Reports Relating to the Sanitary Condition of the City of LondonSimon, John
History
Reports Relating to the Sanitary Condition of the City of London
Simon, John
Cemeteries -- England -- London; Mortality -- Statistics; Sanitation -- England -- London
I would therefore submit, that in your decision as to the site of your
Cemetery, so soon as the indispensable conditions of appropriate soil
are given, the first point to examine is accessibility; that the spot to
be chosen should have, in addition to its carriage roads, the utmost
facility of railway approach; and that, for those with whom small
differences of price are an important consideration, you should be able
to guarantee a rate of transport for coffin and mourners, not in excess
of existing charges.
From observation of arrangements which have lately been made with
Railway-Companies by the Directors of Cemeteries, and from inquiry of
persons engaged in such undertakings, I entertain little doubt that you
might make a contract to the following effect with the authorities of
any line convenient for your purpose--viz., that every day, at a fixed
hour, there should be a train, or some portion of a train, exclusively
adapted to the funeral purposes of the poorer classes; that for this
train there should be issued funeral tickets, franking the conveyance of
a coffin with some stated number of mourners, who should also be
entitled to return; that the introduction of funeral traffic should be
by a special entrance, and its exit at a special terminus.
Such contract supposed,--in connexion with this funeral train, you might
further arrange to maintain public hearses; which, at the option of
persons concerned, and on due requisition being made, should convey any
coffin from its former home to the railway terminus; and which again, if
necessary, at the distal station, should complete its conveyance to the
grave. This facility might even be extended, if the distances were
considerable, to the similar conveyance of a certain number of
mourners, with the undertaker in charge of their procession.
Also, if desirable, it could no doubt be arranged, with a view to
economy, that the undertaker’s responsibility for a funeral should
terminate at the railway terminus, up to which he would have conducted
it; and that its reception at the distal station should be entrusted to
servants of your Cemetery, who would then fulfil all remaining duties in
respect of it.
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