92 
Now this, like many other good things, can be carried 
too far, especially in districts situate on a sandy soil and 
where the owners of crowded graveyards are permitted 
to bury corpses near to the public highway, a proceeding 
occasionally yet allowed by sanitary authorities. Some 
years since a main sewer was excavated on the Cheetham 
Hill Koad. From the Workhouse to Temple it was made 
in strong brick clay or “till,” but when it reached the 
latter place it came into a mass of quicksand and drained 
St. Luke’s churchyard and took the water down to Man- 
chester. The sewer was then continued in the sand all the 
way to the Bird in the Hand public house, where it stopped. 
Within the last month a main drain has been made from 
the turnpike road up Eobin Hood Street so as to drain the 
water from part of St. Mark’s churchyard. This drain runs 
into a new main sewer which joins the old one near the 
Bird in the Hand, and thus the drainage of part of St. 
Mark’s churchyard is made to join that of St. Luke’s, and 
both go down to Manchester. No doubt sand possesses a 
great filtering power, and will in some measure purify 
the water drained from churchyards; but water derived 
from such sources ought to be examined carefully before it 
is conveyed even into sewers connected with dwelling- 
houses. Probably our officers of health may have done so, 
and think that there is no harm in water flowing from 
graveyards, but as yet, so far as known to me, no informa- 
tion has been given to the public on this subject. The 
making of sewers in sandy soils near to burying grounds is 
a matter that deserves the attention of sanitary officers 
more than it has done up to this time. 
Burial grounds cannot well be removed when once estab- 
lished, but their owners can be prevented from burying 
close to roads and streets having sewers under them, and 
caution can be used in making new burial grounds near to 
roads and sewers. When burial grounds adjoin churches. 
