(4.) A register of graves shall be kept in which the name, age, and date of burial in each shall be duly registered.
(5.) No body shall be buried in any vault or walled grave unless the coffin be separately entombed in an air-tight manner; that is, by properly cemented stone or brickwork, which shall never be disturbed.
(6.) One body only shall be buried in a grave at one time, unless the bodies be those of members of the same family.
(7.) No unwalled grave shall be re-opened within 14 years after the burial of a person above 12 years of age, or within eight years after the burial of a child under 12 years of age, unless to bury another member of the same family, in which case a layer of earth not less than 1 foot thick shall be left undisturbed above the previously buried coffin; but if on reopening any grave the soil be found to be offensive, such soil shall not be disturbed, and in no case shall human remains be removed from the grave.
(8.) No coffin shall be buried in any unwalled grave within 4 feet of the ordinary level of the ground, unless it contains the body of a child under 12 years of age, when it shall not be less than 3 feet below that level.
For further information upon the subject of the Interments Act 1879 and much useful information in connection with cemeteries, I refer my readers to ‘Notes and Practical Suggestions upon the Interment Act 1875,’ by T. Baker, Esq.
I cannot close this chapter upon cemeteries without a few words upon a subject which is analogous, cremation; and although I am aware that this is a debateable question, still it is impossible for me to be silent, as from my official experience on the practice of burial, I am so deeply convinced that cremation should be substituted for it for very many weighty reasons, that I feel it is necessary for me to give them.
They are as follows:
(1.) Nothing can be more unsanitary or dangerous to the living than the burial of the dead. This has been enlarged upon over and over again by men who have well studied the subject and are competent to give an opinion and to that opinion I add my testimony.
(2.) Nothing can be more loathsome and degrading to the dead bodies of our friends or more revolting to our feelings, than the horrible practice of placing the remains of those we love in the soil of a common churchyard or cemetery, to be devoured with other bodies by worms.