there is reason to believe, save more than their own pecuniary expense, merely in the diminished
numbers combined with reduced expenses of funerals, consequent on the practical operation of comprehensive
measures of sanitary improvement. (§ 201.)
§ 261. The advantages which the measures proposed offer to the classes who now stand most in need of a
beneficent intervention, may be thus recapitulated. To take the poorest class: the labouring man would (in common
with the middle and higher classes) gain, on the occasion of his demise, protection for his widow and surviving
children, that is to say;
Protection from the physical evil occasioned by the necessity of the prolonged retention of his remains in
the living and sleeping room:
Protection against extortionate charges for interment, and against the impositions of unnecessary, expensive,
and unseemly funereal customs, maintained against the wishes of private individuals and families:
Protection and redress to his survivors or the living against any unfair or illegal practices, should any such
have led to the death:
Protection against any discoverable causes of ill health, should any have attached to his abode or to his place
of work:
Protection from the painful idea (by arrangements preventive of the possibility) of a premature interment:
Protection of the remains from profanation, either before or after interment:
Protection such as may be afforded by the information and advice of a responsible officer, of knowledge,
and station, in the various unforeseen contingencies that occur to perplex and mislead the prostrate and
desolate survivors on such occasions. (§ 191 to § 207.)
Added to these will be the relief from the prospect of interment, in a common grave-yard or charnel, by the
substitution of a public national cemetery, on which the mind may dwell with complacency, as a place in which
sepulture may be made an honour and a privilege.
§ 262. The advantages derivable to the public at large have already been specified, in the removal of causes of pain
to the feelings of the living connected with the common burial places; they would also gain in the several measures
for protection against the causes of disease specified as within the province of an officer of the public health to
remove; and they would also gain in the steps towards the creation of a science of the prevention of disease, and in
a better registration of the fact and the causes of death.
To use the words of a great Christian writer,—that all this, which constitutes the last office of the living, “to
compose the body to burial,” should be done, and that it should be done well and “gravely, decently, and
charitably, we have the example of all civilized nations to engage us, and of all ages of the world to warrant:—so
that it is against common honesty, and public fame and reputation not to do this office.”
I would, in conclusion, beg leave to repeat and represent urgently that Her Majesty’s Government, should only set
hands to this great work, when invested with full powers to effect it completely: for at present there appears to be
no alternative between doing it well or ill; between simply shifting the evil from the centre of the populous districts
to the suburbs, and deteriorating them; fixing the sites of interments at inconvenient distances, forming numerous,

separate, and weak, and yet enormously expensive, establishments; aggravating the expense, and physical and
moral evils of the delay of interment; diminishing the solemnities of sepulture; scattering away the elements of
moral and religious improvement, and increasing the duration and sum of the existing evils:—there appears to be
no distinct or practicable alternative between these results and effecting such a change as, if zealously carried out,
will soothe and elevate the feelings of the great bulk of the population, abate the apprehensions of the dying,
influence the voluntary adoption of beneficial changes in the practice of obsequies, occasion an earlier removal of
the dead from amidst the living to await interment and ensure the impressiveness of the funeral service, give
additional securities against attempts on life, and trustworthy evidence of the fact of death, with the means of
advancing the protection of the living against the attacks of disease; and at a reduced expense provide in well
arranged national cemeteries places for public monuments, becoming the position of the empire amongst civilized
nations.
I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

Edwin Chadwick.

1. According to a memoir on this subject, read at the Royal Academy of Sciences, by M. Cadet de Vaux, in the
year 1781, “Le méphetisme qui s’etoit dégagé d’une des fosses voisines du cimetière, avoit infecté toutes les
caves: on comparait aux poisons les plus subtils, à ceux dont les sauvages imprégnant leur flèches
meurtrières, la terrible activité de cette émanation. Les murs baignés de l’humidité dont elles les pénétroit,
pouvoit communiquer, disoit on par le seul attouchement les accidens les plus redoutable.” See Mémoires de
la Société Royale de Médecine, tom. viii. p. 242; also Annales de Chimie, tom. v. p. 158. As an instance of
the state of the cellars around the grave-yard, it is stated, that a workman being engaged in one of them put
his hand on the wet wall. He was warned that the moisture on the walls was poisonous, and was requested to
wash the hand in vinegar. He merely dried his hand on his apron: at the end of three days the whole arm
became numb, then the hand and lower arm swelled with great pain, blisters came out on the skin, and the
epidermis came off.

