PROSPECTUS FOR A GENERAL BURYING COMPANY.
Capital, £500,000. Shares, £50.
The immediate object of this institution is to rob death of its terrors, and, by following the example of our Parisian friends, blend the graceful with the grave, and mingle the picturesque with the pathetic:—in short, the directors feel confident, that when their scheme is fully developed, the whole system of inhumation will be changed, and the feelings and associations connected with interments in general, assume so novel a character, that it will be rather pleasant than otherwise to follow our friends and relations to the tomb.
It is proposed to purchase an extensive domain in the neighbourhood of Primrose Hill and Caen Wood, where the diversified undulations of ground, and the soothing commixture of trees and water, afford the most flattering promise of success in the undertaking. No difficulty is anticipated in the purchase of the property, since the will of the late noble owner distinctly points out that it shall remain "grass land" to all eternity; and, "since all flesh is grass," no reasonable objection can be raised to its appropriation as a public cemetery.
The public cemetery, like the Daily Advertiser, will be open to all parties—dead or alive, of all religions, or, indeed, of none; and it does not need the practical knowledge attainable by a visit to the French metropolis to convince the world that by laying out the ground in a parklike manner, with umbrageous walks, alcoves, bowers, and fish-ponds, a link will be created between the past and present generation, and the horrid idea of having deposited a parent, a husband, or a sister, in a cold, damp grave, or a gloomy vault, refined into the agreeable recollection that they repose in a picturesque garden or a shady grove, at an easy distance from the most fashionable part of the town.
The directors intend opening a convenient hotel and tavern on the spot, at which persons visiting the cemetery, either as mourners or in search of quiet retreats for themselves, may procure every sort of refreshment. A table-d'hôte will be constantly prepared at five shillings a-head, for which cold meat and vin de grave will be furnished; and on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, during the summer, after burying-hours, Collinet's band will be regularly engaged for quadrilles, and the grounds illuminated with variegated lamps.
A committee of taste will be appointed to regulate the designs of tombs; and the directors think it may save trouble to state in the outset that no allusions to death, nor any representations of skulls, cross-bones, skeletons, or other disagreeable objects, will be permitted. The Royal Society of Literature will be solicited to revise the inscriptions, epitaphs, and elegies, and twelve ladies belonging to the different corps-de-ballet of the King's Theatre, and the Theatres Royal Covent Garden and Drury Lane, are engaged to enliven the ground as mourners at newly-erected tombs.
These young ladies may be engaged by the day or hour, at a moderate price, and find their own garlands.
Mr. Samuel Rogers is appointed master of the ceremonies, and will appear dressed in the uniform of the establishment.
The directors have appointed Mr. Botibol, of Soho-square, their artificial florist, who will provide all sorts of flowers for strewing graves; but ladies and gentlemen are requested not to leave the decorations on the tombs at night, but to return them to the directress at the bar of the tavern: and, it may be necessary to add, that no ladies will be allowed to appear at the dances with the same ornaments which have been previously used in the grounds funereally.
Lord Graves has been solicited to accept the office of president, and Sir Isaac Coffin that of vice-president. The College of Surgeons will be constant visitors of the Institution, and under such patronage ultimate success appears to be a dead certainty. Ladies and gentlemen wishing to be buried in romantic situations are requested to make early application to Mr. Ebers, of Bond-street, where the grave-book, with a plan of the cemetery, may be seen.
Persons subscribing for family mausoleums are entitled to free admission to all the balls of the season.
Gloves, hatbands, white pocket-handkerchiefs, cephalic snuff, and fragrant essence of onions, for producing tears, to be had of the waiters.
N.B. No objection to burying persons in fancy dresses.
Postscript.—The prospectus says that "an eligible site having offered itself"—this must have been a very curious site indeed—the temptation is too great to be resisted, and the public are invited to unite in a joint stock, "Capital £200,000, in shares of £25 each," to contrive something more agreeable for our resting-places than mere vaults and churchyards, and prepare a retreat, after the fashion of the cemetery of Père la Chaise, in the neighbourhood of that ever gay and lively city—Paris.
"Within this area," continues the prospectus, "public bodies and individuals may obtain ground for interment, and liberty to erect mausoleums and monuments after their own designs; and vaults and catacombs will also be constructed for general use."
This is giving great latitude—mausoleums and monuments erected promiscuously, after the designs of their future inhabitants, will no doubt present a beautiful variety of tastes and elevations. It should seem, however, that the vaults and catacombs are not to be used exclusively for burying, for, in contradistinction to the interments to which the mausoleums and monuments are to be appropriated, the prospectus states that the vaults and catacombs are for general use. Déjeuners à la fourchette, or petits soupers by moonlight, perhaps. We say by moonlight, because illuminating the gardens in the evening does not yet appear to form part of the design.
The following condition we have no doubt will be highly advantageous in a pecuniary point of view to the proprietary, but it sounds disagreeable:—
"Subscribers on or before the 30th day of June, 1830, will be entitled to tickets of precedence, after the rate of one ticket for every five shares; which ticket will entitle the holder to a preference, according to the numerical order of the shares, in the choice of a situation for a grave or a monument. These tickets to be transferable without the shares upon which they shall have been granted, and capable of being held by persons who may not be subscribers or proprietors."
Now, however seriously captious sticklers for rank and pre-eminence may regard the article of precedence, we must say that the case of going out of the world differs a good deal from that of going out of a drawing-room; and we suspect, if the committee of this deadly-lively society could contrive to invert the order of departure, they would dispose of a much greater number of shares than are likely to go off under "existing circumstances." To the pleasure of walking about a burying-ground, with a plan in one's hand, like the Opera House box-book, to select a good place, we confess ourselves somewhat insensible; but we have no doubt that if this job takes, in less than five years we shall see "Graves in a good situation to let," posted at Sams' and Ebers', and "a transferable admission to a catacomb," to be sold for the season, just as a ticket for the pit is at present.