§ 123. The principle of the measure proposed, i. e. a certificate of the fact, and the cause of death, given on view of the body, and the non-interment without such certificate, has been in operation perhaps during two centuries. In the year 1595, orders were issued by the Privy Council to the justices, enjoining them, that wherever the plague appeared, they would see that the ministers of the church, or three or four substantial householders, appointed persons to view the bodies of all who died, before they were suffered to be buried. They were to certify to the minister or the churchwarden, of what disease it was probable each individual had died. The minister or the churchwarden was to make a weekly return of the numbers in his parish that were infected, or had died, and the diseases of which it was probable they had died. These returns were to be made to the neighbouring justices, and by them to the clerk of the peace, who was to enter them in a book to be kept for the purpose. The justices, who assembled every three weeks, were to forward the results to the Lords of the Privy Council. It is supposed that this scheme of registration gave rise to the bills of mortality, which have been preserved without interruption from the year 1603 until the present period. It is conjectured also, that the appointment of “searchers” originated at the same time. The alarm of the plague having subsided, the office of searcher was, until the recent appointments of registrars under the new Registration Act, given by the parish officers to two old women in each parish, frequently pew-openers, who, having viewed the body, demanded a fee of two shillings, in addition to which they expected to be supplied with some liquor, and gave a certificate of the fact and cause of death as they were informed of it, and this certificate was received by the minister as a warrant for the interment.
§ 124. The Rev. Mr. Stone observes on this topic—
It would be well if the burial of the dead could be expedited by some agency created for the purpose; something, for instance, like the obsolete office of searcher. I never heard but one person make an objection even to those inferior functionaries, and that one was an educated person, who would probably have withdrawn the objection, had the agency been one of a more refined, intelligent, and conciliatory character. It might be a more delicate matter to secure the removal of the corpse to be deposited elsewhere for any considerable time before the burial; though, judging from one practice, which has fallen under my observation, I feel justified in supposing, that even this would not be met with universal repugnance. A similar thing is now often done spontaneously from a pecuniary motive, and for the purpose of evading burial dues. In my parish ground, and, I believe, in others, the fees for the burial of a non-parishioner, or person dying out of the parish, are double those payable for a parishioner. But, if the undertaker employed is a parishioner, this extra payment is easily evaded, by his accommodating the corpse on his own premises. It is brought there some time before the burial, and frequently from a considerable distance; it then becomes a resident parishioner, and forthwith claims the privilege of a parishioner. It claims to be admitted into our burial ground at single fees; and, of course, the claim so made cannot easily be disallowed. Indeed, by a little management, this smuggling of dead bodies may be effected so that my clerk and sexton, the only officers in my preventive service, may themselves know nothing about it. It is probable, however, that such sanitary arrangements as those adverted to would be best facilitated, and it is certain that much mischief would be entirely prevented, by a reduction in the amount of burial expenses. Indeed these expenses ought, if possible, to be reduced for the sake of all classes, whether they arise from too high a rate of burial fees, from the prejudices of the people, or from the advantage that may be taken of those prejudices or other circumstances by a class so directly and deeply interested as the undertakers.
§ 125. Several physicians of eminence in the metropolis, who are conversant with the state and feelings of families of the middle and higher classes on the occurrence of a death, have expressed their confidence, that the most respectable families, who are stunned by the blow, and are ignorant of the detail of the steps to be taken when a death has occurred, would gladly pay for the attendance of any respectable and responsible person, on whose information they might, under such circumstances, rely. As already stated, the physician takes no cognizance of the arrangements for interments, and knowing the feelings that commonly arise when the undertaker’s bill is presented, carefully avoids giving advice, or doing anything that may implicate him with the arrangements for the interment.
§ 126. In opening the consideration of remedial measures, it appears incumbent to represent that there are many who, viewing what has been accomplished abroad, and the inconvenience experienced in the metropolis in respect to the oldest private trading burial grounds, object on principle to the abandonment of acknowledged public functions and services, and to leaving the necessities of the public as sources of profit to private, and (practically for every-day purposes) irresponsible associations. They submit, that if the steps in this direction cannot be retraced, the public have claims that at all events they shall be stayed. Such opinions may, perhaps, be the best represented in the following portion of the communication from the Rev. Wm. Stone.
