It is often necessary, in order to see a graveyard, to go into one of the surrounding houses and ask for permission to look out from a back window. Such permission is sometimes refused at once, sometimes it is most kindly given. I remember arousing a divided opinion upon this matter by knocking at the door of one of the upper rooms in the almshouses in Bath Street. I wanted to see the ground used as a garden by the inmates of the St. Luke’s Lunatic Asylum in Old Street, and which was at one time a pauper burial-ground for the parish. The old man did not at all like my invading his room, but the old lady was most affable, and had much to say upon the subject. At any rate I saw what I wanted, and made my mental report, but I left the old man grumbling at my unnecessary intrusion, and the old lady in smiles. I hope she did not suffer for her kindness. If one asks to go into a burial-ground, it is generally imagined that one wants to see a particular grave. I have been supposed to have “some one lyin’ there” in all quarters of the metropolis, and in all sorts of funny little places. I have been hailed as a sister by the quietest of Quakeresses and the darkest of bewigged Jewesses, by the leanest and most clean-shaven of ritualistic Priests, and by the bearded and buxom Dissenter. I remember, however, knocking at the gate of one Jewish ground which the caretaker was unwilling to let me enter. She asked me the direct question, “Are you a Jewess?” I had to say no, but happily I was armed with the name of a gentleman who had kindly told me to mention it in any such difficulty. It answered, and I was allowed in. One day I climbed a high, rickety fence in a builder’s yard in Wandsworth in order to see over the wall into the Friends’ burial-ground. No doubt the men in the place thought me mad,—anyhow they left me in peace. I have often been assured that there is no possibility of a particular enclosure ever becoming a public garden by those who live, at a low rent, in the neighbouring cottage, on condition that they keep watch over the ground. Alas, before many months are over, they find that the wires have been pulled somehow or other, and that their precious yard is no longer available for their fowls to run in or for their clothes to dry in, but is invaded by their neighbours and their neighbour’s unwelcome children. “They come four times a year to clear away the weeds.” That is the sort of caretaking that some burial-grounds are subjected to; and on the other 361 days in the year all sorts of rubbish is deposited in them.