[153]. It is notorious that there are many church-yards in which the soil has been raised several feet above the level of the adjoining street, by the accumulated remains of mortality; and there are others, in which the ground is actually probed with a borer before a grave is opened. The Commissioners for the improvements in Westminster, reported to Parliament in 1814, that St. Margaret’s church-yard could not consistently with the health of the neighbourhood be used much longer as a burial ground, “for that it was with the greatest difficulty a vacant place could at any time be found for strangers; that the family graves generally would not admit of more than one interment, and that many of them were then too full for the reception of any member of the family to which they belonged.”
Many examples might be adduced of overloaded church-yards and burial grounds, which have become if not serious nuisances to the health of their neighbourhood, at least highly offensive to comfort and decency. There is one instance in our sister kingdom so flagrant, that we cannot omit noticing it, in the hope that attention may be drawn to this and similar inconveniencies. There is a burial ground at the back of Kilmainham hospital (and consequently under the immediate view of the Commander and Adjutant-General of the Forces), so disproportioned to the number interred in it, that the older coffins are frequently broken and the undecomposed limbs constantly thrown on the surface, to make room for new tenants of this human soil; yet after heavy showers, the earth being washed away, the lids of coffins may be plainly discerned, so slight is the covering which can be afforded them. Immediately below the rising ground on which this cemetery is situated are the Island Bridge Barracks for the Artillery, the wells of which must of necessity be filled with the filtrations from the putrid mass above them. One at least of the principal Tanks at Gibraltar was similarly situated. The present Lieutenant Governor, Sir George Don, among the numerous improvements in the regulation of cleanliness and ventilation which he has introduced on the rock, has converted the burial ground into a public garden; to this, among his other measures, the garrison may owe some future exemptions from the diseases which have so often afflicted them.
[154]. We learn from Cicero (De Leg. ii. 22), that of the various modes of disposing of the dead body, inhumation was the most ancient: burning and inclosing the remains in urns, were perhaps never found expedient until national animosities had given rise to inhuman treatment of the dead. The Egyptians, as they held it unlawful to expose the bodies of the dead to animals, embalmed them, lest after interment they might become the prey of worms (Herod. Thalia, xvi.); and their mummies remain to this day a lasting satire upon that folly which “contends against corruption, and will not allow the grave its victory.” The custom of burning the dead is of higher antiquity than we may have at first been led to suppose; Saul was burnt at Jabesh, and his bones afterwards buried; and Asa was burnt in the bed which he had made for himself, filled with sweet odours, and divers kinds of spices: but this custom must of necessity have been limited by the quantity of fuel required for the purpose. It may be worthy notice, that according to Mr. Ward, the Missionary, who had opportunities of ascertaining the fact in India, the smallest quantity of wood which is sufficient to consume a human body is about three hundred weight.
[155]. Tractatus de Peste, Lib. i. cap. viii. p. 41.
[156]. An Essay on the Disease called Yellow Fever. London 1811.
[157]. In less than 30 years, more than 90,000 corpses had been deposited here by the last grave digger!
[158]. See Mémoires de la Société Royale de Médecine, tom viii p. 242; also Annales de Chimie, tom v p. 158.
[159]. Journal de Physique, 1791 p. 253.
[160]. See Annales de Chimie, vol. iii, p. 120-v, 154-vii, 146-viii, 17; also Phil. Trans. vol. lxxxiv. p. 169.
[161]. The gases produced by putrefaction, are Carbonic acid, Carburetted Hydrogen, Sulphuretted and Phosphuretted Hydrogen, and Ammonia; the most deleterious of which are the compound gases of Hydrogen.