2. Vide also, Traité des Maladies des Artisans par Patissier, d’après Ramazzini, 8vo. Paris, 1822, p. 151, sur les
Fossoyeurs: “Le sort des fossoyeurs est très déplorable, leur face est livide, leur aspect triste: je n’en ai vu
aucun devenir vieux.” Also pp. 108–9, 137, 144.

3. Manuel du Tanneur et Corroyeur. Paris, 1833, p. 325.

4. In the course of some inquiries which I made with Professor Owen, when examining a slaughterman as to
the effects of the effluvia of animal remains on himself and family, some other facts were elicited illustrative
of the effects of such effluvia on still more delicate life. The man had lived in Bear-yard, near Clare-market,
which was exposed to the combined effluvia from a slaughter-house and a tripe factory. He was a bird-
fancier, but he found that he could not rear his birds in this place. He had known a bird fresh caught in
summer-time die there in a week. He particularly noted as having a fatal influence on the birds, the stench
raised by boiling down the fat from the tripe offal. He said, “You may hang the cage out of the garret
window in any house round Bear-yard, and if it be a fresh bird, it will be dead in a week.” He had previously
lived for a time in the same neighbourhood in a room over a crowded burial-ground in Portugal-street; at
times in the morning he had seen a mist rise from the ground, and the smell was offensive. That place was
equally fatal to his birds. He had removed to another dwelling in Vere-street, Clare-market, which is beyond
the smells from those particular places, and he was now enabled to keep his birds. In town, however, the
ordinary singing-birds did not, usually, live more than about 18 months; in cages in the country, such birds
were known to live as long as nine years or more on the same food. When he particularly wished to preserve
a pet bird, he sent it for a time into the country; and by repeating this removal he preserved them much
longer. The fact of the pernicious effect of offensive smells on the small graminivorous birds, and the short
duration of their life in close rooms and districts, was attested by a bird-dealer. In respect to cattle, the
slaughterman gave decided reasons for the conclusion, that whilst in the slaughter-house they lost their

appetites and refused food from the effect of the effluvium of the place, and not, as was popularly supposed,
from any presentiment of their impending fate. Vide General Sanitary Report, p. 103, note, and p. 106.

5. On the evidence of individual cases the innocuousness of many poisons and diseases might be proved.
Individuals are sometimes found to resist inoculation. It is a singular, and as yet unexplained fact, that
centenarians are often found in the greatest proportion in times and places where the average duration of life
of the whole population is very low. It has been shown from an accurate registration of centuries in Geneva,
that as the average duration of life amongst the whole community advanced, the proportion of extreme cases
of centenarians diminished. According to the bills of mortality there were nearly three times as many
centenarians in London a century ago than at present. Out of 141,720 deaths within the bills of mortality
during the five years ended 1742, the deaths of 58 persons alone of 100 years and upwards of age are
recorded; whilst out of 139,876 deaths which occurred in the metropolis as returned by the registrar-general,
during the three years which ended 30th June, 1841, only 22 deaths of 100 years of age and upwards are
recorded. The average age of death of all who died was then 24 years; it is now, judging from an
enumeration made from the returns of 1839, about 27 years; and there appears to have been a considerable
improvement in all periods of life up to 90 years.

6. Vide Appendix of the district returns of the Mortuary Registration.

7. In the medical profession examples are not rare of the attainment of extreme old age; yet as a class they bear
the visible marks of health below the average. The registration of one year may be an imperfect index; but
the mortuary registration for the year 1839 having been examined, to ascertain what was the average age of
death of persons of the three professions, it appears that the average age of the clergymen who died in
London during that year was 59, of the legal profession 50, and of the medical profession 45. Only one
medical student was included in the registration: had the deaths of those who died in their noviciate been
included, the average age of death of the medical profession would have been much lower.

