The Duke of Richmond and Gordon's Burials Bill has been
printed, and is, of course, exactly what the speech in which it was introduced gave us reason to expect. It consolidates a good many Acts to which Dissenters object ; and offers them a couple of boons in lieu of the rights they claim. It gives power for the "Burial Authority" to open cemeteries containing both con- secrated and unconsecrated ground where more room is wanted, or even where, having regard to existing circumstances, a new burial- place would be convenient ; and it permits those who celebrate a Burial Service elsewhere than in a churchyard, to have a silent burial at the grave, on giving notice to the clergyman to that effect ; but so far as regards burials in churchyards, it gives no equality to Dissenters, only empowering them at most, if they like it, to "hold their tongue and speak nothing, and keep silence even from good words,"—a course of procedure of which they will probably say, like the Psalmist, " but it was pain and grief to me." This Bill, with its shirking of the only real grievance and its eighty clauses of mostly consolidating legislation, will hardly pass the House of Commons.
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