OUR BURIAL LAWS.
In order to properly estimate the improved condition of things during the present day, and under the present regulations as to burial, it will be necessary to examine the state in which our graveyards were found before these new regulations were in force. Let us take, then, our metropolitan burying-places as they existed a little more than twenty years ago.
A very good idea of the lamentable want of proper space for burial in the metropolis in 1843 was furnished by Mr. Sopwith, who showed by a plan that the extent of intramural space then provided was just about half of what it ought to be, even at the standard of 110 burials per acre. At that time things were in a most desperate state, the burials at the parochial yards of St. Mary's-at-Hill, St. George's Burial Ground in Uxbridge Road, and St. Olave's, Tooley Street, averaging 1,204 per acre. The grounds belonging to other religionists were in some cases worse; for the interments in the Roman Catholic yards at Moorfields and Dockhead, in the Baptist ground at Woolwich and in the Congregationalist fields at Stepney, averaged 1,278 per acre. But the parochial burial-grounds of St. Giles's, St. Pancras, and St. John's Chapel of Ease, exceeded the last-named figure by 282, and, horrible to relate in these days—when we calculate that, to properly accommodate even 52,000 annual metropolitan dead with decennially renewed interments, we should want at least 500 acres—the burials in the new Bunhill General Burial Ground reached the astounding figure of 2,323 per acre.
This was a fearful state of things, it must be admitted, but it was even exceeded in point of hideousness by many of the yards of our country towns, and even of our villages, where one might have supposed no necessity for overcrowding existed. The reader who is anxious to examine these revolting details for himself can see them in the reports of the evidence taken before the Parliamentary Commissions of 1842, of 1843, and of 1850. These reports were issued by Lords Carlisle and Ashley, and by Mr. Edwin Chadwick and Dr. Southwood Smith, and revealed horrors beyond all that could have been imagined. Nor were some of the villages of Switzerland better situated with regard to accommodation than our own. Read for instance the condition of the churchyard of Schuls, as described by Professor Reclam.[96]
Since 1843, however, many of the parochial and general burial-grounds of the metropolis have been closed altogether, and the same has been done in many parts of the country. During the ten years which elapsed between 1852 and 1862, about 500 Orders in Council were issued, by means of which, says the great legal authority upon the laws of burial,[97] some four thousand old burial-grounds have been closed or regulated. Regulation generally means the forbidding of interments in a churchyard which has been reported against by the Medical Officer of Health, except in the case of family graves. A London churchyard has just been regulated in this way.[98] During the ten years alluded to, some 400 local burial boards were constituted. Within that period also nearly one and a half millions were raised for the use of the parochial cemeteries by the ratepayers.
Some cemeteries properly so called existed in 1843, but their area in the metropolitan districts amounted to only 260 acres, and the annual number of burials performed amounted to nearly 3,400. Of this number the burials in the East London, in the City of London and Tower Hamlets, and in the Kensal Green Cemeteries, made up over two-thirds. The number of burials per acre in the East London Cemetery, Mile End, was 154, in Kensal Green 17, and in Norwood 5. In 1850 the Board of Health condemned the cemetery at Brompton, but interments are still carried on there, with, it must be, anything but satisfactory results to the houses which surround it. What will it be twenty years hence, if the interments go on as now? Several new cemeteries have been opened, it is true, for instance a magnificent cemetery at Woking. Others again are being projected for places where interments have been found difficult to obtain, notably, one for the south of London. At the present moment a company is being formed to work a cemetery at East Ham, two miles nearer to the city than Ilford cemetery. As the site is upwards of two miles beyond the metropolitan area, no sanction is required from the Secretary of State, and yet it is adjacent to some very populous parishes, whence, as is set forth, numerous interments may be expected. The site occupies 115 acres, 45 of which it is purposed to reserve for burials, the other 70 to be sold in lots for building purposes. Then again come cemeteries of ease as they might be called, belonging to parochial boards whose churchyards are full. To this category belongs a burial-ground just commencing in a parish in the Northern suburbs of London, within 500 yards of a reservoir constructed since 1871 at a cost of 25,000l. The formation is clay, and is easily drained into the main drainage system, but the fear is that at some future time the exhalations will affect the water in the reservoir, especially if it be uncovered. These two last examples will show how nearly omission may be made a non-transgression of a law.
