[12] 'On the Causes of some Epidemics.' Glasgow, 1874. [13] 'The plague-pit,' says the 'Lancet' of September 16, 1854, 'is situated within the area bounded by Argyll Place, King Street, Tyler Street, Little Marlborough Street being directly over the pit.' In 1843, when the parish church of Minchinhampton was rebuilding, the soil of the burial-ground, or what was superfluous, was disposed of for manure, and deposited in many of the neighbouring gardens. The result was that the town was nearly decimated. I have lately made personal inquiries upon the spot, and find that the mischief which resulted has been even understated. The outbreak of the plague in Egypt in 1823 has also been traced to the opening of a disused burial-ground at Kelioub, fourteen miles from Cairo. Two thousand perished in the village, and Cairo suffered fearful mortality. The outbreak of plague from this cause is also vouched for by M. Pariset, who was sent to Egypt by the French Government to inquire into the cause of the plague. Even the exhalations of a single corpse buried twelve years have been known to engender a dangerous disease in a whole convent.[14] [14] H. W. Hemsworth. I think it may be accepted as proven that the burning of the dead was of purely sanitary origin, and that it is erroneous to consider it a religious one. It became identified with heathen worship, because then everything was heathen. In Italy, the Abbé Bucellati, of Pavia, deprecates the idea that cremation can in any way be considered heretical; at the most, says he, it can only be called a rash project. The Rev. Mr. Long, of Zurich, for his part, insists that religion has no title to mix itself up with the question. The subject is essentially one of health, and will so remain. We may almost say that so prominently did the practice bring forth the idea of purification in the minds of its original observers, that several semi-religious mystifications were born of it. Thus the body was supposed by some to be unclean after the soul had left it, and that fire alone could purify it. Others held that by burning the body the soul was finally loosed from the clay, and cleansed from the contaminations which it contracted in the flesh.