sanction the interment "in any of the ways prescribed or authorised by the Burial Laws Amendment Act of 1880." Detaining the Dead for Debt. On the Continent, in Prussia for example, it was formerly the practice to detain the dead for debt. A belief long prevailed that such proceedings were legal in England, and in not a few cases, acting upon this supposition, corpses have been arrested, and in more instances precautions have been taken to avoid such painful events. The earliest record we have found on this theme occurs in the parish register of Sparsholt, Berkshire. "The corpse of John Matthews, of Fawler," it is stated, "was stopt on the churchway for debt, August 27, 1689. And having laine there fower days, was, by Justices' warrant, buryied in the place to prevent annoyances--but about sixe weeks after, by an Order of Sessions, taken up and buried in the churchyard by the wife of the deceased." In the churchyard of North Wingfield, Derbyshire, a gravestone bears the following inscription:-- In Memory of THOMAS, Son of JOHN and MARY CLAY, Who departed this life December 16th, 1724, In the 40th year of his age. What though no mournful kindred stand Around the solemn bier, No parents wring the trembling hand, Or drop the silent tear. No costly oak adorned with art My weary limbs enclose, No friends impart a winding sheet To deck my last repose. The circumstances which led to the foregoing epitaph are thus narrated. Thomas Clay was a man of intemperate habits, and at the time of his death was indebted to Adlington, the village inn-keeper, to the amount of twenty pounds. The publican resolved to seize the body; but the parents of the deceased carefully kept the door locked until the day appointed for the funeral. As soon as the door was opened, Adlington rushed into the house and seized the corpse, and placed it on a form in the open street. Clay's friends refused to pay the publican's account, and after the body had been exposed for several days, the inn-keeper buried it in a bacon chest.