A Report on the Practice of Interment in Towns

No. 12 Examples of Ordinary Undertakers’ Bills in the Metropolis

No. 1.	£.	s.	d.
Elm coffin, lined, ruffled, mattrass, sheet, and pillow	3	11	0
Leaden coffin, plate of inscription, 5 men with ditto	6	15	0
Outside case, brass engraved plate, 5 men with ditto, & making-up	9	9	6
Pall 7s. 6d., 2 porters, scarfs, staves, covers, bands, & gloves, 38s.	2	5	6
Four gentlemen’s crape scarfs, bands, and gloves	6	12	0
Seventeen silk ditto ditto	41	5	0
Hearse, 4 horses, feathers and velvets for ditto	5	16	0
Five coaches, pairs, ditto for ditto	9	15	0
Six coach cloaks, bands, and gloves, 60s., truncheons & wands 6s.	3	6	0
Eighteen pages and bearers, silk bands, and gloves	11	14	0
Attending and assistance, 63s.; scarf, band, and gloves for minister, 5s.	5	18	0
Hatband and gloves for clerk and sexton, 30s.; grave-digger, &c. 3s. 6d.	1	13	6
Paid vault dues 4l. 12s. 6d.; letters 20s.; fetching company 4s. 6d.	5	17	0
Two crape bands and gloves for servants 20s.; 8 silk do. do. 5s.	6	0	0
Thirty-four men’s allowance 28s.	1	8	0
	———	———	———
	£ 121	5	0
	———	———	———
No. 2.
Elm shell, lined, ruffled, mattrass, sheet, and pillow	3	8	0
Leaden coffin, plate of inscription, and 5 men with do., & making up	6	3	0
Outside case, engraved plate, 5 men with ditto	8	13	0
Pall 7s.; 2 porters’ scarfs, staves, bands, and gloves	2	7	0
Lid of feathers 21s.; 3 men with do., and bands and gloves 45s.	3	6	0
Hearse, 4 horses 2l. 14s.; feathers and velvets for ditto, 2l. 6s.	5	0	0
Two coaches, pairs 2l. 14s.; ditto ditto 1l. 2s.	3	16	0
Three coachmen’s cloaks, bands, and gloves	1	11	6
Ten pages and bearers 40s.; bands and gloves for ditto. 5l.; truncheons and wands 4s.	7	4	0
Eight gentlemen’s cloaks 8s.; 4 crape bands, &c., 40s.; 6 silk ditto 6l. 6s.	8	14	0
Two bands and gloves for clerk and sexton 30s.; 2 ditto for private servants 17s.	2	7	0
Attending 21s.; 18 men’s allowances 18s.; letters of invitation 4s.	2	4	0
Paid dues 7l. 14s. 6d.; pew-opener, &c. 2s.; fetching company 2s.	7	18	6
	———	———	———
	£ 62	11	0
	———	———	———
No. 3.
Covered coffin, lined, ruffled, plate of inscription, mattrass, sheet and pillow	4	19	0
Pall 7s. 6d.; 2 porters, gowns, staves, and for bands & gloves 30s.	1	19	6
Four gentlemen’s cloaks, crape bands and gloves 1l. 18s.; attending ceremony 20s.	2	18	0
Hearse and coach, pairs 3l. 12s.; velvets for ditto 21s.; 2 cloaks and bands 11s.	5	4	0
Six pages, bands, gloves, truncheons, wands, 62s.; fetching company 9s.	3	11	0
Paid 10 men’s allowance 25s.; stone 10s.; turnpike, gravedigger 4s.	1	19	0
	———	———	———
	£ 20	10	6
	———	———	———
No. 4.
Smooth elm, polished nails, inscription, lined, mattrass, sheet, and pillow	4	10	0
Pall 7s.; 4 crape bands; 6 ladies’ hoods and gloves	2	17	0
Attending 5s.; dues at church 18s.; 5 men’s allowance 6s. 6d.	1	9	6
	———	———	———
	£ 8	16	6
	———	———	———
To the Executor of —— ——, Esq.
Dr to —— ——.
For the Funeral of —— ——, Esq., died 19th February, aged 80, N. 5 and 84 B., Cemetery, All Souls.
To a 6 ft. × 22 elm coffin, lined and ruffed with fine cotton	2	10	0
Wool bed	0	10	6
Fine sheet and pillow	0	18	0
Lead coffin, solder, and workmanship	6	18	0
Lead plate of inscription	0	5	0
Inch and a half oak coffin, made to receive the above, covered with fine black cloth, 3 rows of brass nails, 4 pair of large handles, star and serpent, and finished with rays	15	15	0
Brass plate of inscription	2	8	0
To the use of the best velvet pall	0	10	6
Three crape hatbands	0	12	0
Three crape scarfs	3	0	0
Silk scarf, hatbands, and gloves, the Rev. Mr. Lynarn	2	6	0
Seven silk scarfs	10	10	O
Seven silk hatbands	4	7	6
Five silk scarfs, hatbands, and gloves, Rev. Mr. Rue, Mr. Hawes Smith, Rule Field	11	10	O
Eleven pair of kid gloves	1	18	6
Two porters, with silk dressings	0	16	0
Two hatbands and gloves for ditto	0	15	0
The plume of ostrich feathers	1	1	0
Man carrying ditto	0	6	6
Silk hatbands and gloves for ditto	0	7	6
Hearse and four	3	10	0
Feathers and velvets for ditto	2	18	0
Three mourning coaches and four	10	10	0
Feathers and velvets for ditto	2	14	0
Four coachman’s cloaks	0	4	0
Silk hatbands and gloves for ditto	1	10	0
Eight hearse pages, with truncheons	1	16	0
Silk hatbands and gloves for ditto	3	0	0
Six coach pages, with wands	1	7	0
Silk hatbands and gloves for ditto	2	5	0
Silk hatband and gloves for clerk at the ground	0	12	6
Four hatbands and gloves for servants of the two carriages	2	10	0
One hatband and gloves for terrace beadle	0	10	6
One hatband and gloves for man servant	0	7	6
Four pair of habit gloves	0	12	0
Attending the funeral	1	1	0
Silk hatband and gloves	0	16	0
Twenty-six men’s expenses as customary	1	19	0
Turnpikes	0	6	6
Paid dues at the cemetery	22	7	6
Silk scarf, hatband, and gloves (Mr. Owen)	2	6	0
Paid for the bell	0	6	6
	———	———	———
	£ 130	16	0
	———	———	———

