[254] Parkes.
Various statutes have been framed for the burial of the dead and for the management and selection of the burial-grounds. In the carrying out of these enactments the local authorities have only an indirect voice, exception being made in the case of a local government district in which the vestry determines to appoint a burial board. The vestry then has power to constitute the local board so appointed the burial board of such district or parish, and to rule that the expenses of such burial board shall be met by a rate levied on such parish, after the manner of a general district rate.
Vict. 21 and 22, c. 90, s. 49, enacts that if such parish has been declared a ward for the election of members of the local board, such members are to form the burial board for the parish.
By Vict. 24 and 25, c. 61, s. 21, it is enacted that a sanitary authority may provide a proper place for the reception of dead bodies, as well as for those which are to be subjected to a post-mortem examination.
A sanitary authority is also empowered to make arrangements for interment. Any urban sanitary authority has the power of regulating these matters by by-laws. When once constituted a burial board, a sanitary authority has to see to the carrying out of the Burial Acts, to repair the fences of disused burial grounds, and generally to keep in proper order and regulate all burial grounds within its jurisdiction.
The law enacts that the proper sanitary authority shall close any burial ground which is detrimental to the health of those living in its neighbourhood, or of persons frequenting any church; and throws upon such sanitary body the duty of providing a proper place of interment elsewhere.
It may be well to know that by common law it is incumbent upon any person under whose roof a death has taken place to provide the corpse with interment. Such person may neither cast the body forth, nor carry it uncovered to the grave, but he must give it decent burial. This obligation is imposed upon public bodies as well as on private persons.
Upon presentation of a certificate signed by a properly qualified medical practitioner, a justice of the peace may order, under certain circumstances, the removal of the dead body to a mortuary.
Interment within the walls, or underneath the pavement or floor of any church, or other place of public worship, built in any urban
district, has since August 31st, 1848, been interdicted under a penalty of £50.