8. An instance in exception of a barber having caught fever is subsequently stated.

9. Two days in the week the London Fever Hospital is open to the friends of the patients, who often spend a
considerable time in the wards, sometimes sitting on the beds of the sick; yet these visitors never take fever
themselves, nor are they ever known to convey it by their clothes to persons out of the hospital. In like
manner the persons employed to convey the clothes of the fever-patients from the wards of the hospital do
not take fever, nor is there any evidence whatever that typhus fever is, or can be, propagated merely by the
clothes; yet it is remarkable that the laundresses who wash the clothes, which often contain excrementitious
matters from the patients, or from the dead, of an amount perceptible to the senses, rarely if ever escape
fever. It is inferred, that in this case the poison is by the heat put in a state of vapour, which is inhaled, and
being sufficient in quantity, produces the disease.

10. In the Appendix will be found further particulars and exemplifications of the facts, deducible from the
mortuary registers, together with the returns from the several registration districts in the metropolis, of which
the above is a summary.

11. Vide Appendix.—Paper on the Mortuary Returns.

12. Recently, April the 4th, at the Liverpool assizes, a woman named Eccles was convicted of the murder of one
child, and was under the charge of poisoning two others, with arsenic. Immediately the murders were
committed, it appeared she went to demand a stated allowance of burial money from the employers of the
children.

13. Clarke v. Johnson, 11 Moore, 319.

14. Bligh’s 4th Parl. Reports, N. S. 194.

15. Vide Appendix No. 12 for examples of undertakers’ ordinary bills for funerals of different classes.

16. Vide Return in the Appendix.

17. Vide Appendix.

18. Vide General Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Population, p. 443 and p. 395, for proximate estimates
of the chief structural expenses, i. e. main drains, house drains, annual supply of water, water tank, and
water-closet, and means of cleansing, and also an exemplification of the practical rule for the distribution of
the expense, so as to render it coincident to the benefit.

19. In all cases the mortuary registries of 1839 are referred to; but the data are varying, and are submitted, as
they will be understood, only as proximate estimates. I have every reason to believe them to be on the whole
below the truth.

20. A severe epidemic, by sweeping off the most susceptible cases, usually diminishes the proportionate
mortality from that cause during the following year.

21. Vide District Returns, Appendix.

22. On a question of fact as to the effect of the common funeral arrangements on the imagination, the testimony
of a poet, whose accuracy of description is universally admitted, may be cited. The Rev. Mr. Crabbe thus
describes the effect of the funeral array:—
Lo! now what dismal sons of darkness come
To bear this daughter of indulgence home!
Tragedians all, and well arranged in black!
Who nature, feeling, force, expression lack;
Who cause no tear, but gloomily pass by,
And shake their sables in the wearied eye,
That turns disgusted from the pompous scene,
Proud without grandeur, with profusion mean!
The tear for kindness past affection owes;
For worth deceased the sigh from reason flows;
E’en well-feigned passions for our sorrows call,
And real tears for mimic miseries fall:
But this poor farce has neither truth nor art,
To please the fancy or to touch the heart.

* * * * *

Dark but not awful, dismal but yet mean,
With anxious bustle moves the cumb’rous scene;—
Presents no objects tender or profound,
But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around.

* * * * *

When woes are feigned, how ill such forms appear;
And oh! how needless when the woe’s sincere.

The Parish Register.

23. Amongst the higher classes the tendency is to reduce the number of cases in which mourning is worn, and to
diminish the time of wearing it. It would be a great boon to persons in inferior condition and of limited
means, who are governed by the examples of those above them, and who are put to ruinous expense for
putting a whole family into mourning, at a time when the expense can be the least spared, if the custom
could be further altered to the wearing of a piece of crape only on the hat or on the arm, as in the army and
navy; or by limiting the wearing of full mourning to the head of the family, and using only crape bands for
the rest. Some conception may be formed of the inconvenience incurred by the extent to which mourning is
carried, even amongst the poorest classes, if we suppose that on such occasions it were necessary to clothe
the whole of the men of the army and navy in black. The very excess of deaths above a healthy standard in
Great Britain necessitates mourning to nearly forty thousand families per annum. The extent to which
custom has carried mourning appears to have no Scriptural authority. Bingham, speaking of the primitive
Christians, states, “that they did not condemn the notion of going into a mourning habit for the dead, nor yet
much approve of it, but left it to all men’s liberty as an indifferent thing, rather commending those that either
omitted it wholly, or in short time laid it aside again, as acting more according to the bravery and philosophy
of a Christian. Thus St. Jerome commends one Julian (Hieron. Ep. 34 ad Julian), a rich man in his time,

