For myself, having the deepest sense of the evil in question, and having officially the power to order the removal of the dead, I may repeat that I have never yet exercised my authority. Practically speaking, I can hardly conceive an instance in which I should attempt to do so. It would require the strongest case that could be shown of actual mischief in progress--of disease and death multiplied day by day through the presence of some particular dead body, to justify interference even in that single instance. Nothing like the operation of a general law would be tolerated;--nothing like including the dead in a compulsory plan of hygienic police. After very careful consideration of the subject, I may confess myself even more impressed with its difficulties than when I first began to give it my attention; and in the few suggestions which follow I cannot pretend to do more than intimate where, in my opinion, a beginning may usefully be made towards an improvement which it will take many years to accomplish. Legislative remedies, proposed for the evils which I am bringing under your notice, have been of two kinds--viz., _first_, to restrict the time during which it should be lawful to keep a body unburied; _secondly_, to promote the use of reception-houses (as they have been called) whither bodies might be removed from within all dwelling-places, and be kept under certain regulations during the days preceding their interment. As regards the first point;--there are many foreign countries (and even some parts of the United Kingdom) where either law or custom has made it imperative to bury within two, three, or four days of death. Our habit, unfortunately, is to keep the corpse unburied for twice as long. A week may probably be considered our medium interval between death and interment; and with this delay, I need hardly tell you, the body becomes putrid--sometimes intensely so, before the time for its removal arrives.