The parish of St. James’, Clerkenwell, had a very small “poor ground,” in Ray Street, which was bought in 1755 for £340, and was consecrated eight years later. It was 800 square yards in area, and was approached through a private house occupied by a butcher, “who had his slaughter-house and stable at the back, and immediately adjoining the burial-ground.” In about the year 1824 it was found that several bodies had been exhumed and placed in the stable; this caused a scandal in the neighbourhood, and the man and his business were ruined. When Farringdon Street and the Metropolitan Railway were made, the site of the ground in Ray Street, together with Ray Street itself, entirely disappeared; and the “sleepers of the railway are laid over the sleepers in death.” The burial-ground had already been done away with, the Clerkenwell Commissioners, according to Pinks, having taken it for public improvements, when they collected the remains into one spot and erected a plain mausoleum over them. In early days it seems to have been the custom for patients entering the large hospitals to pay a sum of money down for possible funeral expenses, except in cases of sudden accident. Later on a security given by a householder was considered sufficient, but now no such arrangement is needed. The sum demanded at St. Bartholomew’s was 17s. 6d., and at Guy’s £1 was paid. At Westminster Hospital and at the Lock (Hyde Park Corner), from which some patients may have been buried in what is now called Knightsbridge Green, no security was asked; but at the Bethlem Hospital an entrance sum of £100 had to be paid for board, funeral expenses, &c. In case of death at a London hospital at the present time, the friends or relations of the deceased are expected to remove and bury the body, and this has often led to a good deal of difficulty, one body being claimed by various people, because the person who buries it can often secure the insurance money. Bodies which are now unclaimed (and at St. Bartholomew’s there are about eight in a year) are buried in a cemetery at the cost of the hospital. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER X PRIVATE AND PROMISCUOUS CEMETERIES. “Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent, A man’s good name is his best monument.” _Epitaph on Pindar’s monument in St. Botolph’s, Aldersgate Street._ THERE are two chief senses in which the word “private” may be taken. It denotes what belongs to a particular person, family, or institution apart from the general public—thus we say a “private chapel,” a “private drive,” and so on. It also means that which has been set into being by a private individual, and which is, therefore, a private speculation. Into these two classes I can divide the graveyards which are to be dealt with in this chapter.