because having lost his wife and two daughters, that is his whole family, in a few days, one after another, he
wore the mourning habit but forty days after their death, and then resumed his usual habit again, and because
he accompanied his wife to the grave, not as one that was dead, but as going to her rest. Cyprian, indeed,
seems to carry the matter a little farther; he says he was ordered by divine revelation to preach to the people
publicly and constantly, that they should not lament their brethren that were delivered from the world by
divine vocation, as being assured that they were not lost, but only sent before them: that their death was only
a receding from the world, and a speedier call to heaven; that we ought to long after them and not lament
them, nor wear any mourning habit, seeing they were gone to put on their white garments in heaven (2 Cypr.
de Mortal., p. 164). No occasion should be given to the Gentiles justly to accuse us, and reprehend us for
lamenting those as lost and extinct, whom we affirm still to live with God; and that we do not prove that
faith which we profess in words, by the outward testimony of our hearts and souls. Cyprian thought no
sorrow at all was to be expressed for the death of a Christian, nor consequently any signs of sorrow, such as
the mourning habits, because the death of a Christian was only a translation of him to heaven. But others did
not carry the thing so high, but thought a moderate sorrow might be allowed to nature, and therefore did not
so peremptorily condemn the mourning habit, as being only a decent expression of such a moderate sorrow,
though they liked it better if men could have the bravery to refuse it.” (Bing., book xxii. chap. 3, sec. 22).

24. Dr. Bently states, that “allowing for much of fiction, with which such a subject must ever be mixed, there is
still sufficient evidence to warrant a diligent examination of the means of discriminating between real and
apparent death.” (Ency. Prac. Medicine, vol. iii. 316.) “As respiration is a function most essential to health,
and at the same time the most apparent, the cessation of it may be considered as an indication of death. But
as in certain diseases and states of exhaustion it becomes very slow and feeble, and so to the casual observer
to appear quite extinct, various methods have been adopted for ascertaining its existence. Thus, placing
down or other light substances near the mouth or nose; laying a vessel of water on the chest, as an index of
motion in that cavity; holding a mirror before the mouth, in order to condense the watery vapour of the
breath; have all been proposed and employed, but they are all liable to fallacy. Down, or whatever substance
is employed, may be moved by some agitation of the surrounding air; and the surface of the mirror may be
apparently covered by the condensed vapour of the breath, when it is only the fluid of some exhalation from
the surface of the body. We therefore agree fully with the judicious observations of Dr. Paris on this subject:
—‘We feel no hesitation in asserting, that it is physiologically impossible for a human being to remain more
than a few minutes in such a state of asphyxia as not to betray some sign by which a medical observer can at
once recognize the existence of vitality; for if the respiration be only suspended for a short interval we may
conclude that life has fled for ever. Of all the acts of animal life, this is by far the most essential and
indisputable. Breath and life are very properly considered in the scriptures as convertible terms, and the
same synonym, as far as we know, prevails in every language. However slow and feeble respiration may
become by disease, yet it must always be perceptible, provided the naked breast and belly be exposed; for
when the intercostal muscles act, the ribs are elevated, and the sternum is pushed forwards; when the
diaphragm acts the abdomen swells. Now this can never escape the attentive eye; and by looking at the chest
and belly we shall form a safer conclusion than by the popular methods which have been usually adopted.’”
The looking-glass and the feather have been the standing test for time immemorial. When Lear enters with
Cordelia dead in his arms, he says:—
“I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth.—Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

Kent.—Is this the promis’d end?

Edgar.—Or image of that horror?

Lear.—This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.”

Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V. Sc. 3.

