Part 39

For myself, having the deepest sense of the evil in question, and having officially the power to order the removal of the dead, I may repeat that I have never yet exercised my authority. Practically speaking, I can hardly conceive an instance in which I should attempt to do so. It would require the strongest case that could be shown of actual mischief in progress--of disease and death multiplied day by day through the presence of some particular dead body, to justify interference even in that single instance. Nothing like the operation of a general law would be tolerated;--nothing like including the dead in a compulsory plan of hygienic police.

After very careful consideration of the subject, I may confess myself even more impressed with its difficulties than when I first began to give it my attention; and in the few suggestions which follow I cannot pretend to do more than intimate where, in my opinion, a beginning may usefully be made towards an improvement which it will take many years to accomplish.

Legislative remedies, proposed for the evils which I am bringing under your notice, have been of two kinds--viz., first, to restrict the time during which it should be lawful to keep a body unburied; secondly, to promote the use of reception-houses (as they have been called) whither bodies might be removed from within all dwelling-places, and be kept under certain regulations during the days preceding their interment.

As regards the first point;--there are many foreign countries (and even some parts of the United Kingdom) where either law or custom has made it imperative to bury within two, three, or four days of death. Our habit, unfortunately, is to keep the corpse unburied for twice as long. A week may probably be considered our medium interval between death and interment; and with this delay, I need hardly tell you, the body becomes putrid--sometimes intensely so, before the time for its removal arrives.

Among the wealthier classes, as I have said, this delay is practically unimportant; except in so far as every repetition maintains the pernicious custom. Scarcely on account of any risk arising to themselves in emanations from the dead, but mainly for the sake of influence and example, would one wish the educated classes of the community to adopt the usage of earlier burial. Our present practice is upheld by no law of necessity; nor for the most part does it represent any extravagance of grief, or fond reluctance of separation. Chiefly it subsists by our indolent acquiescence in a habit, which former prejudices and former exigencies established. Fears of premature interment, which had much to do with it, are now seldom spoken of but with a smile. The longer interval, once rightly insisted on as necessary for the gathering of distant friends, has now, in the progress of events, become absurdly excessive: in a vast majority of cases, all whose presence is needed, live within a narrow circle; and the more distant mourner, who, fifty years ago, would have spent several days in coming from Paris or Edinburgh, can now finish his journey in twelve hours. It is much to be wished that, under these changed circumstances, an altered practice might ensue in the upper classes of society, fixing their time of burial within three or four days of death. Such example of wealthier neighbours, aided by greater enlightenment and education among themselves, would greatly tend to detach the poor from many observances and delays, in relation to the dead, which, in their narrow dwellings cannot continue with impunity.

But, as regards these poorer classes, cannot anything be done in connexion with your new arrangements, to abridge the period of delay? As for any positive regulation, limiting the time during which it should be allowed to retain dead bodies in certain dwelling-houses,--such could only be enforced by an extensive organisation of sanitary police, which you would have to call into existence for the purpose, and which, in the present state of public opinion, would encounter insurmountable difficulties on every occasion of its authoritative interference.

It is by indirect means and inducements alone, that I can hope at present to effect the desired alteration; and by them, I think, something can be ensured toward shortening the delays of interment.

