applied to Public Cemeteries. 48 1 



Scotland, as there are no privies, either public or private, for the common 

 people, the churchyard is the place of common resort. That we may not be 

 accused of exaggeration, we shall refer to the burying-ground of the established 

 church in Stranraer, as it was in ISil. A more hideous spectacle of the kind 

 we never saw ; but it is doubtless in a better state now, because the Earl 

 of Stair, with his accustomed liberality and public spirit, has since presented 

 the town with a piece of ground for a general cemetery ; and is about to 

 erect another structure for public convenience equally necessary. End as the 

 churchyards are in England, they are much worse in Scotland ; for there the 

 extra-professional pursuits of the clergy are more frequently directed to farm- 

 ing than to matters of taste. 



The charnel-house, or bone-house, needs only to be mentioned to excite 

 disapprobation ; for, if churchyards were properly managed, no fragment of a 

 coffin or human bone would ever be disinterred or seen by the living. There 

 are two modes of effectually attaining this object : the first is by never 

 placing more than one coffin in a grave ; or, if more are placed in it, either in- 

 terring them at the same time, or placing the first coffin so deep as to admit of 

 a stratum of 6 ft. in thickness between it and the second coffin ; the last- 

 deposited coffin, in either case, being not less than 6 ^t. under the surface of 

 the ground : and the second mode is by placing on the last-deposited coffin 

 a guard, or following stone, as already suggested in p. 98. 



Allowing public passages to be made through churchyards is a common 

 source of desecration ; but, as these passages are generally conducive to the 

 convenience of the living, they cannot be dispensed with ; therefore, to pre- 

 vent desecration, they ought to be fenced off on each side. 



No kind of games ought ever to be allowed in churchyards, nor dogs ad- 

 mitted if possible, nor smoking, nor in short any thing that would indicate a 

 want of reverence for the dead. 



By far the greatest desecration which takes place in churchyards results 

 from their crowded state, in consequence of which a grave cannot be dug 

 without disinterring coffins and bones. There is no remedy for this evil but 

 the enlargement of churchyards, which is required in every part of the country, 

 and should be effected from time to time, according to some principle or rule 

 derived from the population returns, and the average annual burials. 



Want of Trees and Shrubs. — We have often stated it as our opinion, that 

 country churchyards might be greatly increased in interest, by being carefully 

 and systematically laid out, and moderately planted with proper kinds of 

 trees and shrubs. These being named would create a great interest in them, 

 and the whole of the ground being very neatly kept would diffuse a taste for 

 order and neatness among the parishioners. This improvement is beginning 

 to take place in various parts of England, though but rarely in Scotland, 

 where flowers are considered light and gaudy, and where the great object to 

 be attained is to subject the mind to the bondage of fear, by continually re- 

 minding the spectator that "he also must die*, and that death is only the 



* " From whence you come, or whosoe'er you be. 



Remember, mortal man, that thou must dee." 



Lines on the Sundial in the Garden at Brougham Castle. 



" Alas ! the little day of life 

 Is shorter than a span. 

 Yet black with many hidden ills 

 To miserable man." 



Lines on a common Tombstone in KirJcmichael 

 Churchyard, Wigtonshire, 

 one of the most gloomy scenes of the kind in the West of Scotland : it 

 contains "the corpse of Gilbert McAdam, who was shot by the Laird of 

 Cullean and Ballochmill, for his adherence to the word of the Lord, and the 

 work of Reformation, in July, 1682." 



I I 3 



