Interment and disinterment : a further exposition of the practices pursued in the metropolitan places of sepulture, and the results as affecting the health of the living : in a series of letters to the editor of the Morning Herald / by G.A. Walker.
- Date:
- 1843
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Interment and disinterment : a further exposition of the practices pursued in the metropolitan places of sepulture, and the results as affecting the health of the living : in a series of letters to the editor of the Morning Herald / by G.A. Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![or the property from spoliation, but the protection of the national health has as yet been unattended to—has been left entirely to chance. It is difficult to educate a people up to a necessary point of appreciation of their own best and truest interest—the preservation of the physical and moral health of themselves, as individuals, and that of the community, of which they form an integral proportion. Much, very much might he well and wisely written upon the debasing consequences resulting from the practice of interment amidst crowded populations ; this, however, falls within the province of the moralist rather tlianmy own. It is with the most sin- cere respect for the ministers of religion that I would again urge upon them the necessity of devoting their immediate attention to this most important subject. London contains, principally within its most densely-peopled districts, an im- mense number of depositories for the dead; the numbers requiring burial are per- petually increasing, yet the spaces allotted for interment remain in statu quo, or very nearly so, the few exceptions to this proving the general accuracy of the state- ment. If we take eight burial-places out of ten, we shall find that they are the same in superficial contents to-day that they were twenty or thirty, or a greater number of years ago, and that, as regards many of these places, it was, years since, the opinion of persons well informed in such matters, that they could contain no more bodies. By the exercise of a system of “ management,” however, they continued to find room for fresh comers, and they will continue to do so until a legislative enactment to prevent the practice is carried. That an urgent necessity does exist for the inter- ference of the legislature, has, I think, been abundantly proved; and I regret to find that any one should he excited to violent and unreasonable opposition, and more especially that misrepresentation should have been employed. With your permission, Sir, I will in a future letter give more particular informa- tion respecting the number of interments, the mode of burial, and other statistical data, which I trust will cause the hitherto apathetic and unconcerned participator in the evils complained of, to bestir himself, and commence a personal and practical investigation, the results of which, if made public, could not fail to produce incalcu- lable benefit to the nation at large. I shall likewise leave the question as to the policy of the present system—the indecency of perpetuating it—the frauds practised—and the modes of “ management” adopted, to a future paper, in which I will, by analysing data, endeavour to establish the truth of the statement, that a greater and more monstrous evil than intra-mural sepulture does not exist. I have the honour to be, Sir, ' Your most obedient Servant, GEORGE ALFRED WALKER. London, November 14, 1842. Letter IV. [From the Morning Herald, November 23.] Sin,—I demonstrated, in my last communication, that an acre of ground will contain the bodies of 1,361 adults, and of 5,124 children of the respective ages of 7 years, 3 years, and 12 months. Four children of the above ages will occupy about the same space of ground as one adult. London will require, the annual mortality being 50,000, half a million of graves every ten years for the bodies of its dead. The annual number of burials in England and Wales, upon an average of 5 years, is 335,968. The mode in which this number of bodies is annually disposed of is a matter of greater consequence to the living than they are at present aware of. This I shall prove as I proceed. It is much easier to ascertain the mortality for any given past period, than to de- termine correctly the accommodation, as to space, for the interment of a certain number of bodies; and, although the aggregate amount of accommodation might be ascertained by an official inquiry, yet the number of dead already deposited must be, to a certain extent, matter of speculation rather than certainty. The omission, on the part of Mr. Mackinnon’s Committee, to ascertain the collective amount of such accommodation is to be regretted. I repeatedly, and urgently, pressed this point](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21915441_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
