296 Principles of Landscape- Gardening 



Cemetery Company, knowing the difficulty as well as the expense of obtain- 

 ing ground for burial, (as a cemetery always depreciates the property around,) 

 and contemplating that a Bill may pass to prohibit burials in the crowded me- 

 tropolis, offer seven acres of their ground at Kensal Green, adjoining the 

 Cemetery, for the burial of the poor, under such regulations as may be 

 thought advisable." (^Report, &c., p. 8.) Fortunately for the public, the calcu- 

 lation of the directors is altogether erroneous. An acre contains 43,560 square 

 feet, and supposing the pauper graves to be 6 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 6 in., this is equal 

 to 161 square ft., and hence, dividing 43,560 ft. by that sum, we have 2,680 

 graves per acre, which multiplied by seven gives 18,760 graves in seven acres ; 

 something more than one seventh of the number which the directors say the 

 seven acres will contain. But let us take even this limited number of 18,760 

 graves, and multiply it by 10, the number of pauper interments which the 

 directors propose to make in a grave, and we have 187,600 bodies deposited 

 in seven acres. Something less indeed than the 1,335,000 bodies which the 

 directors propose to get into that space, but still enough to put the public 

 on their guard against men who can hazard such statements ; for it must 

 be remembered that this error in the calculation has nothing to do with 

 the intentions of the directors. One million three hundred and thirty-five 

 thousand bodies deposited in seven acres may well depreciate the pro- 

 perty around. If it be true, as Mr. Walker, the author of Gatherings from 

 Graveyards, observes (^Report on the Health of Toivns, p. 412.), that "layers 

 of earth, of several feet in depth, can no more intercept the transmission of 

 gas into the atmosphere, than they can by their density prevent the infiltra- 

 tion of water," then indeed these seven acres, if occupied even with the smaller 

 number of 187,600 l)odies, might be considered as the crater of a volcano, 

 vomiting forth poison in the form of a column of gaseous matter, which, chang- 

 ing in direction with every change of the wind, would poison the atmosphere 

 for many miles round ; while the water of decomposition would poison the 

 springs of the subsoil. 



It is lamentable to witness in the proprietors of cemeteries, and in some 

 members of the Committee for enquiring into the Effect of Interments in 

 Towns, the manner in wliich the subject of the interment of paupers, and of 

 the poor generally, is discussed. We do not limit the remark to the proprie- 

 tors of cemeteries, the committee referred to, or to the rich or influential 

 classes in this country, but extend it also to every other class which con- 

 siders itself above the poor ; for example, to parish vestries. One would think 

 that the poor were considered as animals of a different species, or as totally 

 without the feelings which belong to the rest of mankind. While the bodies 

 of the dead rich in every capital in Europe are to be placed singly in cata- 

 combs or graves, those of the poor are to be trenched in in layers as in 

 France, thrown into a common pit as in Naples and Leghorn, or buried ten 

 or fifteen in a grave as in London.* Some of the committee who examined 

 witnesses seem particularly anxious to abridge the process of taking care of 

 the poor, by placing quicklime in their coffins. The questions put by some 

 of these persons evinced, in our opinion, great want of humane feeling gene- 

 rally, and an utter disregard of the feelings of the poor. 



" Should you have any objection, if there was a law made that there 



* The price of land, within ten miles of London, is much too high to admit 

 of burying paupers singly in the London cemeteries ; but one thousand, or 

 even two thousand, acres of poor waste land, admirably adapted for burying- 

 ground, might be purchased in the parishes of Woking, Chobham, Horsall, 

 Perbright, Pyrford, &c., at from 4/. to 8/. per acre. The land alluded to is 

 too poor to admit of cultivation for arable purposes ; but it would grow 

 yews, junipers, pines, firs, and other cemetery plants, with which it might be 

 planted in rows, in such a manner that the graves could be made between the 

 rows. 