The Funeral Expenses of Mary Maria ——,
Performed by ——, ——.
Nov. 15, 1834.				£.	s.	d.
5 ft. 9 inch. 17 elm, lined, ruffed super linen				2	5	0
Tufted mattrass				0	14	0
No. 10 shroud, sheet, cap, and pillow				2	5	0
Stout lead coffin, soldering up				7	7	0
Lead plate ditto				0	5	0
Six men with lead coffin				0	18	0
Two men attending on the surgeons				0	6	0
Making up—plumbers				0	5	0
Elm case, covered with fine black cloth, set 2 rows all round, No. 1 nails; 4 pair cherub tin handles, gripes and drops; 8 screws, black				7	7	0
Brass engraved plate, fine lacquered				2	12	6
Six men in with case moving down stairs				0	18	0
Nov. 21:—
Best pall, lid of feathers				1	8	0
Four fine cloaks				0	6	0
Nine rich silk bands for gentlemen				6	6	0
Nine pair gentlemen’s best kid gloves				1	16	0
Two porters and furniture 16s.				0	18	0
Featherman, 2 pages and wands				0	12	6
Hearse and 4 horses				2	12	0
Feathers and velvets for ditto				3	3	0
Six hearse pages and truncheons				1	5	0
Mourning coach and four horses				2	12	0
Feathers and velvets for ditto				1	1	0
Two coach pages and wands				0	8	6
Two coachmen’s cloaks				0	2	0
Two velvet hammercloths				0	6	0
Attending funeral				0	7	6
Fifteen silk bands for 2 porters, 8 pages, 3 feathermen, and 2 coachmen				6	0	0
Fifteen pair gloves for ditto				1	2	6
Paid dues at St. Margaret’s	2	9	6
Lead fees ditto	0	16	7
Bell and searchers	0	8	0
Bearers	0	3	0
Sexton	0	3	0
Extra digging	0	15	0
Grave-maker	0	3	0
Men’s allowance, coffin case and funeral	0	12	6
	———	———	———
				5	10	7
				———	———	———
				£ 60	19	1
				———	———	———

Exposition of the English Law in Respect to Perpetuities in Public Burial Grounds

[From the decision in the case of Gilbert v. Buzzard and Boyer, 2nd Haggard’s Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Consistory Court of London, containing the Judgments of the Right Hon. Lord Stowell.]

In what way the mortal remains are to be conveyed to the grave, and there deposited, I do not find any positive rule of law, or of religion, that prescribes. The authority under which the received practices exist, is to be found in our manners, rather than in our laws: they have their origin in natural sentiments of public decency and private affection; they are ratified by common usage and consent; and being attached to a subject of the gravest and most impressive nature, remain unaltered by private caprice and fancy, amidst all the giddy revolutions that are perpetually varying the modes and fashions that belong to the lighter circumstances of human life. That bodies should be carried in a state of naked exposure to the grave, would be a real offence to the living, as well as an apparent indignity to the dead. Some involucra, or coverings, have been deemed necessary in all civilized and Christian countries; but chests or trunks containing the bodies, descending along with them into the grave, and remaining there till their own decay, cannot plead either the same necessity, or the same general use.