25. Vide Appendix.—Regulations and Plans of the Building, forming part of the Institution.

26. In a paper read on the 2nd January last before the Academy of Sciences at Paris, by M. le Baron Charles
Dupin, on the increase of savings’ banks and their influence on the Parisian population, some most startling
facts are mentioned in the conclusion, showing the deplorable moral condition of a large portion of that
population. “Le nombre proportionnel des indigents, au lieu d’augmenter, diminue, ainsi que celui des
bâtards, mais avec lenteur déplorable; au commencement de l’époque dont nous résumons les progrès, le
peuple de Paris abandonnait chaque année 205 enfants sur 1,000 nouveau nés; il n’en abandonne plus que
120: c’est beaucoup moins, et pourtant c’est cent vingt fois trop. Encore aujourd’hui, le tiers du peuple vit
dans le concubinage ou dans le libertinage; un tiers de ses enfants sont bâtards; un tiers de ses morts expirent
à l’hôpital ou sur le grabat du pauvre; et ni père, ni mère, ni fils, ni filles, n’ont le cœur, pour dernier tribut
humain, de donner un cercueil, un linceul, au cadavre de leurs proches:—du côté des mœurs, voilà Paris, et
Paris amélioré!”—It may on this point of comparison be a relief to state, the numbers who die in the
workhouses in the British metropolis, do not exceed 4000 for nearly double the population, and that of these,
on the average of the last ten years, not more than 293 have been so given up or abandoned as to be
applicable to the public service in the schools of anatomy. The total number who are abandoned in all the
hospitals of London, for that service, has not, on the average, exceeded 168 out of upwards of 2000 deaths
per annum. The total number of subjects requisite for teaching in the schools of anatomy would be about
600. Notwithstanding that the prejudice against dissection has much abated, the full number deemed
requisite has never been obtained of late years from all sources. In some instances, persons of education set
an example by giving up their own bodies for dissection; in some other instances, the use of the remains is
obtained by persuasions, and the promises of more respectful interment afterwards, than could otherwise be
obtained. There are actually very few real “abandonments” by relations, the greater proportion of cases
being of persons who have outlived near relations, of whom none, after due enquiry, which is always made,
can be found. In respect to illegitimate births, it appears from the last parliamentary return of the number of
illegitimate children born in the several counties of England (that of Mr. Rickman,) for 1833, that the
proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births, was in Middlesex, 1 in 38; and in Surrey 1 in 40. This was
most probably an understatement, but, whatever may be the real proportions they are below any comparison
with the proportions in Paris. The highest proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births given in the returns,
were those of the county of Pembroke, 1 in 8; and Radnor, where it is 1 in 7. It may be important to state for
the sake of the example, and in illustration of the principle, as to the comparative economy of sanitary
arrangements that this excess of 7,000 miserable deaths and burials per annum in Paris, at the least, might be
saved by structural sanitary arrangements, which would prevent the accumulation of human beings in
winding streets, (some of which are not more than eight or nine feet wide,) under circumstances which
render decency, morality, health, or contentment impossible. The whole excess of deaths, as well as the
demoralization that arises from overcrowding, might in all probability be saved even by the last vote of
expenditure, five millions sterling, (which, at English prices, of 100l. for a tenement for a family, would
have provided improved tenements, at improved rents, for fifty thousand labourers’ families) for maintaining
the war on the Arabs, or by the interest of the money expended in building the immense wall and
fortifications round the dangerous population (kept “desperate,” as Jeremy Taylor expresses it, “by a too
quick sense of a constant infelicity,”) which those works encircle in Paris. In a copy of a report of the
medical commissioners, appointed to examine the cholera, with which I have been favoured by one
distinguished member, M. Villerme, and in which I have found powerful corroborative evidence on the
influence of structural arrangements on the health and moral, not to speak of the political, condition of the
population; they observe, “Le fléau qui a pesé si cruellement sur la capitale s’est fait sentir d’une manière
particulièrement désastreuse dans les quartiers étroits, sales et embarrassés de l’ancien Paris; n’y aurait-il pas
lieu de signaler ici quelques améliorations utiles à introduire dans ces localités? Les raisons d’état ont
souvent dominé les intérêts matériels des villes; autrefois les voies étroites et tortueuses appliquées même
aux rues pouvait faire partie des moyens de défense à l’usage de l’état: aujourd’hui des rues larges et droites
deviennent dans l’intérieur des villes un premier élément de sécurité publique autant que d’hygiène; il y a
donc double avantage à favoriser dans ces conditions, soit des percements nouveaux, soit l’élargissement des
voies actuelles.” They give forcible descriptions of population analogous to that found—happily in less
proportions,—in the worst part of our cities, and they also attest, from the examination of the inferior
population of that capital: “C’est une vérité de tous les temps, de tous les lieux, une vérité, qu’il faut redire
sans cesse parceque sans cesse on l’oublie; il existe entre l’homme et tout ce qui l’entoure, de secrets liens,
de mystérieux rapports dont l’influence sur lui est continuelle et profonde. Favorable, cette influence ajoute
à ses forces physiques et morales, elle les develope, les conserve; nuisible, alors elle les altère, les anéantit,
les tue. Mais son action n’est jamais plus redoutable que lorsqu’elle trouve à s’exercer sur une population

