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hoods. Several hundred windows may be seen opening into one churchyard; and through these windows it is evident that the inhabitants must be iubaling the foul air from the decomposing bodies.

delt is vain to suppose that the earth absorbs all the noxious effluvia. In churchyards where the same earth is not moved twice in twenty years, and where, consequently, being less impreguated with the decomposed animal matter, it absorbs the most freely, there are evident signs that the foul air reaches the surface: the vegetation becomes gross on the top of a grave, such as it would if the surface were richly manured; and, of course, when the foul air reaches thus far, some of it ascends to the atmosphere. In the London burying grounds, where the bodies are so numerous, the earth so light, and as I should suppose fully saturated, nearly all the foul air must reach the atmosphere. If the bodies were allowed to remain exposed on the surface of such places, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood would : directly imagine that they were in danger of being poisoned; but because a little loose earth intervenes, they suppose that no bad consequences can arise.

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1. So much for what may be styled visible burying grounds, and I proceed to those that are invisible or hidden. If the former be nuisances, the latter are ten times more so.

When I was first told that in London dead' bodies were buried in cellars, that coffins were piled away like so many boxes of soap, my credibility was put to a severe trial, and 1 concluded that if the information were correct as to burying in covered ground, it must be greatly exaggerated as to the number of bodies and the method of disposing of them. I could not believe that such a nuisance would be permitted; or even if the nuisance were permited, the idea of burying in such a manner appeared to me so disgusting that no person would adopt it. The fact will show that I was deceived, that Londoners are not so particular about the purity of their atmosphere, nor so nice about the disposal of their departed friends, as I supposed them.

One instance must serve my purpose. I am not much 9dacquainted with London, but I am told by persons who buknow it well, that such as I am about to describe may be Ady found in almost every close neighbourboood in the city and 3 its environs.

In one corner of Clement's Inn stands Enon Chapel, and beneath it is a burying ground. This ground I have visited and examined. It is a cellar about twenty yards long and

ten wide. The arching of the common shore runs through it and occupies a considerable space. Nevertheless, in this "small compass, and in the short period of between three and four years, upwards of eighteen hundred and thirty bodies bave been deposited! It is almost incredible, but those who are, like Thomas of old, hard of belief, may, as I have done, satisfy themselves by an examination. I received the information concerning the number of burials, mediately through a friend, from the sexton himself.

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9d1 The method of burial, or packing away, is this A beginning is made at one end by piling one coffin upon another till there is just room to creep along between the upper one "and the floor of the chapel; then another pile is made, aud so on throughout the cellar, always leaving a pile open to view. A little loose earth, at most, not a foot in depth, covers the top. How long the bodies take in decomposing I know not; I asked the sexton, and his reply was: “ Oh not long, they lie mighty warm here so many together;" meaning, I suppose, that the great number of bodies brought 9 together is the cause of bastening putrefaction and ultimate decomposition.

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Now this infernal laboratory stands in a very thickly inhabited neighbourhood. The only opening to it is through two narrow passages leading out of St. Clement's-lane: the steps leading down to the cellar are within a few yards of inhabited rooms; in short, the whole chapel, excepting the side which faces Clement's Inn, and which is a dead wall, is closely surrounded by very lofty houses, Let any one, then, consider what must be the effect upon the atmosphere of such a neighbourhood. But a pound of animal matter left to putrefy will effect very sensibly the atmosphere of a whole house. I have known a dead rat beneath a floor to make a room uninhabitable. Just imagine, then, the quantity of foul ait which so many bodies, in a state of putrefacJtion must generate. I have been assured that, during the summer months, the stench has sometimes been almost unbearable. Complaints having been made by the neighbours, the owner attempted a remedy by making an opening through the chapel, but this only lets the foul air to the upper rooms of the adjoining houses instead of the lower.

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Why is not the whole place indicted lasa nuisance? The neighbours perhaps are too poor; but those who are capable, and have any regard for the purity of the London atmosphere, ought to take the thing in hand. The owner has risen to his present eminent station, possessor of a chapel and leader of a sect, from 1, very small beginnings. Tired I suppose of hard work, he adopted In the never-failing, the gulling trade. He first drew together a few persons

in a room; and, as a natural consequence in

gull.

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catching times, was soon enabled to erect a chapel. Not content to live by the living, by the dupes who attend his stupid and unmeaning discourses, he must have a picking from the dead. The love of pelf in the case, would not have been so glaring, had he confined the burials to those of his own congregation; but as his cellar is the receptacle of any whose friends have twenty shillings to spare, his object is evident. His chapel and cellar are to him a fortune; and if he supply some of the dissecting rooms, for which by-the-bye I should be inclined to excuse him in consideration of its utility,-he must be, as the Londoners say, "making a pretty thing of it."

It is hard to blame a man for getting the most he can, either by the living or dead; and in fact whenever I find the-world so bad that I cannot get a livelihood honestly, I shall adopt the gulling business myself; but I do blame the Londoners generally for allowing such nuisances to exist. Every voice ought to be heard calling upon the legislature to remove them; petition upon petition ought to be laid before our Houses of Parliament, demanding an examination into the case.

