In the report of the Board of Health on intramural interments, upon which a bill now before Parliament is founded, it is proposed to erect in convenient parts of London eight reception-houses for the dead, previous to interment in the cemeteries to be established. This will remove the mortal remains from that immediate and fatal contact—fatal, morally as well as physically—which is compulsory among the poorer classes under the existing system of sepulture. It appears that of the deaths which take place in the metropolis, in upwards of 20,000 instances the corpse must be kept, during the interval between the death and the interment, in the same room in which the surviving members of the family live and sleep; while of the 8,000 deaths every year from epidemic diseases, by far the greater part happen under the circumstances just described. If from these causes the necessity for dead-houses is so great when no inquest is necessary, how much stronger is it when the services of the coroner are requisite? The reason given for the peripatetic nature of the office, is the assumed necessity of the jury seeing the bodies on the spot and in the circumstances of death. But that such a necessity is unreal was proved on the inquest we have been detailing, by the fact of the remains having been lifted from the bed where life ceased, to a table, and having been opened by the surgeons. Surely, removal to a wholesome and convenient reception-house, would not disturb such appearances as may be presumed to form evidence. As it is, the only place among the poor in which medical men can perform the important duty of examination by _post mortem_ dissection is a room crowded with inmates—or the tap-room of the nearest tavern. To preserve, then, a degree of order, dignity, and solemnity equal at least to that which is maintained to try an action for debt, and to prevent the possibility of any ‘private’ dealings, we would strongly urge that a suitable Coroner’s Court-house be attached to each of the proposed reception-houses. A clause to this effect can be easily introduced into the new bill. With such accommodation the coroner could perform his office in a manner worthy of a delegate of the Crown, and no such informalities as tend to intercept and taint the pure stream of Justice could continue to exist. FRANCIS JEFFREY.