From
London Day and Night by David W. Bartlett (1852)
We beg pardon of the reader
for saying a few words upon an unpleasant subject-that of London
burials. We shall not give you pleasant pictures of country
church-yards, with tall cedars of Lebanon and cypresses, and waving
grass over the graves-alas no; there is little of beauty and serenity in
London church-yards!
And yet the cemeteries are beautiful, but they are
far beyond the limits of the town. There is beautiful Highgate Cemetery,
Kensal Green Cemetery, and Abney Park - all pleasant amid quiet spots.
But it is only the privileged ones who are buried in such places, only
the rich and powerful. Wealth in London helps a man after death. It can
and does lay his aching bones to rest in a quiet spot, it covers over
his grave with flowers, amid the songs of birds - is not that something?
The wealthy are buried here - where are the poor
buried? In Paris, city burials were long ago abolished. It is the same
in almost all European towns, but it is not so in London. A few years
since, the subject was brought before Parliament, and facts were
elicited which created great excitement, and which resulted in good, but
the practice still continues with some restrictions. We are the more
determined to give our readers an insight into this unpleasant subject,
as it is of great importance that the inhabitants of American cities
should, before they become any older, avoid the errors of European
Cities. We are glad that Boston has her lovely Mount Auburn, New York
her sweet Greenwood shades, and Philadelphia her Laurel Hill ; and we
hope with all our heart, that in every city in America, cemeteries without
the confines of the town may spring up, and that public opinion,
will prevent any more burials in town.
Many times in our walks about London we have noticed
the grave-yards attached to the various churches, for in almost every
case, they are elevated considerably above the level of the sidewalk,
and in some instances, five or six feet above it. The reason was clear
enough - it was an accumulation for years of human dust, and that too in
the centre of the largest city in the world.
We soon made the discovery that the burial business
(we beg of the reader not to be shocked, for we tell the unvarnished
truth) was a thieving trade in London, a speculation into which many
enter, and a great profit to the proprietors of the city churches,
whether State or Dissenting. Upon reading authorities, we were
thunderstruck at the state of things only three or four years since, and
which are now only slightly improved. Extra cautions were taken during
the cholera year, but since, matters have been allowed to take the old
and accustomed channels.
The facts which we state are but too true. They
were sworn to by men to be trusted, before a Committee of the house of
Commons, appointed by that body to search into this horrible burial
trade.
St. Martin's Church, measuring 295 feet by 379, in
the course of ten years received 14,000 bodies. St. Mary's, in the
region of the Strand, and covering only half an acre, has by fair
computation during fifty years received 20,000 bodies. Was ever anything
heard of more frightful? But hear this: two men built, as a mere
speculation, a Methodist Church in New Kent Road, and in a mammoth
vault beneath the floor of
that church, 40 yards long, 25 wide, and 20 high, 2000 bodies were
found, not buried, but piled up in coffins of wood one upon the
other. This in all conscience is horrible enough, but seems quite
tolerable in comparison with another case.
A church, called Enon Chapel, was built some twenty
years ago, by a minister, as a speculation, in Clement's
Lane in the Strand, close on to that busiest thoroughfare in the world.
He opened the upper part for the worship of God, and devoted the lower -
separated from the upper merely by a board floor - to the burial of the
dead. In this place, 60 feet by 29 and 6 deep, 12,000
bodies have been interred! It was dangerous to sit in the church
; faintings occurred every day in it, and sickness, and for some
distance about it, life was not safe. And yet people not really knowing
the state of things, never thought of laying anything to the vault under
the chapel.
But perhaps the reader will exercise his arithmetical
powers, and say that it would be impossible to bury 12,000 persons in so
small a place, within twenty years. He does not understand the manner in
which the speculating parson managed his affairs. It came out before the
Committee of the House of Commons, that sixty loads of mingled
dirt and human remains were carted away from the vault at different
times, and thrown into the Thames the other side of Waterloo Bridge.
Once a portion of a load fell off in the street, and the crowd picked up
out of it a human skull. It was no longer safe to cart away the remains,
and yet the reverend speculator could not afford to lose his fine income
from the burials, and so his ever-busy intellect invented a novel mode
of getting rid of the bodies - he used great quantities of quicklime!
