‘That, considering the river as a highway passing through the largest extent of densely-peopled districts, the facilities for establishing houses of reception on its banks, the conveniences arising from the shorter distances within the larger portion of the same area for the removal of the bodies to such houses of reception, the advantages of steam boat conveyance over that by railway in respect to tranquillity, and the avoidance of any large number of funerals at any one point, at any one time, and of any interference with common traffic and with the throng of streets; and, lastly, taking into account its great comparative cheapness, it is desirable that the chief metropolitan cemetery should be in some eligible situation accessible by water carriage.’ The case of the Jews is stronger than that of the Egyptians, as showing saner modes of burial than we have so long persisted in. They had no especial regard for the mere body, except as the temple of the soul; hence, a burial-place was, with them, _the house of the living_; an expression finely implying that death is the parent of immortal life. Their cemeteries were always in sequestered spots. In the 23rd chap. of Genesis we find that Abraham, when his wife Sarah died, desired a family burying-ground from the tribe among whom he lived:— ‘And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying, ‘I am a stranger and a sojourner with you; give me possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead _out of my sight_.’ A ready consent was given, and he was offered the choice of their sepulchres. But this did not satisfy him: he wished to obtain the Cave of Machpelah, and the field in which it lay, from Ephron, the son of Zohar. The generous proprietor offered it as a gift, but the Patriarch purchased it. Thus the first transference on record of real property was the acquisition, in perpetuity, by the patriarch Abraham, of a family burying-ground especially selected for its seclusion. Nor was the classic heathen of a more western clime less mindful of public health in his modes of disposing of the dead. The Romans, being largely indebted to the Greeks for their science, literature, arts, and habits of life, of course adopted their funeral ceremonies; and one general description may suffice for those of both. By law of the Twelve Tables, burial was prohibited within the city of Rome, and therefore cemeteries were provided without the walls.[D] [D] ‘_Hominem Mortuum in urbe ne sepelito neve urito._’