applied to Public Cemeteries. 299 



with cooperative railroad hearses, and other arrangements to lessen expense ; 

 which would admit of more ground being spared in the suburbs for public 

 gardens and breathing-places. Nor does there appear to us any objection to 

 union workhouses having a portion of their garden ground used as a cemetery, 

 to be restored to cultivation after a sufficient time had elapsed. The bones 

 in this and in every case where the ground was planted or cultivated would 

 be at least 6 ft. below the surface, and, where it was thought necessary, they 

 might be protected by covering-plates, as already described. Proprietors 

 of land, we think, ought to be encouraged to bury on their own grounds 

 in the free soil ; a proper officer, who might be the local registrar, or one of 

 the churchwardens, taking cognizance that the grave was of the proper depth, 

 and that all the other conditions necessary for insuring decency and salubrity 

 were fulfilled. 



The expense of funerals has last year been considerably lessened about the 

 metropolis by the introduction of one-horse hearses, which convey the coffin 

 and six mourners to the place of interment. These appear to have been first 

 suggested in 1837, by Mr. J. R. Croft, in an article in the Mechanic's Ma- 

 gazine, vol. xxvii. p. 146., and the idea has subsequently, in 1842, been 

 improved on and carried into execution by Mr. Shillibeer, to whom the 

 British public are indebted for the first introduction of the omnibus. Mr. 

 ShilHbeer's funeral carriage embraces in itself a hearse and a mourning coach, 

 is very neat, and takes little from the pomp, and nothing from the decency of 

 the ordinary funeral obsequies, while it greatly reduces the expense; the hire 

 of a hearse with a single horse costing only 1/. \s., and with two horses, 

 \l. \U. 6d. These carriages have one division for the coffin, and another 

 for six mourners ; and when the coffin has been taken out for interment, 

 before the mourners reenter to return home, the front part of the carriage 

 and the fore wheels are contracted and drawn close up to the hinder or coach 

 part of the carriage by means of a screw, so that the part for containing the 

 coffin disappears, and the whole, when returning from the place of interment, 

 has the appearance of a mourning coach. The invention is ingenious and most 

 useful. 



Perhaps the expense to the poor might be still farther lessened by the use 

 of light low four-wheeled vehicles for conveying the corpse, which might be 

 moved by a man, or by two men. We see no reason why the attendants at 

 the funeral of a poor man should not move this carriage by turns ; as in 

 various country places, more especially in Scotland, where the bodies even of 

 respectable farmers are, or were forty years ago, carried to the churchyard on 

 handspokes by the relations of the deceased. The same idea has occurred 

 to Mr. H. W. Jukes, whose carriage for walking funerals is shown \r\Jig. 72. In 



Fig. 72. Mr. Jukes's Truck-Hcarse. 



this figure, besides the cross handle in front for two persons to draw by, there 

 are two handles behind for assisting to push it up steep hills, or by pressure or 

 drawing back to retard it when going down hill. These last handles should be 

 made with a hinge to let down when the coffin is being taken out ; and in a level 

 country they may be altogether omitted. The pall, or mortcloth, lies over the 

 coffin. The dimensions of the body of the carriage should be about 7 ft. by 

 2 ft. 6 in. inside measure ; the height from the bottom to the roof may be 4 ft.. 



