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
is one of the most elevated that can adorn the civic economy of a large
and civilized community,) would be impracticable, or would become a
common “dead-house,” or a revolting charnel. It may be confidently
affirmed, that to accomplish what is needed to satisfy the feelings of
the population, on the points on which they are so painfully
susceptible, and to gain the public confidence requisite to carry out
all the sanitary appliances and improvements that are requisite in
connexion with the practice of interment, would task the zeal and
ability, and unremitting attention of any, the best staff of educated
medical men that could be procured for such a service. The improvements
which appear to be practicable, may be perceived on a consideration of
the information hereafter submitted, as to what is already gained under
arrangements of a comprehensive character.
§ 112. The chief conclusions in respect to the proposed suburban
parochial interments deducible from the present experience appear then
to be,
1. That the change of the practice of interments on the plan of suburban
parochial or establishments of separate unions of parishes, while it
gave immediate relief to the centre of the town, would create
impediments to the regular growth of the suburbs, and, ultimately, as
the interments increase, diminish the salubrity of the suburbs. §§ 107,
108.
2. That it would not _ultimately_ diminish any injurious effects arising
from the practice of interments amidst the abodes of the living; and
that its chief effect would be to transfer such evils from the districts
where they now prevail to the midst of the population of other
districts. §§ 105, 110.
3. That these results would only be obtained at a considerable expense
to the rate-payers of the parishes from whence the practice of
interments is transferred. §§ 107, 108.
4. That if burial in parochial grounds were transferred to such a
distance as not to interfere with the growth of the suburbs, the
increased distance of interments would occasion a proportionate increase
of the expense of interments to the labouring classes of the community.
§ 110.
5. That inasmuch as the difficulty of obtaining the means of defraying
the expense of such classes of interments is frequently a powerful means
of increasing the evil of the long delay of the interments, the measures
proposed would tend to increase the most extensive and direct source of
injury to the health and morals of the survivors of the labouring
classes—the long retention of the corpse in their crowded and
ill-ventilated places of abode. §§ 43, 44.
6. That interment by a parochial agency would aggravate or leave
untouched the other objections to the present practice of interments in
the metropolis. §§ 98, 99, 111.
_Practicability of ensuring for the Public superior Interments at
reduced Expenses._
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