Our burial laws specify that each dead adult shall be entitled to four superficial yards of earth. Allowing for the predominant deaths amongst children, this would be an average of three yards. This thirty-six superficial feet is about the space allowed to each body by the authorities of Stuttgart and Munich; but in Würtemberg fifty-four feet are accorded, and in some parts of Austria as much as ninety feet is awarded to each adult. The common practice with us is to allow about a quarter of an acre of burial-ground to each 1,000 head of population, where the soil is favourable; but some authorities double this allowance, and leave room for embellishing the ground. Wise cemetery companies also allow a space between each alternate row of grave-spaces, in order to prevent trampling. They, moreover, encourage the purchase of family freehold grave-plots containing three or six grave-spaces. It is true that the proprietors of the burial-ground profit by this payment in anticipation; but the benefit accrues largely to the public as well, for it does not become necessary to open the same grave should two members of a family die with but a short interval of time between. For the rest, a commodious grave-space presupposes a sufficiency of soil to absorb the gases, allows the grave to be opened without the earth of the adjoining one falling into it, dispenses with the shoring up of the sides with planks, and provides sufficient space for suitable monuments. As a general rule, one-sixth of the entire acreage of a cemetery will also of a necessity be appropriated for roads and paths, for sites of lodges and chapels, and botanical groves.
The depth at which burial is practised varies much, but it is usually from eight to ten feet in soil propitious to decay. Six feet would suffice, it might be; but, as the intention is to be able to reopen the graves fourteen years after the burial of an adult, and eight years after the burial of a child, a fair maximum depth is resorted to. When a burial has taken place in an allotment, the above period of lying fallow can only be shortened should it be necessary to open the grave to inter another member of the family. In such a case, a foot of earth must be interposed.[99] The law is also distinct on the point that no one shall be buried in any unwalled grave within four feet of the ordinary level of the ground, unless it be a child, and then not less than three feet of soil shall lie above it.
When the coffin is not laid in contact with the soil, but entombed in a vault or walled grave, the occupied space is covered by a stone cemented down, air-tight, upon a ledge in the wall, and the raising of which is for ever forbidden. The entombment may also be made by an air-tight surrounding of concrete. The best practice of vault burial is to place some charcoal or disinfectant along with the coffin, so that no foul gas shall escape should reopening be necessary. When old vaults underneath churches are reported upon and found inimical to public health, the churchwardens can be compelled to remove the contents elsewhere, and disinfect the vaults, charging the poor-rates with the expenses. No interment is now allowed under any new place of worship, except with the authority of the Secretary of State. During the ten years, too, which followed the passing of the Burial Acts in 1852, more than one hundred church vaults in the metropolis were disinfected and sealed up.
Cemeteries, and not churchyards, are now the chosen sites for interments. These cemeteries are permitted to be located upon any piece of ground, provided that the usual restrictions are not set at naught.[100] A well-chosen cemetery[101] is one whose soil is dry, close, and yet porous, permitting the rain and its accompanying air to reach a reasonable depth, and so expedite decay. The formation is also well covered with vegetable mould, which assists in neutralising any hurtful emanations and encourages the growth of shrubs. The subsoil is also of such a kind as to need no underdraining, and such as will prevent the water lodging in any grave or vault.[102] It will also stand exposed to the north or north-east winds, which are dry, and which do not hold the putrefactive gases in solution, like the moist south or south-westerly winds.
