and a detail of dangerous
and fatal results
produced by the unwise and revolting custom
of inhuming the dead in the midst of the living.
By G. A. Walker, Surgeon.”
The question was taken up from purely philanthropic motives. Walker was not connected with, or interested in, any particular Cemetery, but he was “fully convinced of the necessity for legislative interference to destroy the present dangerous system.”
He had precedents to go upon, for as early as the year 1765 a decree was made by the Parliament of Paris, closing all cemeteries and churchyards within the city, and providing for the formation of eight cemeteries in the suburbs; and in 1774 a further decree was made prohibiting the re-opening of vaults, similar action being subsequently taken in other French towns. Nor was France alone to be admired. Precautions of the same kind were adopted from time to time in Rome and other cities of Italy, in Denmark, in New York, and even in Dublin; but the London burial-grounds still continued to be in constant use.
Walker collected details of many cases of death and illness directly attributable to contact with human remains in a state of putrefaction. It was certain that gravediggers held their lives in their hands. The more experienced of them, when they “bored” or “tapped” coffins, immediately fled to a distance, and remained away until they considered that the harmful exhalations would have been sufficiently distributed into the air for them to continue their unpleasant work in comparative safety. Another custom was to burn papers, &c., in graves and vaults, while some men were in the habit of holding rue and garlic in their mouths. But they generally suffered from bad health, were frequently seriously ill, and sometimes died from the direct effects of the poison they had inhaled. They were also much addicted to drink, and very many were accustomed to say that they could not do their work without the help of spirits.
After making the following general statement, Walker carefully described between forty and fifty of the most crowded of the metropolitan burial-places, and especially those in his own district: “Although willing to admit that the neighbourhood of slaughter-houses—the decomposition of vegetable substances—the narrowness of the streets, and the filth and poverty of some of the inhabitants, greatly contributed to the furtherance of the mischief (typhus fever), I felt convinced that the grand cause of all the evil was the immediate proximity of the burial-places, public as well as private.” It is quite unnecessary to repeat the descriptions, they are much alike; I will only give one as a specimen, which is free from obnoxious details.
“St. Ann’s, Soho.—There is only one burying-ground belonging to this parish; it is walled in on the side next to Prince’s Street; close to this wall is the bone house; rotten coffin wood and fragments of bones are scattered about. Some graves are only partly filled up, and left in that state, intended, probably, for paupers. The ground is very full, and is considerably raised above its original level; it is overlooked by houses thickly inhabited. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood have frequently complained of the past and present condition of this place. The numbers of dead here are immense.”