NORWOOD CEMETERY ABOUT 1851.
The accompanying picture of Norwood Cemetery was published in 1851, and shows a single row of tombstones by the paths. Now there is row upon row behind these, the place seems to be entirely filled, and “yet there is room.” These grounds are all much alike, but Norwood is peculiar in containing a small parochial burial-ground belonging to St. Mary at Hill, in the City (the church of the Church Army), and another belonging to the Greeks. Most dwellers in London are acquainted with one or other of the cemeteries, some people finding pleasure in walking about in them, and sitting on the seats provided for visitors among the tombs; and they are, on the whole, well looked after and neatly kept. It is rather to be regretted that the custom of putting quaint and interesting epitaphs on the stones is so entirely a thing of the past; the monotonous texts do not take their place at all.
There is a special interest attached to Kensal Green Cemetery from its having been the first, but I think it is also the worst. Mr. Loftie describes it as “the bleakest, dampest, most melancholy of all the burial-grounds of London.” I doubt if it is the dampest, though the soil is a heavy clay, for I think that the Tower Hamlets Cemetery is probably far damper. Nor is Kensal Green so overcrowded or untidy as the Tower Hamlets, where gravestones are tumbling and lying about, apparently unclaimed and uncared for, amongst dead shrubs and rank grass; it has also not quite so large a proportion of “common graves” (for eight bodies or so), as there are in some of the other grounds, and the number of burials per acre has not been quite so enormous as, for instance, at Tooting, Brompton, or Abney Park. The last-named ground, when it had only been opened fifteen years, was described in an official report as being “a mass of corruption underneath,” the soil being a “damp, blue clay.” But Kensal Green Cemetery is truly awful, with its catacombs, its huge mausoleums, family vaults, statues, broken pillars, weeping images, and oceans of tombstones, good, bad, and indifferent. I think the indifferent are to be preferred, the bad should not be anywhere, and the good are utterly out of place. It is also the largest in the metropolis, and as the Roman Catholic ground joins it there are in this spot, or there very soon will be, ninety-nine acres of dead bodies.
THE TOMB OF PRINCESS SOPHIA.
There are many sad sights in London, but to me there are few so sad as one of these huge graveyards. Not that the idea of the numbers of dead beneath the soil produces any thoughts of melancholy, but I feel inclined to exclaim with the disciples, “To what purpose is this waste?” Can there be any more profitless mode of throwing away money than by erecting costly tombstones? They are of no use to the departed, and they are grievous burdens laid on the shoulders of succeeding generations. The only people who profit by them are a few marble and granite merchants, and a few monumental masons—and they might be better employed. The whole funeral system is an extravagant imposition, and has been for years. It may be said that the heavy trappings, the plumes, the scarves, &c., are going out of fashion; and this is true, but other things are taking their place. I saw the other day a neat little copy of the Burial Service, bound in black leather, with a cross outside. On the fly leaf was printed the name of the person to be buried, with the date of death, place of interment, &c. This book was given by the undertaker to each of those who attended the funeral, and as the ceremony was conducted by a Nonconformist minister, who arranged it in accordance with his own individual predilection, the little book was useless! I merely mention this as a specimen of the way in which the expenses of a modern funeral may be mounted up. The rich lavish their money on costly, almost indestructible coffins, which it would be far better to do without altogether, and on masses of flowers that die unseen, while the poor go into debt to buy mourning, which they often pawn before a month is over; and many a widow and family, who have a hard struggle to provide daily food, deny themselves the necessities of life, and sow the seeds of disease and want, in order to set up a tombstone or monument on a grave. And who sees it? A few people may occasionally go to Kensal Green to look at the tomb of Princess Sophia, the family mausoleum of the Duke of Cambridge, or the monuments erected to the Duke of Sussex, Thackeray, Mulready, Tom Hood, George Cruikshank (whose body has been removed to St. Paul’s Cathedral), Leigh Hunt, John Leech, Hugh Littlejohn, or Sydney Smith; but they are utterly spoilt by their surroundings. It is hardly possible to appreciate such memorials when they are closely hedged in by others in all descriptions of stone, of all shapes and sizes, and in all styles of architecture. And it is appalling to think of the amount of money that has been spent on these massive monuments. How many a church or chapel might have been built in a growing district; how many a beautiful old church now falling to decay might have been restored[[9]]; how many missionaries might have been sent to foreign lands; how many hospital beds might have been endowed; how many struggling families, or sick members of the same, might have been given a holiday in the country or by the sea; how many open spaces might have been secured and laid out for the people; how many drinking fountains might have been erected; how many grants might have been made to voluntary schools or secular institutions for benefiting mankind; and how many objects of real beauty and antiquarian interest might have been preserved! It is impossible to give an answer to these questions—perhaps one would be sadder still if one could.
[9]. Four English Cathedrals are at the present time in urgent need of funds for restoration.
The Jews think a great deal of their tombstones, and erect very large ones. When one is “set up” they have a special ceremony, which they advertise beforehand, and the friends and relations gather at the grave. I have already referred to the very different custom of the Society of Friends—the Quakers—and I trust that they may long preserve the simplicity of their burial practices, for “it consorts not with our principles,” said W. Beck and T. F. Ball, in their history of the London Friends’ Meetings (1869), “unduly to exalt the honoured dead; their names we canonise not, and o’er their graves we raise no costly monument.” It has been the dying wish of very many of our best men that their bodies might be laid to rest in quietness, and without undue expense or show. Unfortunately their wishes have not always been carried out. Sir John Morden, who founded Morden College or Almshouses for decayed Merchants, in Blackheath, left directions in his will that he should be interred in the chapel of the college “without any pomp or singing boys, but decently.” I do not think the singing boys would have hurt him, but his wish to dispense with “pomp” was most praiseworthy. His funeral was made the occasion of a considerable ceremony, but, as it took place at 9 o’clock in the evening, perhaps it was unaccompanied by such an institution as a champagne lunch. His name and his fame have survived by reason of the noble work he did, There is a deep lesson in Sir Christopher Wren’s epitaph in St. Paul’s Cathedral:—
“Si momentum requiris circumspice.”