applied to Public Cemeteries. 295 



that in this matter, as in most others, we follow the practice of those 

 who have gone before us, without enquiring into its reasonableness or suit- 

 ableness to our present views of nature. A gentleman in the country builds 

 a chapel in his grounds, and his architect tells him that it would not be 

 complete without a family vault, and he therefore has one built, other- 

 wise he would not be like his neighbours. As to public vaults in churches, 

 their origin is security, and they are continued partly owing to the crowded 

 state of the churchyards, but principally on account of the higher fees 

 obtained from those who bury in them by the clergyman and the under- 

 taker. Hence, on account of the expense, burying in vaults becomes a 

 mark of wealth or distinction, and for that reason is adopted by many of 

 the London tradesmen, even in the new cemeteries. How much better 

 for the health and improvement of the living, and the honour of the dead, 

 were the money now laid out in vaults and in burial fees expended on hand- 

 some monuments, or even on increased space round graves in the open ground, 

 so as to admit of interring only one coffin in a grave ! How much more 

 natural and agreeable to see the grass graves of a family placed side by side in 

 a small green enclosure, the property of the family, which cannot be disturbed; 

 than to see the cover of a brick grave or a vault, in which we know their 

 bodies have been let down one over the other, and there remain unmixed 

 with soil, a pestilential mass of putridity ; or see the coffins which contain 

 them deposited on stone shelves above ground, forming separate portions of 

 preserved corruption ! * 



The directors of the Kensal Green Cemetery have offered seven acres 

 of their ground for the interment of the paupers of seven London parishes, 

 which exceed in number 1,000 annually. " It has been found," they say, 

 " that seven acres will contain about 133,500 graves ; each grave will 

 receive ten coffins ; thus accommodation may be provided for 1,335,000 

 deceased paupers, and the seven acres, at an average of 1,000 burials 

 a year, will not be filled for 1,335 years." {Annual Report of the General 

 Cemetery Company, dated 9th June, 1842, p. 8.) The idea of accumulat- 

 ing such a mass of corruption in such a limited space is horrible, and we trust 

 will never be listened to for a moment by the public. The directors introduce 

 the irproposition by the following passage : " The directors of the General 



bodies in their shrouds, which had been turned pellmell out of their coffins. 

 On some the flesh and hair were still remaining. We were informed this was 

 done by the French on their retreat from Moscow the winter before, in 

 search for the loaf of bread and bottle of wine, which it was at that time 

 customary for the Poles and Lithuanians to place in the coffin along with 

 the body, previously to its interment. 



* The late Sir Francis Chantrey had caused a splendid vault to be built for 

 himself, and, with much kindness, proposed to Allan Cunningham that he also 

 should be buried in it. " No, no," answered Allan ; " I '11 not be built over 

 when 1 'm dead ; I '11 he where the wind shall blow over, and the daisy 

 grow, upon my grave." {The Builder, No. 3. p. 40.) In the Gentleman's 

 Magazine for December, 1842, a biographical notice of Allan Cunningham, 

 Esq., is given, in which it is stated that he died on Oct. 29., aged 56, and that 

 on the 4th of Nov. his remains were removed to the General Cemetery in 

 the Harrow Roail, for interment in the catacombs of that place. Having 

 written to Mr. Peter Cunningham, the son of the deceased, with a copy of 

 the above extract from the liuilder, to ascertain the facts of the case, his an- 

 swer is : " My father is buried in the General Cemetery at Kensal Green ; not 

 in a close, damp, pestiferous vault, or in a brick grave (just as bad), but in 

 his native earth, that he may mingle with what he sprung from. The extract 

 yon send me is |)erfectly correct. My father had always an abhorrence of 

 Westminster Abbey vaults and brick-built graves. — P. C. March 2. 1843." 