entassée, quelle qu’elle soit d’ailleurs, et voilà pourquoi l’on observe dans certains arrondissements une
mortalité plus grande; voilà pourquoi le germe des maladies s’y développe plus constamment, pourquoi la
vie s’y éteint plus rapidement, enfin pourquoi l’on y compte habituellement un décès sur trente-deux
habitants, quand il n’y en a qu’un sur quarante dans les autres.” They also indicate as part of the effects of
the noxious physical causes the moral depravity and the predominance of bad passions which impede
amendment. “Ces obstacles sont réels, ils ne sauraient être méconnus, mais qui peut douter de les voir
s’affaiblir, si d’une part la classe aisée de la population, comprenant mieux les intentions de l’autorité et ses
intérêts véritables, se prête plus aisément à l’action des règlements sur la propreté et la salubrité publique, et
si d’une autre part l’instruction, pénétrant dans cette portion de la population qui doit une partie de ses vices
et de sa misère à l’ignorance, fait naître chez elle, avec des mœurs plus pures, des habitudes plus régulières
et plus en harmonie avec l’hygiène publique?” But these representations of the Medical Commissioners of
Paris have not been heard by the classes appealed to, and relief is sought by the mode of “giving vent” to the
dangerous passions in preference to the superior treatment recommended, of the removal of the physical
circumstances by which those passions must continue to be generated. Thus it may be mentioned in
illustration of the important principle of the superior economy and efficiency of structural means of
prevention, that the expenditure of money on Algiers appears to have been upwards of four millions sterling
per annum, during the twelve years of its occupation. The capital sunk on the permanent structural
arrangements for supplying London with water being about three millions and a half, it may be safely
alleged that one year’s expenditure on Algiers would have sufficed for the structural arrangements for a
supply of water for the cleansing of every room, and house, and street in Paris; or on the scale of the expense
of the works completed for supplying Toulouse with water, one year’s expenditure on Algiers would have
sufficed to supply one hundred and fifty towns of the same size as Toulouse with the like means of healthful,
and thence of moral improvement; or such a sum would have sufficed to have effected for ever the
“percements et enlargissements des voies actuelles,” and thence to have advanced the health and achieved
the comparative security of four or five such cities as Lyons. One year’s cost of any one regiment maintained
in the war on the Arabs would suffice to build and endow a school, or to have constructed between one and
two miles of permanent railway. The total amount of capital so applied exceeds nearly by one-fourth the
amount expended on the existing railroads in Great Britain. It may be confidently averred that the cost of the
forts detaches, or enceintes-continues, said to be on a reduced scale upwards of ten millions sterling, would,
if properly directed, with the accessaries of moral appliances in addition to such physical means as those
indicated by the officers of public health, suffice within the period of the living generation, to renovate the
physical and moral condition of the great mass of the population in the interior of that capital.

27. Vide Appendix—Explanations of the District Mortuary Returns.

28. Vide other instances cited in the Annales d’Hygiene.—Number 59, p. 153 to 159.

29. Vide Regulations at Franckfort and Munich, Appendix.

30. Vide Appendix for the list of burial places returned, and a view of the spaces requisite on the preceding
scale, § 145, and the relative space occupied as burial ground by the chief religious denominations.

31. It is due to the medical profession to state, that they have always discountenanced as injurious the practice of
entombment in vaults under churches. A Parisian physician had the following epitaph to his memory:—
“Simon Pierre, vir pius et probus
Hic sub dio sepeliri voluit
Ne mortuus cuiquam noceret
Qui vivus omnibus profuerat.”

At Louvain, there is the tomb of a celebrated anatomist, with the following:—
“Philippus Verhagen,
Med. Dr. et prof.
Partem sui materialem
Hic in cœmeterio condi voluit,
Ne templum dehonestaret
Aut nocivis halitibus inficeret.”