It may be thought that, in alluding to these private burial grounds, I have expressed myself strongly, and indeed I am not anxious to disavow having done so. The subject seems to me to justify such a tone of expression. In all ages and nations, the burial of the dead has been invested with peculiar sanctity. As the office that closes the visible scene of human existence, it concentrates in itself the most touching exercise of our affections towards objects endeared to us in this life, and the most intense and stirring anxieties that we can feel respecting an invisible state. And, appealing thus to common sympathies of our nature, it has been universally marked by observances intended to give it importance or impressiveness. The faith and usage of Christians have given remarkable prominence to this duty. The ecclesiastical institutes of our own country indicate a jealous solicitude for the safe and religious custody of the receptacles of the dead; and there are few of us, perhaps, to whom those receptacles are not hallowed by thoughts and recollections of the deepest personal interest. It is reasonable, then, that the reverential impressions thus accumulated within us should shrink from the contact of more selfish and vulgar associations. And one may be excused for thinking and speaking strongly in reprobation of a system which degrades the burial of the dead into a trade. Throughout the whole scheme and working of this system, there is an exclusive spirit of money-getting, which is revoltingly heartless; and in some of its details there is an indecency which I have felt myself compelled to allude to in the tone of strong condemnation.
It is surely desirable that a state of things so vulgar and demoralizing, should be put an end to, but at present there seems no prospect of it. Of course, during the continuance of a competition such as I have described, our parishioners will never return to our parish burial grounds, and I have already remarked, that if they did, they might not get interment there, inasmuch as it would, perhaps, be found impossible to make our parochial system meet the wants of any crowded population. There is little better chance of the present offensive system of burial being superseded by the joint stock cemeteries; for to the mass of our population these cemeteries hold out hardly any advantages which are not possessed by the private burial grounds, while they have to compete with those grounds under disadvantages greater, in some instances, than those which our churchyards have to contend with.
Indeed, even if it were practicable, I should be sorry to see our people handed over for burial to a joint stock company. I am very far from saying this out of any sympathy with the popular, and often indiscriminate and unreasonable jealousy felt towards all joint stock companies. Nay, I see obvious reasons why the cemeteries of such companies should be a great improvement upon the present system of private speculation in burial grounds. And it may be thought that, as a clergyman and an interested party, I may naturally prefer these cemeteries, because their proprietors, unlike the private speculators, are required to indemnify the clergy for loss of fees by some amount of pecuniary compensation. But I do sympathize with the common repugnance to consign to joint stock companies the solemnities of Christian burial; and I believe that this repugnance is not more common than it is strong. “And so,” said a highly intelligent gentleman, pointing to a cemetery of this class, “the time is come when Christian burial is made an article of traffic.” And since the legislature has been reported to be contemplating the removal of burials from populous places, it has been commonly suspected of having been led to entertain the measure through the influence of joint stock cemetery proprietors. In fact the repugnance in question is no more than what I have already adverted to. It is the state of feeling which shrinks from associating the touching and impressive solemnities of burial with the profits of trade. So far as the trading principle is involved, the joint stock company is no better than the private speculator. However disinterested may have been the motives which have induced some to become shareholders in these companies, and I have been assured upon authority which I respect, that many have done so without any expectation or hope of profit upon their shares, yet the primary and effective character of these associations is undeniably that of trading associations, and they cannot be rescued from that character by even numerous individual exceptions. Their managers, like the proprietors of the private grounds, are assiduous in soliciting attention to their lists of prices; and affiches, painted in large letters, and placed at various outlets of the metropolis, with genuine mercantile officiousness, direct the public, as in a case close by my own parish, “To the E. L. Cemetery, only one mile and a-half.” Surely we may say, that this system also involves much that is inconsistent with reverential impressions of the sanctity of burial, much that must either offend or deteriorate the better feeling of our population. Then again, as regards burial services, and other details in the working of the system, with what security can we consign these to the tender mercies of a trading company? Why should not the money-getting principle eventually come to operate upon these points also, and, as in the private burial grounds, tempt shareholders to sanction indecent and mischievous condescensions to the interests, habits, tastes, and caprices of the people? What security, at least, is there equal to that which is afforded by a clergy and parochial establishments, responsible to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the country, or which would be afforded by what, for reasons before mentioned, I should think still preferable, a national plan of burial, placed under a departmental control of Government?
The remedial measures hereafter submitted for consideration have been deduced directly from the actual necessities experienced within the field of inquiry, and such only are submitted as clearly suggested themselves without reference to any external experience. The following preliminary view of the experience of other nations is presented for consideration on account of the confirmatory evidence which it contains, as well as the instances to be avoided.