we 8 
thousands of persons are each year buried in the United Kingdom 
without even this formality. The attention of the public and of the 
Government has been drawn to the subject again and again, but 
neither the public nor the Government like to be made un- 
comfortable, and nothing has been done to amend it. So far 
back as 1843 Mr. Chadwick, in his report to the Board of Health, 
on the subject of Intramural Interment, devoted an entire chapter 
to the dangers of our existing system, and the necessity of an 
alteration in our law as to the verification of the cause of death 
(Dr. Cameron). Again, in 1851, in the Report of Health on 
Extramural Sepulture, the second paragraph reads as follows :— 
‘«« We have also received much evidence showing the practical evils 
that result from certain defects in the present system of the 
registration of deaths, the facility consequently afforded for the 
perpetration of crime, especially in the case of infants reputed to 
be stillborn, and the neglect which is more common than is 
generally apprehended of calling in medical assistance to infants, 
children and others, when sick; the importance of verifying the 
cause as well as the fact of death has been very generally and 
urgently represented by magistrates, coroners. clergymen. and 
medical men.” In the report of the Registrar-General for 1884, 
out of a total of about half-a-million of deaths, only ninety per cent. 
received medical certificates. The returns showed this remarkable 
fact that in one year 20,000 people were buried without any 
medical certificate whatever. In Scotland things are said to be 
much worse. Here there are no coroners, but instead procurators- 
fiscal, and these only investigate cases that they suspect have died 
from crime. Dr. Allison, once a well-known Edinburgh physician, 
stated that in Scotland there is full opportunity for the perpetra- 
tion of murder, without investigation by any responsible officer. 
He remembered two cases, within two or three days, of children 
overlain and killed by their parents while in a state of drunken- 
ness, and no note taken of the cireumstances by anyone” There 
is another difficulty which will soon have to be met by legislation. 
It is this, that cremation is practically lawful, and can be carried 
out in any place, at any time, and almost under any circumstances. 
In 1769, the body of Mrs. Pratt, in accordance with her wish, was 
burnt in Tyburn, burying-ground. Bat this case was taken little 
heed of, until Dr. Pryce burnt the body of his own child, a few 
years ago, on a Welsh mountain. This became a test case. A 
trial was instituted at Cardiff in February, 1884, at which Mr. 
Justice Stephen gave his well-known charge on the law of crema- 
tion, the gist of which is that unless the cremation process consti- 
tutes a public nuisance, or leads to a breach of the public peace, 
no action can be taken to prevent such an operation of cremation 