First, I believe that everything which cheapens the cost of burial, will conduce to such a result; for, among the poor, one considerable cause of procrastination must often be the immediate absence of money. The plan of conveyance and payment which I have suggested, would at least ensure you against any increase of this difficulty, and might readily be applied to diminish it. For, under such a system of single payment for grave and conveyance, it would be practicable, and, I think, most advantageous, to fix two prices, with a difference of at least five shillings between them; to charge the lower fee whenever the funeral should occur within eighty hours of death, the higher whenever this period should be exceeded. If, by the general adoption of the former alternative, the Cemetery receipts should be diminished in respect of artisan funerals, even to the utmost extent--say five or six hundred pounds per annum--this money, or much more, would have been advantageously expended in purchasing so great a reform. If, on the contrary, the immediate option of the working classes should be in favour of continuing a system so injurious to themselves and to their neighbours, there would be no injustice in leaving them the incumbrance of a cost, from which it would require only their own will to escape. The difference of price would soon be recognised as a municipal tax on delays of interment;--a tax, rendered legitimate by the public evil which it is designed to correct, and guarded against remonstrance, because any man may avoid it who will. And since the delays in question often arise in a passive habit of the people, founded on no deliberate intention or reason, I cannot but believe that a well-marked difference of fee would, as it were, startle the poor into considering the question, which would come to be of daily argument in their houses:--‘Is it worth while that our funeral cost should be increased by the amount of one or two days wages, in order that we may retain within our dwelling-rooms four days longer, that which every one tells us is hurtful to ourselves and to others?’

It has been suggested to me, that many delays occur owing to Sunday being considered specially as a funeral day among the labouring classes; that an equal distribution of burials over the week would be preferable to this waiting for a particular day; and that the closure of your Cemetery on Sundays might accordingly be beneficial for the purposes under consideration. Many arguments will doubtless occur to you, both for and against the desirability of Sunday interments; but this probably may be regarded as a point of detail, more fitly to be considered when your scheme is complete, or even when it has actually given you some experience of its operation.

As regards the second point adverted to--the establishment of special reception-houses for the dead, I do not hesitate to say that, if they could be brought into general use, their institution would confer great advantages on the poor. But against this event, at least as an immediate one, I grieve to see strong probabilities.

A first proposal made to some mourning household, that they should trust to strangers’ hands the custody of their unburied dead, would in most instances greatly and suddenly clash with their customs, and prejudices, and affections. Whatever success you might have in conquering this difficulty would of necessity be slow: and my practical familiarity with the poorer classes makes me so little hopeful of their immediate acquiescence in the plan, that I should hardly feel justified in urging you to incur any very large expense, or to embarrass yourselves at starting with any elaborate machinery, for the sake of so scanty an expectation.

The reception-houses of Germany, as you probably know, are founded with a double intention; partly for the purpose which I am here chiefly considering--that the dead may be removed from an injurious contiguity to the living; partly also, that the bodies may be vigilantly observed, in case of suspended animation. With the latter view, many of them are specially furnished and specially officered. In that at Frankfort, for instance, each body is placed in a separate, warmed and ventilated cell; cords are attached to the fingers in such manner that the slightest movement occasions the ringing of an alarum; night and day watch is kept in a central apartment which looks into each cell, and has the several alarum-bells hung round it; adjacent is a room designed for acts of resuscitation, with bath, galvanic apparatus and the like, always in readiness for instant use; and, so long as any corpse lies within the reception-house, the medical superintendent of the establishment never goes beyond its walls. Dr. Sutherland, whose report to the General Board of Health is full of interesting information on the burial-institutions of the Continent, praises the completeness and ingenuity of these contrivances; adding, however, that ‘after careful inquiry at all the cities where he found them to exist, he could not learn that any case of resuscitation had as yet occurred.’ I may add, too, as regards my own personal experience in this country, that, with extensive opportunities, it has never happened to me, either to see any case of suspended animation where doubts of death and question of interment could arise, nor to hear in professional circles of any such occurrence, I therefore think it quite unnecessary to recommend any arrangement of reception-houses, with reference to the resuscitation of persons apparently dead.

The object for which I would desire their institution, is exclusively that of receiving dead bodies out of the houses of the poor, in order to mitigate those evils which arise in prolonged retention of the corpse. That this object is in itself very desirable, and that under the prevalence of epidemic disease its accomplishment might be of urgent necessity, you will not doubt: and the responsibility for fulfilling it--or at least for giving all facilities to its fulfilment, is so distinctly imposed on you by the letter and spirit of the law, that you will probably wish to take measures accordingly.