The principal object should be to remove the dead bodies far from the habitations of the living. This may be effected at less expense than attends the present burials. From what I can learn of the charges for entering a corpse in London, the average may be taken at about twenty shillings. Now land may be purchased for burying grounds, at from six to ten miles from the city, and the bodies be removed thither at a considerably less expense.

An acre of land would receive, allowing about twenty feet of surface for each, 2,000 bodies. 20,000 is above the annual deaths in London. Taking this number, and allowing that ground once buried in should not be disturbed in less than ten years, London would require burying grounds to the extent of 100 acres. Suppose we take the rent as high as £10 an acre yearly, the cost of ground for each burial would be, instead of twenty shillings as at present, only two shillings. Allowing two more for the grave digger there remain sixteen shillings to defray the expenses of removing each body. If each parish, or as many as may be found sufficient, kept a proper carriage, all the dead of the metropolis may be removed ten miles from town for less than half sixteen shillings.

This is not a matter to be effected by private individuals, but the legislature may do it easily. The land could be purchased a few miles from the city, in different directions, ten or twenty acres in a place as may be thought proper. All that is wanting is that the legislature should pass an act to forbid burials within a certain distance, and to provide a place for them elsewhere. Thus the city may be rid of a great nuisance, and far more respectable and decent burying grounds may be obtained, without

any additional expense; and with economy, considerable sums may be saved,

It is hoped that these lines will meet the eye of some one fully competent and inclined to lay the matter before the parliament, The acquiescence of a vast majority of the inhabitants of the metropolis may be depended upon. Such men as the owner of Enon Chapel may object to such a measure; because they may suppose that although they would have a purer air to breathe, they would fall short of their accustomed income; but no rational and disinterested man could object to any plan for purifying the atmosphere he lives in, especially when it can be done without any extra demand on his purse.

R. H.

EXTRACTS

From "The Australian" New South Wales Paper.

"ONE hundred and seventy-five thousand acres of land on this side the mountains are to be measured forthwith, and appropriated as a glebe to the Australian Church. This quantity is independent of the immense grant, for the like use, over the mountains. Five hundred thousand acres also, at Van Diemen's Land, are destined to become the pro, perty of the Church. These are no despicable endowments and are likely to have no despicable influence on the fate of the two colonies. Until the Church be put in possession of this land, by ad measurement, &c., the business of the settler must stand still. He can obtain no order for land, can see no prospect of applying his time or his industry to any profit. It is making him, at all events, pay in advance, by his temporal losses here, for his spiritual comfort hereafter. One-third of the land granted to the Church may be sold, and another third mortgaged for the improvement of the remaining third, and for other purposes. The Archdeacon's salary is a mere trifle, only TWO THOUSAND A YEAR, with liberty to appoint a Curate, and return to England, in the enjoyment of the full salary, minus the Curate's stipend some eighty pounds a-year, we suppose.

"An order was made by Sir Thomas Brisbane, previous to his departure, for the appropriation of twenty thousand acres of land to the use of the Wesleyan Missionaries who

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are employed in the conversion of the aboriginal natives of this country."

This is a very pretty beginning with the Australian Church the CHURCH OF THIEVES! We shall have Christianity flourishing and the Church rich among the thieves, when the property of the Church at home will be sold to pay its debt,-for the national debt was in a great measure incurred to support the Church,-aud Christianity extinct.

The Wesleyans too have been corporated for the purpose of Christiauizing the natives of New South Wales! As well may they attempt to Christianize the Kangaroos, for what good they will do. Here, take a specimen of the Christianizing of the negroes in the West Indies from "John Bull" of last Sunday. The following is the speech of a preaching Christian negro over the grave of another negro:

"Dea belubb'd, we gather together dis face congrega tion, because it horrible among all men not to take delight in hand for wantoness lust and appetite like brute mule dat hab no understanding. When de man cut down like guinea grass, he worship no more any body, but gib all him world's good to de debbil, and Gara Mighty (God Almighty) tell him soul must come up into heab'n where notting but glorio. What de use me fight wid beast in Feesus (Ephesus). Rise up all and eat and drink, because we die yesterday—no so to-morrow who shew you mystery-who nebbe sleep-but twinkle him eye till the trumpet peak? who baptize you and gib you victory ober de debbil's flesh, Old Adam belubbed

he bury when a child and de new man rise up when old. Breren you see that dam rascal Dollar, he no Jew, no Missionary, no Turk for true, you see him lungh (Abdallah denied it) when he go to hell be die and nebba gnash him teeth and worms can't nyam (eat) bim. Breren all chris

tians, white and black man all one colour, Sambo and Mu-, latto, no man bigger dan anoder, no massa, and no fum, fum, plenty o' grog-so brereu Gara Mighty take the dead mau and good night."

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