Against us let there be no such reproach. Freely let us breathe into our bosoms some portion of the spirit of the dead. If we live near no church-yard, let us visit one—Mesmerically, if you please. Now we are on the way. We see narrow streets and many people; most of the faces that we meet are pale. Here is a walking funeral; we follow with it to the church-yard. A corner is turned, and there is another funeral to be perceived at no great distance in advance. Our walkers trot. The other party, finding itself almost overtaken, sets off with a decent run. Our party runs. There is a race for prior attention when they reach the ground. We become interested. We perceive that one undertaker wears gaiters, and the other straps. We trot behind them, betting with each other, you on Gaiters, I on Straps. I win; a _Deus ex machinâ_ saves me, or I should have lost. An over-goaded ox rushes bewildered round a corner, charges and overthrows the foremost coffin; it is broken, and the body is exposed—its white shroud flaps upon the mud. This has occurred once, I know; and how much oftener, I know not. So Gaiters pioneers his party to the nearest undertaker for repairs, and we follow the triumphant procession to the church-yard. The minister there meets it, holding his white handkerchief most closely to his nose: the mourners imitate him, sick and sorrowful. Your toe sticks in a bit of carrion, as we pass near the grave and seek the sexton. He is a pimpled man, who moralizes much; but his morality is maudlin. He is drunk. He is accustomed to antagonize the “spirits” of the dead with spirits from the “Pig and Whistle.” Here let the _séance_ end. At home again, let us remark upon a striking fact. Those poor creatures whom we saw in sorrow by the grave, believed that they were sowing flesh to immortality—and so they were. They did not know that they were also sowing coffee. By a trustworthy informant, I am taught that of the old coffin-wood dug up out of the crowded church-yards, a large quantity that is not burned, is dried and ground; and that ground coffee is therewith adulterated in a wholesale manner. It communicates to cheap coffee a good color; and puts Body into it, there can be no doubt of that. It will be a severe blow to the trade in British coffees if intramural interment be forbidden. We shall be driven to depend upon distant planters for what now can be produced in any quantity at home. Remember the largeness of the interests involved. Within the last thirty years, a million and a half of corpses have been hidden under ground, in patches, here and there, among the streets of London. This pasturage we have enjoyed from our youth up, and it is threatened now to put us off our feed.