The extent, then, to which my information on the subject would lead me to recommend provision to be made, is this: I would advise that accommodation of an appropriate character (savouring in style rather of an ecclesiastical construction, than of the workhouse or dissecting-room) be arranged for the reception of fifty coffins. Tor this purpose I would suggest--not the building of several separate reception-houses within the City of London, in order to their being respectively adjacent to the portions of population which might use them,--but rather the establishment of one only, and that on the site of your Cemetery. Thus the conveyance of bodies which would take place under your auspices, might be made with greater economy, since it could work into the plan I have already suggested. The advantage of having only a single edifice (especially since its use is likely to be limited) and of including its superintendence in the general organisation of your Cemetery, cannot be questioned. And it seems to me, likewise, that a building designed for the reception of many dead bodies, cannot conveniently be established in the heart of the City.

I would of course recommend that the use of this building should be entirely optional with the poor, and that its advantages should be allowed gratuitously to persons burying in your ground: so that any one who, in respect of his cemetery-fee, would be entitled to have a corpse conveyed thither for funeral purposes, might claim this conveyance as soon as he chose after the occurrence of death, and might have the coffin kept with all proper formalities in the reception-house, till the moment fixed for its interment.

On further particulars connected with this part of your arrangements, I do not think it requisite at present to dwell; especially because, while I regard the establishment of a reception-house to be quite indispensable to the complete fulfilment of your new responsibilities, I still look upon it as an institution to be gradually developed in the course of years, and according to circumstances yet undetermined, rather than as something which ought at once to assume its permanent character and proportions.

* * * * *

Here, too, in concluding this introductory report, I may observe that I have endeavoured as far as possible to avoid encumbering it with detail. For myself, in its construction, I have thought it indispensable to pursue the subject into minuter ramifications, to consider a vast number of circumstances here scarcely mentioned, to make myself acquainted with the burial customs of other countries, to review a great variety of opinions and arguments which have been advanced on the several matters alluded to, and to consult with persons practically versed in them. But to have brought all this material before you, would have prolonged my report to an inconvenient extent with no proportionate utility.

Further, as regards these details of the subject, there are many parts on which I cannot address you with the confidence that belongs to personal knowledge. The general principles which I have set before you, do indeed lie within range of my official and professional observation. But the next stage of your inquiry relates to matters of special pursuit with which I am only indirectly conversant: and whatever information I may have compiled for myself from other sources, you will probably best obtain at first hand. Practical experience in the construction and working of Cemeteries has now for many years been the growing knowledge of persons connected with their administration by ties of business, or by official appointment. In many instances it has been dearly purchased, and notorious failures have arisen from its absence. Regard being had to the magnitude of your undertaking--hitherto unprecedented in the country, and to the immense interests involved in your success, I cannot but earnestly hope that such experience may be made available for your information.

At an early period you will have to determine what appointments will be requisite, with a view to the architectural and other designs of your cemetery, to its economical planning and decorations, to the superintendence of its daily working, to its financial management, to the conveyance of bodies, and to all intramural organisation connected therewith. Minute details will be best considered when these appointments are made, and when you will naturally have the benefit of such practical experience as may best assist your deliberations.

For the task on which you are engaged extends, I need hardly say, far beyond the purchase of certain acres for your burial-ground. It implies for its completion, that you shall possess an adequate plan on which the interment of your population may be managed during many succeeding generations; a plan constructed, first of all, with entire regard to the general good of the public, and next, with as little violence as may be to those habits, prejudices, and interests, which are involved in the present system of interment.

The construction of such a plan constitutes a very large question of municipal policy;--one which, because of its solemn subject, and because of the degree in which human feelings and affections are involved in it, requires to be handled with peculiar discretion and delicacy; but which not the less requires to be contemplated in a large and comprehensive manner.

I have therefore thought I should best fulfil the object of your reference, by bringing before you those general principles which lie at the root of all minute considerations: in order that, having first determined on them, and having taken one collective view of the subject, you may better know at what time, and in what order, and to what extent, you would wish the minor details to be developed for your information.

I have the honour,

&c. &c.

THE END.

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