Walker stuck to his ground manfully. He gathered round him a few of the leading men of the day, who formed themselves into a Society for the Abolition of Burials in Towns, and he delivered a series of able lectures upon the subject and continued to make inquiries and to expose practices carried on in various grounds. Spa Fields, for instance, was taken as a specimen, and a pamphlet was issued showing how it was the custom to burn bodies behind a brick enclosure, and how the gravestones were moved about to give an appearance of emptiness in certain parts of the ground. It was computed that, by burning coffins, mutilating remains, and using vast quantities of quicklime, at least 80,000 corpses had been put in a space fitted to hold 1,000. In 1842 and 1843 a Royal Commission was sitting upon the question of the Health of Towns and the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes, and a Select Committee was appointed “to consider the expediency of framing some Legislative Enactments (due respect being paid to the rights of the Clergy), to remedy the evils arising from the Interment of Bodies within the Precincts of large Towns, or of Places densely populated.” The following were the members of the Committee: Mr. Mackinnon (Chairman), Lord Ashley, Colonel Fox, Mr. Thomas Duncombe, Mr. Evelyn Denison, Sir William Clay, Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Beckett, Lord Mahon, Mr. Cowper, Colonel Acton, Mr. Kemble, Mr. Vernon, and Mr. Redhead Yorke; and they sat from 17th of March till 5th of May, 1842, and conducted sixty-five examinations. Amongst the witnesses who gave evidence were clergymen, dissenting ministers, medical men, including Sir Benjamin Brodie and Mr. Walker, sextons, gravediggers, residents in the neighbourhood of burial-grounds and others, with the Bishop of London (C. J. Blomfield). I have already quoted from these evidences in the previous chapter, and they do not vary very much. I will only therefore give a few extracts from the Report of the Committee:—“After long and patient investigation, Your Committee cannot arrive at any other conclusion than that the nuisance of Interments in large Towns, and the injury arising to the Health of the Community from the practice, are fully proved.... No time ought to be lost by the Legislature in applying a remedy.... The Evidence has also exhibited the singular instance of the most wealthy, moral, and civilised community in the world tolerating a practice and an abuse which has been corrected for years by nearly all other civilised nations in every part of the globe.” Then follow resolutions respecting the provision by parishes, either single or amalgamated, of cemeteries; the fees which it would be desirable to charge; the due consideration to be shown to those who desired burial in unconsecrated ground; the exceptions to be made in the cases of some family vaults, of the Cathedral and the Abbey, and of certain cemeteries which had recently been formed, &c., with the final