32. Perpetuities in burial grounds may be said to have been declared illegal by Lord Stowell’s decision in the
case of Gilbert v. the Churchwardens of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, on the use of iron coffins. His lordship, in
his judgment in that case, remarked, that “All contrivances that, whether intentionally or not, prolong the
time of dissolution beyond the period at which the common local understanding and usage have fixed it, is
an act of injustice, unless compensated in some other way.”—Haggard’s Rep. v. 2, p. 353. Vide statement of
the principle of this decision, in the extracts from the judgment given in the Appendix, No. 12.

33. The neglect of the cemeteries at Paris, and especially of those portions dedicated to the interment of the
poorer classes, has been the subject of public complaint, and means are now being taken to redress them. A
friend, who aided me with some inquiries in respect to them, states,—
The English tourist in visiting Père la Chaise is attracted by splendid monuments in the midst of cypress trees, and little gardens filled with
flowers planted round a majority of the tombs; but the graves of the humbler classes lie beyond these, and to them the stranger is seldom
conducted. The contrast is painful. When I last visited Père la Chaise, on a fine day in November, and after a week of unusually fine weather for
the season, I found the paths quite impracticable in the poorer quarter of the cemetery, and as I watched a man, in the usual blouse dress worn by
the working class, picking his way through the mud to lead his little boy to pray over the grave of his mother, I could but deplore the economy of
an administration which had neglected to provide, at least, a dry gravel path for the humble and pious mourner.

34. Vide Appendix for an exemplification of the excess of deaths and funerals, and other losses incurred by
setting aside Sir Christopher Wren’s plan for the rebuilding of the city of London.

35. One of the twelve tables was in these words, “Hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito neve urito.” Cicero, in
one of his epistles, Epist. ad Div. iv. 12, in which he describes the assassination of his friend M. Marcellus,
at Athens, mentions that he had been unable to obtain permission of the Athenians that the body should be
buried in the city; they said that such permission was inadmissible on religious grounds, and that it never had
been granted to any one.

36. Bingham’s Christian Antiquities, b. xxiii. ch. 1, s. 2.

37. Vide Leviticus, chap. xiv., verse 33 to 48, for early sanitary measures of purification.

38. It is perhaps an important fact, that the great majority of burials in some burial-grounds are stated by the
undertakers who perform them to be burials of persons who are not subscribing members of the
congregations who are reputed to be the owners of the grounds, and whilst only one out of three of the
parishioners of many parishes choose burial in the ground belonging to their parish church, the
solemnization of the marriage ceremony being generally satisfactory to the population, and all of them
having the option to have the marriage solemnized with or without the religious ceremony, only one out of
twenty-four in the metropolis prefer solemnization elsewhere than at the established church. From the
Registrar General’s Report it appears that, in 1839, out of 18,648 marriages celebrated in the metropolis,
only 772 were not solemnized in the established church; and out of 124,329 marriages performed that year
in the whole of England and Wales, only 7,311 were performed out of the established church.

39. Bingham observes that St. Chrysostom speaks against those who use excessive mourning at funerals,
showing them the incongruity of that with this psalmody of the church, and exposing them at the same time
to the ridicule of the Gentiles. For what said they are these men that talk so finely and philosophically about
the resurrection? Yes, indeed! But their actions do not agree with their doctrine. For whilst they profess in
words the belief of a resurrection, in their deeds they act more like men that despair of it. If they were really
persuaded that their dead were gone to a better life, they would not so lament. “Therefore,” says
Chrysostom, “let us be ashamed to carry out our dead after this manner. For our psalmody, and prayers, and
solemn meeting of fathers, and such a multitude of brethren, is not that thou shouldst weep and lament, and
be angry at God, but give him thanks for taking a deceased brother to himself.” St. Jerome also frequently
speaks of this psalmody as one of the chief parts of their funeral pomp. He says at the funeral of the Lady
Paula at Bethlehem, which was attended with great concourse of bishops and clergy and people of Palestine,
there was no howling or lamenting as used to be among the men of this world, but singing of psalms in
Greek, Latin, and Syriac (because there were people of different languages present) at the procession of her
body to the grave.” “And being so general and decent a practice, it was a grievance to any one to be denied
the privilege of it. Victor Uticensis, upon this account, complains of the inhuman cruelty of one of the kings
of the Vandals. Who can bear, says he, to think of it without tears, when he calls to mind how he commanded

the bodies of our dead to be carried in silence without the solemnity of the usual hymns to the grave.” (Vol.
vii. 335.)

