Part 20
§ 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 45,375_l._ 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 17,000_l._ 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.