362 Principles of Landscape- Gardening 



The Interest of the Money expended, allowing 1 per cent as a £ s. d. 



sinking fund to return the principal, we shall estimate at - 120 

 Salary of the Curator, and Annual Expenses chargeable to 



the Cemetery - - - - - -180 00 



Sum which the Cemetery ought to produce annually ^300 



In order to show how this sum may be produced, we shall suppose that 

 there are 200 interments made in a year, and that the sum charged for a single 

 interment in a common grave is II. lOs. which is only 5s. per interment more 

 than is charged in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery, where from twelve to fifteen 

 bodies are placed in one grave ; and this will give the sum required. 



Taking the number of interments which will be atforded by the 1200 avail- 

 able graves at 6000, that number, at the rate of 200 interments in a year, 

 will be exhausted in thirtj' years. The remainder of the ground will afford 

 at least an equal number of interments, which might extend the use of the 

 cemetery to sixty years. 



To supply 200 deaths per annum, reckoning the deaths at 2 per cent of 

 the living, a population of 20,000 is required, or about four fifths of the 

 entire population of Cambridge. 



As therefore it would be unreasonable to suppose that so large a propor- 

 tion of the people of Cambridge would bury in one cemetery, we are forced 

 to the conclusion, either that the price for each interment must be increased, 

 or that the shareholders must be content with less interest than 6 per cent. 

 Suppose we make the calculation at 3 per cent, that will reduce the annual 

 charges to 240/., which will require only 160 interments at 305. or 120 at 40^. 



Whatever sum is fixed on as the regular price of an interment in a common 

 grave will give the amount of the fee-simple of that grave ; and thus, ac- 

 cording to the calculation which we have made of six interments to a grave, 

 the price of a family grave ought to be at least 6/. ; except in the borders, 

 where, from being a place of distinction, it ought to be higher. This price is 

 exclusive of every other expense, and also of a fee which will require to be 

 paid every time an interment takes place. 



The price to be charged for a single interment in a common grave should 

 be fixed on partly from the market price for such interments in the best part 

 of the churchyards of Cambridge, but chiefly from the great superiority of 

 the principle on which the cemetery is founded, viz. that no cofhn, nor any 

 part of its contents, when once interred, can ever by any possibility, humanly 

 speaking, be again exposed to view. 



If, on calculating on the capacity of this cemetery, we were to proceed on 

 the supposition that the common graves might be opened for reinterments 

 at the end of fourteen years, the result would be very different. But on 

 opening at the end of fourteen years, or at any period whatever, it would be 

 impossible to avoid exposing an inmiense number of human bones, which 

 constitute one of the great luiisances in our present crowded churchyards. 



The Mode of conducting the Cemetery is supposed to be as follows. 



The choice of a situation for a grave may be made in any part of the beds 

 in the interior, or of the borders along the main walks ; but, till the cemetery 

 is nearly full, it is not desirable that graves or vaults should lie made under 

 the surrounding terrace walk. When they are made there, the 5-feet grass 

 [•ath which separates the terrace from the beds may have one foot in width 

 added to it from the terrace, and may be laid with gravel from the terrace 

 walk, which may be covered with grass taken from the 5-feet walk referred to. 

 The use of the terrace being thii-s changed from a walk to a platform for 

 graves, it will of course no longer be walked upon. 



As none of the coffins will ever be disturbed by the reopening of the graves, 

 as in common burying-grounds, there is no objection to the use of leaden, 

 zinc, or iron coffins. 