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The rule of law which says, that a man has a right to be buried in his own church-yard, is to be found, most certainly, in many of our authoritative text writers; but it is not quite so easy to find the rule which gives him the right of burying a large chest or trunk in company with himself. That is no part of his original and absolute right, nor is it necessarily involved in it. That right, strictly taken, is to be returned to his parent earth for dissolution, and to be carried thither in a decent and inoffensive manner. When these purposes are answered, his rights are, perhaps, fully satisfied in the strict sense in which any claim, in the nature of an absolute right, can be deemed to extend.

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It has been argued, that the ground once given to the body is appropriated to it for ever; it is literally in mortmain unalienably; it is not only, the domus ultima, but the domus æterna, of that tenant, who is never to be disturbed, be his condition what it may; the introduction of another body into that lodgment at any time, however distant, is an unwarrantable intrusion. If these positions be true, it certainly follows, that the question of comparative duration sinks into utter insignificance.

In support of them, it seems to be assumed, that the tenant himself is imperishable; for, surely, there can be no inextinguishable title, no perpetuity of possession, belonging to a subject which itself is perishable. But the fact is, that “man” and “for ever” are terms quite incompatible in any state of his existence, dead or living, in this world. The time must come when “ipsæ periere ruinæ,” when the posthumous remains must mingle with, and compose a part of, that soil in which they have been deposited. Precious embalmments, and costly monuments may preserve for a long time the remains of those who have filled the more commanding stations of human life; but the common lot of mankind furnishes no such means of conservation. With reference to them, the domus æterna is a mere flourish of rhetoric; the process of nature will speedily resolve them into an intimate mixture with their kindred dust; and their dust will help to furnish a place of repose for other occupants in succession. It is objected, that no precise time can be fixed at which the mortal remains, and the chest which contains them, shall undergo the complete process of dissolution, and it certainly cannot; being dependent upon circumstances that vary, upon difference of soils, and exposures of seasons and climates; but observation can ascertain them sufficiently for practical use. The experience of not many years is required to furnish a sufficient certainty for such a purpose.

Founded on such facts and considerations, the legal doctrine certainly is, and has remained, unaffected; that the common cemetery is not res unius ætatis, the property of one generation now departed, but is, likewise, the common property of the living, and of generations yet unborn, and is subject only to temporary appropriations. There exists in the whole a right of succession, which can be lawfully obstructed only in a portion of it, by public authority, that of the ecclesiastical magistrate, who gives occasionally an exclusive title, in such portion, to the succession of some family, or to an individual, who has a fair claim to be favoured by such a distinction; and this, not without a just consideration of its expedience, and a due attention to the objections of those who oppose such an alienation from the common property. Even a bricked grave, granted without such an authority, is an aggression upon the common freehold interests, and carries the pretensions of the dead to an extent that violates the rights of the living.

If this view of the matter be just, all contrivances that, whether intentionally or not, prolong the time of dissolution beyond the period at which the common local understanding and usage have fixed it, is an act of injustice, unless compensated in some way or other. In country parishes, where the population is small, and the cemetery is large, it is a matter less worthy of consideration; more ground can be spared, and less is wanted; but, in populous parishes, in large and crowded cities, the indulgence of an exclusive possession is unavoidably limited; for, unless limited, evils of most formidable magnitude take place. Churchyards cannot be made commensurate to the demands of a large and increasing population; the period of decay and dissolution does not arrive fast enough in the accustomed mode of depositing bodies in the earth, to evacuate the ground for the use of succeeding claimants: new cemeteries must be purchased at an enormous expense to the parish, and to be used at an increased expense to families, and at the inconvenience of their being compelled to resort to very incommodious distances for attending on the offices of interment.

In this very parish three additional burial-grounds are alleged to have been purchased, and to be now nearly filled. This is the progress of things in their ordinary course; and if to this is to be added the general introduction of a new mode of interment, which is to ensure to bodies a much longer possession, the evil will become intolerable, and a comparatively small portion of the dead will shoulder out the living and their posterity. The whole environs of this metropolis will be surrounded with a circumvallation of church-yards, perpetually increasing, by becoming themselves surcharged with bodies, if indeed land-owners can be found who will be willing to divert their ground from the beneficial uses of the living to the barren preservation of the dead, contrary to the humane maxim quoted by Tully from Plato’s Republic:—“Quæ terra fruges ferre, et, ut mater, cibos, suppeditare possit, eam ne quis nobis minuat, neve vivus neve mortuus.”