The puerile stories, therefore, of infection being taken from following a coffined corpse to the grave, without reference to the state of grief, fear, and fatigue, not improbably, of drunkenness, in the mourners, must be unworthy of attention. I am no friend to the absurdly long interval which in this country is allowed to elapse,[32] even in the hottest weather, between death and burial; but still more do I deprecate the indecent haste which would give sanction to panic, and incur the risk or even the suspicion of interment before dissolution. In regard to separate burying grounds, should the disease come to spread, I am sure no one will expect, after what has just been said, that I should attempt to argue the question seriously, nor enter a protest against the further gratuitous wrong of withholding the rites of sepulture in consecrated ground from the victims of an epidemic or even a contagious disease.--Nothing could warrant such a measure but want of room in the ordinary churchyards, where police should never be allowed to interfere with the rights and feelings or property, of the living, unless to ensure the privacy of funerals; nothing being so appalling to an alarmed people as the spectacle of death in their streets, or so trying to the health of the mourners, as tedious funeral ceremonies amidst a crowd of people. [Footnote 32: After sending these letters to the press, I saw in the public prints that the Bishop of the Diocese had forbidden the funerals of the dead from Cholera to be received in the churches of London. Instead of thus forbidding a part, better have the whole of the service performed there (where crowds do not come) under cover from the weather, than in the open churchyard, where the mourners uncovered, are exposed in every way to damp and cold, and the jostling of the mob; better still have all the service deemed necessary, performed at the residence of the deceased.]