Laying out and planting Buri/ing-Grounds. 27 



churcliyards and burying-grounds of every description than 

 yourself^ nor of any one better deserving the honour of being 

 the first to improve the taste of our countrymen in this re- 

 spect. For myself, I freely own, that I am personally and 

 peculiarly interested in the speedy redemption of your pledge, 

 being at this moment in the act of enclosing a burying-ground 

 of about half an acre, which 1 destine for the use of the inha- 

 bitants of my largest village (Blackwood), of the origin and 

 progress of which I have before given you some accounts. 

 The reform of parish churchyards, I fear, will be attended 

 with some difficulty, or at least it may require considerable 

 time and attention to mature such a plan for that purpose, as 

 may not be frustrated by the self-interest of some persons, and 

 the prejudices of others. As the consecration of my village 

 burying-ground will be the mere act of setting it apart for the 

 necessary purposes of a receptacle for the dead, no greater 

 holiness will be conferred upon it in the eyes of the vulgar than 

 the God of universal nature has conferred upon all his works, 

 and therefore there will be no vulgar prejudices to be shocked ; 

 and as there will be no interest created in it, apart from its 

 appropriate object, there will be no selfish feeling excited to 

 hostility. A plan for laying out snc/i a burying-ground, you, 

 who have thought on the subject, will therefore find no diffi- 

 culty in submitting to your readers. My intention is to have 

 the whole area trenched, and cropped for one season, and as 

 soon as prepared, to plant, this winter, a narrow belt of trees 

 and shrubs all around it. These, I venture to surmise, will 

 be a part of your directions in all cases ; it is of the nature of 

 plants to be employed, and the arrangement of the interior, 

 and its appropriation to the dead and the living, and its after 

 management, that I wish to see a particular account from your 

 pen. I say appropriation to the living as well as to the dead, 

 because until the whole of the ground be required for the lat- 

 ter, some disposition must be made, and care taken of what is 

 not actually appropriated for burying in ; and will you con- 

 sider how far, and under what regulations the living should 

 be either required or permitted to keep neat or ornament the 

 graves of their relatives and friends ? Such of your readers 

 as have felt an interest in the statements I have sent you re- 

 specting my village system, or who are concerned for the im- 

 provement of the moral and personal condition of the labour- 

 ing classes of society, will be pleased to hear that the system 

 I have adopted continues to " work well." The three villages 

 on my property in this neighbourhood now contain two thou- 

 sand inhabitants, a considerable proportion of the male part 

 of which have freehold leases. Since my last letter addressed 



