Burial-ground incendiarism. The last fire at the bone-house in the Spa-Fields Golgotha, or, the minute anatomy of grave-digging in London / [George Alfred Walker].

  • George Alfred Walker
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Burial-ground incendiarism. The last fire at the bone-house in the Spa-Fields Golgotha, or, the minute anatomy of grave-digging in London / [George Alfred Walker]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ” OPINIONS OF THE LONDON AND PROVINCIAL PRESS, V1 The tyrants of antiquity were accustomed to dispatch a criminal by binding the doomed wretch to a corpse; leaving the exhalations from the dead man to kill the living. - While we shudder in contemplating this refinement in the philosophy of cruelty, we perhaps congratulate ourselves that in these days such things cannot be; but a little observation will convince us that the same ancient mode of exter- mination still flourishes, and to an infinitely greater extent than in former times, though in a modified form. Our modern law, associated with religion, permits the continuous application, to thousands and hundreds of thousands of our population, of the same revolting principle of death which formerly was concentrated upon a few miserable individuals; and this, with the concurrence of Parliament and the clergy, throughout all the towns and cities of the United Kingdom. Cathedrals, parish churches, church-yards, burial-yards, and all kinds of grounds, consecrated and unconsecrated, have been for centuries permitted to be used as receptacles of the dead, in the midst of our places of habitation, until at length earth and walls have become so saturated with putrefaction, that, turn where we may, the air we breathe is cadayerous, and a man often feels that sublimated particles, perhaps of his next door neighbour or nearest relative, enter his lungs at every respiration. ° Thus, in truth (though in a different sense from that of the Apostle), in the midst of life we are in death. Setting aside the question of what must be the influence on the mind from a consideration of such sickening facts, the effect of this general state of atmospheric infection upon the public health must be evident. It is physically indubitable, and those upon whose senses the truth has not yet forced itself, may soon trace its course by physical demonstration. Many of our most popular diseases are referrible to this source. . . . . ‘Those who could com- prehend the dreadful extent, and the actual and impending consequences of the system, have stated their view, local individuals who could understand, but would not act, have shaken their heads, and then dying, have been buried respectably, more majorum, perhaps under their own drawing-room windows. It is strange that the practical people of Great Britain should be amongst the last to retain this disgraceful and dangerous relic of Christian barbarism. Buria] in towns has been long forbidden in France. It is upwards of twenty years since the clergy of Spain concurred with the Cortes in abolishing the practice. In many parts of Italy, in Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, and other nations of Europe, which we are apt to look upon as vastly behind ourselves in the march of intellect, burial in towns has been abolished by law. Why, then, does the system continue to prevail amongst us? JBecause, no doubt, the public mind has not been sufficiently aroused to a contemplation of its indecencies, horrors, and dangers; and there is no hope of suppressing this consecrated nuisance until a feeling of disgust, indig- nation, and resolution takes possession of all classes of society. This can only be produced by setting before their minds a picture, local and general, of their pre- sent dreadful position. . . . So much for the details of church-yards and grave-digging in London. It is not too much to infer from this, that the practice ef all resemble those which we have already described. Mr. Walker, a medical practitioner in Drury-lane, affirms that the emanations are poisonous to those living in the neighbourhood of the metropolitan church-yards. . . . Mr. Walker, who has devoted a meritorious attention to this subject, repeats, in a variety of forms, his conviction that the burial of the dead in every one of these places is in- jurious to the living. . . . We have now taken a pretty fair survey of the burial-grounds of the metropolis. We have omitted the names of several; but it is enough to repeat that the condition of them all is horrible, atrocious to the dead and dangerous to the living. Colonel Acton, Mr. Ainsworth, and Colonel Fox, members of the Committee, visited Enon Chapel and some of the burial-grounds about Lincoln’s-inn-fields, in company with Dr. Walker, after his first testimony, and from what they saw, but still more from what they felt was concealed from them, they assured their honourable colleagues that they might rely on his testi- mony as not at all exaggerated. The specific amount of injury done by this state of things to the health of the population cannot, of course, be precisely stated ; but the general opinions of Dr. Walker, who seems to have more practically inves- tigated this question than any of his contemporaries, are confirmed by the testi- mony of other eminent authorities.— Westminster Review, Aug. 1843.
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