There are many sad sights in London, but to me there are few so sad as one of these huge graveyards. Not that the idea of the numbers of dead beneath the soil produces any thoughts of melancholy, but I feel inclined to exclaim with the disciples, “To what purpose is this waste?” Can there be any more profitless mode of throwing away money than by erecting costly tombstones? They are of no use to the departed, and they are grievous burdens laid on the shoulders of succeeding generations. The only people who profit by them are a few marble and granite merchants, and a few monumental masons—and they might be better employed. The whole funeral system is an extravagant imposition, and has been for years. It may be said that the heavy trappings, the plumes, the scarves, &c., are going out of fashion; and this is true, but other things are taking their place. I saw the other day a neat little copy of the Burial Service, bound in black leather, with a cross outside. On the fly leaf was printed the name of the person to be buried, with the date of death, place of interment, &c. This book was given by the undertaker to each of those who attended the funeral, and as the ceremony was conducted by a Nonconformist minister, who arranged it in accordance with his own individual predilection, the little book was useless! I merely mention this as a specimen of the way in which the expenses of a modern funeral may be mounted up. The rich lavish their money on costly, almost indestructible coffins, which it would be far better to do without altogether, and on masses of flowers that die unseen, while the poor go into debt to buy mourning, which they often pawn before a month is over; and many a widow and family, who have a hard struggle to provide daily food, deny themselves the necessities of life, and sow the seeds of disease and want, in order to set up a tombstone or monument on a grave. And who sees it? A few people may occasionally go to Kensal Green to look at the tomb of Princess Sophia, the family mausoleum of the Duke of Cambridge, or the monuments erected to the Duke of Sussex, Thackeray, Mulready, Tom Hood, George Cruikshank (whose body has been removed to St. Paul’s Cathedral), Leigh Hunt, John Leech, Hugh Littlejohn, or Sydney Smith; but they are utterly spoilt by their surroundings. It is hardly possible to appreciate such memorials when they are closely hedged in by others in all descriptions of stone, of all shapes and sizes, and in all styles of architecture. And it is appalling to think of the amount of money that has been spent on these massive monuments. How many a church or chapel might have been built in a growing district; how many a beautiful old church now falling to decay might have been restored[9]; how many missionaries might have been sent to foreign lands; how many hospital beds might have been endowed; how many struggling families, or sick members of the same, might have been