Cemeteries can be made upon clay soils, if properly drained by deep cross-drains, and by pipe-drains laid from grave-space to grave-space, duly conducted into the main drain, or by causing the first interments to be made near the drain, strewing gravel at the bottom of each grave opened out, and similarly connecting with this porous layer each new grave with a previous one. When the soil does not admit percolation downwards, it is necessary to get rid of the surface water by laying a line of pipes at the upper end of each row of graves, and so intercepting it. Or upright pipes are placed, reaching down to the bottom of the grave and to the artificially placed gravel then communicating with the drain. The clayey soils of some burial-grounds have also been improved by the admixture of sand and gravel when refilling the graves. But, even after all this expense, the gases evolved during decay are retained very often in the soil, and, after thirty or more years, little or no change will have been effected. The laws of nature are thus contravened; for she has ordained that, in good soil, all but the larger bones shall disappear in twelve years. If interments be made in the worst of clays, sudden heat will open up fissures in the ground with lamentable results.
An improperly chosen graveyard, then, may be said to be one where the soil is dense and clayey, and impervious to moisture. It will be insufficiently drained, necessitating the use of planks to walk upon in wet weather. It will be too close to the abodes of the living, too small to permit proper planting, the graves covered, it may be, with flat stones, which prevent the passage downwards of the air and rain, and surrounded, moreover, by high walls which exclude the fresh air. The ground will be stony and insufficiently covered with vegetable soil. No natural outfall will exist, and the drainage-water must be pumped up, the bare idea of which is horrible. It will be near also to water-bearing strata, or to a reservoir. Long before decomposition has taken place, owing to the smallness of the site and the impossibility of obtaining any more land except at high building prices, the organic matter hidden out of sight will be far too large in proportion to the area. From the foregoing we may conclude that a proper site for a cemetery is not everywhere obtainable, and that serious mistakes must often be made.
The older burial-grounds can be closed at the expiration of a month's notice given by duly qualified persons, on the order of the Privy Council, and any one assisting at a burial contrary to that order is liable to fine and imprisonment.
The Ecclesiastical Commissioners can grant, in certain cases, a faculty permitting the erection of schools in churchyards, especially when the grounds have been closed under the Burials Act; and never shall I forget a school of this description in one of our largest cities. Old burial-grounds can be converted to more common secular purposes under certain restrictions, as may be witnessed almost every day in London. In such cases the remains must be decorously removed to some consecrated ground, after due notice to the relatives. An example of this may be observed at the present moment at the demolished church of St. Antholin, London; only in this case the remains have not been carted away as usual to the City of London Cemetery at Ilford, but have been placed in a monster vault constructed at the base of the tower, which is the only part of the church that is to remain. In this vault have been placed over 200 chests, each containing the contents of a grave.
If the closed burial-ground be taken under the Land Clauses Act for public improvements, and converted into sites for building, the freeholder obtains the sum at which it was valued previously to the passing of the Act, and the building may proceed. In the City of London the Commissioners may, with the Bishop's consent, arrange with the churchwardens for the appropriation of any disused burial-ground. Sometimes, as in the case of the Bunhill Fields ground, the space may be laid out and preserved as an open space by a corporation, and a burial board may do the like with all ancient graveyards within their jurisdiction. The authorities, however, I believe, provide that, in burial-places so closed, vertical tombstones shall not be thrown down and made use of as a paving, and, as a general rule, the growth of grass is encouraged for sanitary purposes.
I have given an account of the past and present state of the burial laws, because it was necessary to do so in order to estimate the position which any better system of dealing with our dead will occupy. It cannot be said that no pains have been taken to lessen the horrors of the tomb, for I have taken the trouble to make a list of the proposed improvements in the paraphernalia of death which have appeared[103] since 1781, and everything seems to have been considered. From 1781 to 1825 the main thing studied was security against the rifling of the grave; and then on to 1871 followed plans for all kinds of coffins in stone, marble, granite, slate, porcelain, earthenware, bitumen, asphalte, paper, peat, india-rubber, iron, and glass. Glass has been the favourite material, just as it was in old Italy, where it was mostly selected to enshrine the ashes collected from the pyre. It is melancholy to peruse these strivings after the impossible, and to see what fond but unavailing attempts have been made to rob inhumation of its terrors.