A supplementary report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns.Chadwick, Edwin
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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
the population of that town, which is about 28,000, and rapidly
increasing. The authorities there are desirous of obtaining grounds and
establishing a public cemetery in or near the town, and would, if
practicable, do so without the expense of a private Act of Parliament.
The grave-yard of the cathedral of Ely, for the burials arising from a
population of about 7,000 is reported to be inconveniently full, and the
very reverend the dean is stated to be extremely desirous of closing it
and procuring a burial-ground at a distance. I have been informed by
several ecclesiastical authorities, that the clergy are often much
distressed by the inadequacy of the old grave-yards to meet the
necessities of burial for an increasing population. The data already
given as to the space required for interments will serve to show the
adequacy or inadequacy of the existing burial-grounds for any
population. It may be submitted that provision might be made for the
relief of any district on the inspection and under the authority of
properly appointed officers of health, for the provision of new and
separate places of burial, on applications showing the inadequacy or
unsuitableness of the existing grave-yards.
It were a reproach to the country, and its institutions and its
government, and to its administrative capacity, to suppose that what is
satisfactorily done in the German states may not, now that attention is
directed to the subject, be generally done at least as well and
satisfactorily in this country; or that the higher classes would not in
whatever depends on their voluntary aid, exhibit as good and practical
an example of community of feeling in taking a lead in the adoption of
all arrangements tending to the common benefit, as that displayed in the
states which have achieved the most satisfactory improvement of the
practice of interment, by well-appointed officers of public health.
§ 236. I have thought it unnecessary to occupy attention with many
details which would appear to follow the adoption of the general
principles deducible from the information collected. I have given that
information so fully in the text, that I have avoided extending the bulk
of the Report by repeating it with prefatory or connecting matter in the
Appendix.
I would now beg leave to recapitulate the chief conclusions which the
information obtained under this inquiry appears to establish. They are—
I. _As to the Evils which require Remedies._
§ 237. That the emanations from human remains are of a nature to produce
fatal disease, and to depress the general health of whosoever is exposed
to them; and that interments in the vaults of churches, or in
grave-yards surrounded by inhabited houses, contribute to the mass of
atmospheric and other impurities by which the general health and average
duration of life of the inhabitants is diminished. (§ 1 to 23.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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