A supplementary report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns.Chadwick, Edwin
History
A supplementary report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns.
Chadwick, Edwin
Burial; Cemeteries -- Great Britain; Mortality -- Statistics; Public health -- Great Britain; Working class -- Great Britain
A constant change in the majority of a local board would be most
unfavourable to uniformity of system, efficiency, and economy. Upon
this ground I believe the church to be a great loser by the office
of churchwarden. An individual charged with raising and expending
the ecclesiastical finances of a parish for a year only is little
likely to perform those duties as well as if he had a more permanent
authority. To say nothing of his having more temptation to
indolence, and to an ostentatious or interested profusion, he
labours under the unavoidable disadvantage of inexperience. By the
time that he becomes efficient in his office, he is called upon to
retire from it.
A local board would want many other advantages of a more publicly
constituted authority. Supplied with members by the casualties of
parochial office, it could not always command a high order of
intelligence. It would necessarily be limited in its opportunities
of observation; and, as it could not make its purchases and regulate
its current expenditure to the same advantage as if it acted on a
more extensive scale, it would, of course, prove less economical to
the public.
In fact, from all my local observation, I am led to hope that, in
removing the interment of the dead from populous towns, the
Legislature will adopt not a parochial but a comprehensive national
plan for the purpose.
Mr. Drew, the vestry clerk and superintendent registrar of Bermondsey,
makes similar objections to the proposed machinery; that “the persons
nominated to carry out such a measure in parishes would not be
satisfactory to the inhabitants, even if they were disposed to act.”
Mr. Corder, the clerk to the Strand Union, was asked upon this subject—
What do you believe to be the prevailing opinion in your Union on
the subject of town interments?—I believe there is a strong and
growing opinion against the practice of interring in London and its
immediate environs. I believe that public feeling generally is
opposed to that custom, as being prejudicial to health, and often
more distressing to the feelings of the survivors than interments
would be in a more distant and less familiar and frequented spot.
Do you think the parishioners of London parishes would approve of
separate and distinct parochial cemeteries?—No, I think they would
prefer having one or more cemeteries on a very extensive scale to
having parochial cemeteries which, in the neighbourhood of the
metropolis, would, I think, be found almost impracticable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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