Postponing the consideration of other collateral grounds for the appointment of a district officer of health, and to illustrate more clearly the course of alteration of the practice of interments, we will suppose the physician or officer of health brought by the proper notice to the habitation where the body lies in the presence of the survivors. § 191. In visiting the habitations of the labouring classes, he would be more careful to denote his office, profession, and condition, by his dress, and in his address, even than with other classes. On his arrival at the place of abode of a person of the working class, he would, after announcing his office and duty, inspect the body, and then require the name, age, occupation, and circumstances of the death of the deceased, enter them, and take the attestations of witnesses present. If the death occurred from any ordinary cause, he would, nevertheless, speak of the expediency of the early removal of the body to the chapel or house of reception, where it would be placed under proper care until the appointed time of the attendance of the relations and friends at the interment. The exercise of a summary power of removal in the case of rapid decomposition of the corpse, or in case of deaths from epidemic disease, for the protection of the living, is frequently suggested and claimed by neighbours. On inquiry in Manchester as to the periods during which the bodies of persons dying in the poorest districts were retained in the rooms where they died, the superintendent-registrar, Mr. Gardiner, observed, “they are not retained so long in these districts, because the houses to which the rooms belong are generally inhabited by several families, and those other families feel the inconvenience of the retention of the body amongst them, and they press for an early interment.” With females or survivors who cannot endure to part with the remains, the exercise of a friendly will would sometimes be necessary, and if properly exercised would generally be effectual. The name of an officer of public health would carry with it very general voluntary obedience to whatever he recommended, and in a majority of cases the prostrate survivors would be glad that he should order everything, and would feel it a relief if he were to do so. He would be prepared with a tariff of the prices of burial, and with instructions as to the regulations adopted for the public convenience, and for the more respectful performance of the ceremony of interment, and should be empowered and required, on the assent or application of the parties, to carry them out completely, as he might do with very little inconvenience or expenditure of time. He might be empowered to take such a course as this. Speaking to the widow or survivor of the lowest class, he might say—