CHAPTER X 



BURIAL-GROUNDS 



Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent, 

 A man s good name is his best monument. 



— Epitaph in St. Botolph, Aldersgatf.. 



HE disused burial-grounds within 

 the London area must now be 

 counted among its gardens. There 

 are those who would not have the 

 living benefit by these hallowed 

 spots set apart for the dead, but 

 the vast majority of people have 

 welcomed the movement which 

 has led to this change. In some instances there is no 

 doubt the transformation has been badly done. Here 

 and there graves have been disturbed and tombstones 

 heedlessly moved, but on the whole the improvement 

 of the last fifty years has been immense. It is appalling 

 even to read the accounts of many of the London grave- 

 yards before this reaction set in. The hideous sights, 

 the foul condition in which God's acre was often allowed 

 to remain, as revealed by the inquiry held about 1850, 

 together with the horrors of body-snatchers, are such 

 a disagreeable contrast to the orderly graveyards of 

 to-day, that the removal of a few head-stones is a much 

 lesser evil. 



Loudon, in the Botanical Magazine^ was one of 



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