I only know of one burial-ground in London which is so strictly private as to have only one grave in it. In Retreat Place, Hackney, a quiet corner near the Unitarian Church, there is a row of twelve almshouses, founded by Samuel Robinson in 1812, “for the widows of Dissenting ministers professing Calvinistic doctrines.” In front of this establishment is a neatly-kept grass plot, and in the centre of it is a large altar tomb—not erected for the use of the ministers’ widows, but containing the mortal remains of Samuel Robinson, who died in 1833, and of his own widow who survived him three years. For my own part I should prefer the enclosure without the grave, but perhaps the widows like to be daily reminded of their benefactor. [Illustration: BURIAL-GROUND IN NEWGATE GAOL.] There are, no doubt, many private gardens and yards in London in which burials have taken place, surreptitiously if not openly. Only recently an undertaker was remanded for having been in the habit of temporarily depositing the bodies of stillborn infants in his own back premises until such time as there should be enough to make it worth while for him to give them a decent burial. But, numerous as these instances may be, it is difficult to get any record of them. Convent burial-grounds are very private, but of these I have already spoken in Chapter II. In Millbank Penitentiary a space, 432 square yards in extent, was set aside as a graveyard, in which there was ordinarily rather over one burial per month. There is a picture of it in Griffith’s “Memorials of Millbank,” but no description. This particular plot of ground is to be preserved as an open space when the new buildings are erected on the site of the prison; it will probably belong to the London School Board. Newgate burial-ground is still in use. It is a passage in the prison, 10 feet wide and 85 feet long, in which are interred, with a plentiful supply of quicklime, the bodies of those who are executed within the walls. This reminds me of the gallows which stood for so many years at the Tyburn turnpike, the site of which is still marked by a stone in the Bayswater Road, a few yards west of the Marble Arch. Those who were executed here (there were 24 in 1729) were buried on the spot, and this extraordinary burial-ground was situated at the point now occupied by the house at the corner of Edgware Road and Upper Bryanston Street.[7] Mr. W. J. Loftie entirely discredits this story, and says that one jawbone is all that was ever found to represent human remains on this site. On their way to the gallows the poor criminals received a present of a large bowl of ale, called St. Giles’ bowl, from the lazar hospital of St. Giles, which was situated close to where the church now stands. And thus they were refreshed on their last sad journey. Footnote 7: Smith’s “St. Marylebone.”