“The bountiful, or private enterprise, should provide these mortuaries. But once let their necessity be recognised and the scheme approved,--fashion leading the way,--then undertakers would readily supply what was wanted. If not, then the local authority should take the initiative. Mortuaries are sadly needed almost everywhere for present purposes, as newspapers constantly affirm. In providing them, care should be taken to build with an eye to future requirements when it shall become customary if not compulsory to remove the dead from among the living within a reasonable time after death. “It is merciful sometimes to be inexorable, and what a lot of willing and unnecessary discomfort and risk would be saved were it possible and the practice to find a temporary resting-place for our departed friends till we are ready to carry them befittingly to the tomb.” MORTUARIES OF LONDON. Each of the sanitary districts in the Metropolis is supposed to have a mortuary of some kind for the reception of bodies from hospitals, infirmaries, hotels, private houses, as well as from the river and streets, or in transit to and from foreign countries, where they are kept without charge for about five days, unless the public health requires earlier interment. Hospitals, hotels, and families are thus relieved of the presence of corpses, for convenience, and for purposes of inquest. The mortuaries are nearly all plain, gloomy, and depressing structures of brick. The best of them comprise a coroner’s courtroom, coroner’s private room, the caretaker’s rooms, waiting room, _post-mortem_ room, chapel, and viewing room connected. There is no physician in attendance, and no autopsies are performed except by surgeons upon their own cases, or for purposes of inquests. There are no appliances or conveniences for resuscitation, as all the bodies are regarded as dead, having been, for the most part, certified as such by a medical practitioner, the exceptions being such as are taken from the water or street by the police, or left there for inquest. The buildings are usually well lighted, and some of the rooms contain fire-places, but they are devoid of taste or ornamentation of any kind. The bodies are kept in coffins, which, if there is any odour proceeding from them, are screwed down. Permission is afforded for inspection by doctors or by any of the family of the deceased on application to the keeper. These mortuaries are kept clean, and decent and respectful treatment of the bodies is enforced by regulations. [THE LONDON MORTUARIES.]