40. Dr. Southwood Smith’s Report, Poor Law Commissioners’ Fifth Annual Report, Appendix, p. 160.

41. Whosoever may feel inclined not to attach much weight to infantile mortality on any such theory as that the
“pressure of population” is thereby diminished, may be requested to consider the evidence of the fallacy, and
proof that in the very districts where such mortality is the greatest, so is the amount of births. Vide General
Sanitary Report, Note, p. 175; Tables, p. 182 and 183, et seq.; and the subsequent corroborative evidence
adduced in connexion with the district returns of the proportions of deaths and funerals given in the
Appendix to this Report—Appendix.

42. Vide on the subject of defective registration of the causes of deaths: a letter to the Registrar-general from Mr.
Baker, coroner to Middlesex, printed in the Minutes of Evidence on the practice of coroners, given before a
Select Committee of the House of Commons, p. 128 of paper 549, Sess. 1840.

APPENDIX.

No. 1.
REGULATIONS FOR PUBLIC INTERMENT AT FRANCKFORT, PASSED 1829.
The transference of the cemetery to the outside of the town required the herewith enacted abolition of the ancient
mode and custom of interring the dead, and the substitution of another and more suitable arrangement. For this
purpose the following regulations for Sachsenhausen [the suburbs of Franckfort], as well as Franckfort, are
published for general observance:—

Section I.

(1.) The mixed Church and School Commission has the chief superintendence of all church, cemetery, and
interment affairs.
The regulation of all matters relating to interments is conferred upon the legally-appointed Church and Cemetery
Commission.
All officers employed in connection with interments are placed under the control of the said Commission, and it
will be its duty to report yearly to the mixed Church and School Commission on the expenses and receipts, and the
general progress of the institution.
(2.) The superintendence of the cemetery, of the sextons in their various employments, and of the house of
reception, is given to an inspector, whose duties are hereafter described in the 2nd section.
(3.) For the performance of all the necessary arrangements preceding the interment, commissaries of interments are
appointed to take the place of the so-called undertakers. These commissaries have to arrange everything connected
with the funeral, and are responsible for the proper fulfilment of all the regulations given in their instructions.
(4.) In order to prevent the great expense which was formerly occasioned by the attendance with the dead to the
grave, bearers shall be appointed who shall attend to the cemetery all funerals, without distinction of rank or
condition.
To these bearers shall be given assistants, who shall be equally under the control of the interment commissaries.
(5.) A sufficient number of sextons and assistants shall be appointed to form the graves and assist at the interment.
(6.) There are four classes of funerals and interments. Every house of mourning may choose the class of funeral on
paying the sum fixed for that class to the Church and Cemetery Commission.
All Christian interments, without distinction, can be conducted only according to these interment regulations. It
remains open to the friends of the dead to attend the burial either in carriage or on foot; but this must be without
expense to the house of mourning. The funerals of the town guards and of the soldiers of the line remain the same,
but are only to cost a fixed sum.
If it be the wish of a family, the clergyman may attend the funeral, and he may perform a service either at the side
of the grave, or, in case of bad weather, in the house of reception.
All interments whatsoever, except in extraordinary cases, where the police determines the time, must take place
early—in summer before nine, in winter before eleven o’clock, in the morning.
The blowing of trumpets from the steeples, the attendance of women with napkins, the bearings of crosses, the
attendance of the old-fashioned mourning coach, and also the use of the so-called “chariot of Heaven,” and the
following of young handicraftsmen, which generally were an immense expense, are all given up. New carriages of
a simpler and more respectable form, and such as are better suited to the object and to the greater distance of the
cemetery from the town, shall be built.
The bodies of adults who are taken direct from the house of mourning to the grave, must be borne in the funeral
carriage to the gate of the cemetery, where the bearers will convey the coffin to the grave.
The dead who have been placed in the house of reception must be borne in the same manner to the grave.