[93] Twenty years would probably represent at least four times the average period during which the bodies of the poor have been left at rest in many grave-yards of the metropolis. Yet I would willingly advocate a longer term of years as the personal tenure of a grave, if public opinion would sanction the heavier expense which must thus be entailed on the living. Taken for granted that, as regards the general public, your Cemetery will be established on the principle of a temporary tenure of graves, it remains for you to determine to what extent you will permit wealthier applicants to purchase exemption from this rule, and obtain a freehold interest in particular portions of your ground. I have little to say on this point, because it is of no sanitary importance, provided that privileges so purchased do not in any degree interfere with the general economy of your plan. Barring any risk of this kind, it comes before you simply as a question of finance. A precaution, however, which I would suggest, is, that, first of all, you should provide a cemeterial space sufficient for the interment purposes of your population, on the principle of temporary tenure; that no portion of this space should, under any circumstances, be alienated from its public destination; that the whole of it should remain in perpetuity the common burying-ground of the City of London. This prime necessity of your plan being secured, it will be competent for you to include in your purchase a certain redundant number of acres; and out of these you can allot, at your discretion, such quantities of ground as may be desired in freehold, either for the purposes of family interment, generation after generation, or for the fiction of perpetual tenure by some single occupant.[94]