Prospectus of the General Cemetery Company : for providing places of interment, secure from violation, inoffensive to public health and decency, and ornamental to the metropolis : with papers illustrative of the subject.

  • General Cemetery Co.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prospectus of the General Cemetery Company : for providing places of interment, secure from violation, inoffensive to public health and decency, and ornamental to the metropolis : with papers illustrative of the subject. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    them, have instantly occurred. Besides the dangers to which we thus voluntarily expose ourselves,—dangers which, in the opinion of those who have considered the subject, ought not to be disre- garded ; the present system of interring so many thousands annually (not less than 30,000) amongst our habitations, and amidst a dense population, is extremely impolitic. The first design, viz. the providing a place of sepulture in the immediate vicinity of London similar to the celebrated cemetery of Pere-la- Chaise, near Paris, would, besides diminishing just causes of alarm, be highly honourable to our capital and country; — and let each individual ask himself whether it would not be in accordance with his own feelings, the wishes of families, and the general sentiment amongst men. A circumstance which has recently occurred exhibits in one cogent and public example, the true state of (it is to be feared) many burial grounds, which are daily required to be used. The churchyard of f in the City was being enlarged by the removal of one or two houses; a dwarf-wall was to be erected and the ground levelled; to gain a foundation, it was necessary to clear out a bone-hole. A man at the bottom (a depth of about twenty-five feet) was filling baskets with bones : the sides, from the surface downwards, were almost entirely of bones. Three men were at work in another large cavity, then twelve feet deep. A strong overpowering vapour arising, which was sensibly inhaled at the mouth, a lighted candle was given to the labourer at the bottom: the flame contracted, burnt dimly, but remained alight. The candle was then removed into the purer air, the wick spread open; the surface of the earth removed, and when replaced, the air toas too impure to sustain life. The work was to be carried the whole length of the ground, through a regular place of inter' ment, at the depth of fourteen feet. Some coffins, after twenty years, at a depth of five feet, were quite perfect; others were in various stages of perfection or decay. The tenement of one in particular was partly decayed, and the unconscious inmate too perfect for the sight, was covered by a fresh coffin into which the whole was intended to be put and conveyed away * under cover of the night/ Although the writer did not go into the pit, he was ill throughout the day, and for several days after in a state of fever, causing the skin to peel from off his lips and the insides of his hands. A celebrated chemist visited the spot, and expressed him- self unequivocally as to the cause of the sickness, and warned the * A statement of this appeared in the John Bull, 7th August, 1825, the British PreSSt &c., a day or two after the commencement of the work, t St. Sepulchre.