Earth to earth : an answer to a pamphlet on "cremation" / by Francis Seymour Haden.

  • Francis Seymour Haden
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Earth to earth : an answer to a pamphlet on "cremation" / by Francis Seymour Haden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/44 page 13
    which is beginning to break down, has been fully effected. In 1868 I was permitted to visit the burial- ground of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, then, with its contents, in course of removal to make way for the new Viaduct. The ground about the church had become raised 15ft. or l8ft. above its original level, and perpendicular sections had been made in it, here and there, from its surface to a depth varying from 10 feet to 30 feet or more. The face of these sections represented the interments of three centuries and a half. All the burials, except those in the Plague-pit and one or two others to be pre- sently mentioned, had been made in wooden or leaden coffins, some of which were still intact, and some broken in. Little difference, as to condition, could be perceived between the coffins of Charles II.’s time and those recently used, or between the coffins which were of lead, and those which were of wood. In the coffins which were intact were their contents, also intact, but putrid, unrecogniz- able. In those which had been broken in, nothing was to be found but a little ordinary earth, cor- responding possibly to the solid constituents of the body which it had replaced, and, occasionally, not always, a few bones. Nothing more. The
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