But quicklime would not devour coffins, and so they were split up and
burnt in secret by the owner of the chapel. several witnesses swore to
this before the Committee. Said one of them:
"I have seen the man and his wife burn them it
is quite a common thing."
It may be said that this state of things has passed
away - but such is not the fact. We have ourselves looked into an open
grave which was filled up with coffins to within a foot of the surface
of the ground, and that too within ten rods of one of the busiest
streets in London. A friend of ours assured us he has witnessed of late,
things quite as horrible as any that were related before the Committee
of the House of Commons.
It was proved that very many of the churches in
London were in the habit of carting away the remains of bodies at
intervals to make room for the later dead. St. Martin's in Ludgate, St.
Anne's, in Soho, St. Clement's, in Portugal. street, and many others
were proved guilty of the practice.
W. Chamberlain, grave-digger at St. Clement's,
testified that the ground was so full of bodies that he could not make a
new grave "without coming into other graves." He said:
"We have come to bodies quite perfect, and we
have cut parts away with choppers and pickaxes. We have opened the lids
of coffins, and the bodies have been so perfect that we could
distinguish males from females and all those have been chopped and cut
up. During the time I was at this work, the flesh has been cut up in
pieces and thrown up behind the boards which are placed to keep the
ground up where the mourners are standing-and when time mourners are
gone this flesh has been thrown in and jammed down, and the coffins
taken away and burnt."
An assistant grave-digger testified that, happening
to see his companion one day chopping off the head of a coffin, he saw
that it was his own father's! Another digger testified that
bodies were often cut through when they had been buried only three
weeks. Another testified to things more horrible than ever Dante saw in
hell. He says: " One day I was trying the length of a grave to see
if it was long and wide enough, and while I was there the ground gave
way, and a body turned right over, and the two arms came and clasped me
round the neck!"
We beg the pardon of the reader for relating such
horrible facts - but they occurred in London, and the cities and
towns of America may well profit by them. There need not be such
terrible curses attending a crowded state of population, but such will
be the case eventually in our own towns unless we take warning,
When one thinks of the thousands in London who must
look forward to a burial in the pent-up church-yards in the city, it
makes the heart ache. To think of burying a kind mother so - of
following a dear sister to such a grave. Yet thousands from poverty must
do so.
Contrast with such spots the sweet though lovely
burial grounds in the country, with its tall cedars, its solemn
cypresses, and its grassy mounds, over which affection lingers and
weeps. The church-spire is old and kindly in its look, the breezes are
solemn and pure - oh the contrast!
We once made a delightful journey into an old and
ancient part of England with a friend, going on foot miles away from the
line of railway in a quiet old village, which seemed a thousand years
old. The reader can hardly imagine the quaintness of everything there -
the sweet quietness which brooded over the neglected spot. After a meal
by ourselves in the ancient in of the place, we wandered out into the
village streets and over the fields. The people seemed old and
quaint, but the beauty of the hills and valleys we never saw surpassed.
Wandering at will we at length came to the village church and
burial-ground. The church stood in the midst of a field of graves, and
was nearly covered with green runners and vines. There were ancient
tombs grassed over and mossed over by centuries; there were cedars of
Lebanon, and solemn cypresses, and flowers, and all that is holy and
beautiful. We entered the little gate and walked slowly from tomb to
tomb, reading the solemn inscriptions with chastened thoughts. The sun
was almost down, but shone with a solemn splendour upon the spot, and
the gravestones cast long shadows to the eastward. We could hear faintly
in time distance the murmurs of a waterfall, and the music seemed
plaintive there. There was no music, no eager life, but the spirit of
holy Quiet was there. Gradually the shadows grew longer, until at last
the burning sun dropt down behind the western hills, and the church-yard
was in gloom.
A gentle south wind sprung up among the Lebanon
cedars in tones of sorrow; the tall grass waved to and fine over the
craves, and so like the close of a good man's life closed the day.
And that spot is a place where one could love to weep
over a dear, departed friend. There, among the flowers and branches,
sunshine and shadows, one could rest over a mother's or a sister's
grave, and look forward to a home there, as a place where to
"Wrap the drapery of his couch around him,
And lie down to pleasant
dreams." |