CHAPTER X 
BURIAL-GROUNDS 
Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent , 
A man’s good name is his best monument. 
—-Epitaph in St. Botolph, Aldersgatf.. 
HE disused burial-grounds within 
the London area must now be 
counted among its gardens. There 
are those who would not have the 
living benefit by these hallowed 
spots set apart for the dead, but 
the vast majority of people have 
welcomed the movement which 
has led to this change. In some instances there is no 
doubt the transformation has been badly done. Here 
and there graves have been disturbed and tombstones 
heedlessly moved, but on the whole the improvement 
of the last fifty years has been immense. It is appalling 
even to read the accounts of many of the London grave¬ 
yards before this reaction set in. The hideous sights, 
the foul condition in which God’s acre was often allowed 
to remain, as revealed by the inquiry held about 1850, 
together with the horrors of body-snatchers, are such 
a disagreeable contrast to the orderly graveyards of 
to-day, that the removal of a few head-stones is a much 
lesser evil. 
Loudon, in the Botanical Magazine , was one of 
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