The official authorities deserve commendation for a new and comprehensive
activity in striving to grapple with the artificial causes of disease which exist in the bad sanatory arrangements of our towns and dwellings. Some of the reforms urged in our last number are already initiated: in certain unions, house to house visitation is to be enforced ; notices are to be posted up directing the poor where to find medical relief; and interments in towns are to be stopped under the Nuisances Removal and Diseases Preven- tion Act—if that statute is strong enough. We do not learn whether this last point is to be pushed through- out the Metropolis, though we think it would be quite possible to do this, even under existing laws, by a vigorous act of administrative authority. The London papers teem with letters describing the most shocking practices incident to interment in our overcrowded burial-grounds and vaults,—the tapping of leaden coffins, lest they should burst with the mephitic vapours ; the piercing of half-decayed coffins, in "boring" for a vacancy among the graves where no vacancy is ; the breaking-up of coffins with the spade; the eiposure of naked bodies, undecayed but not unrnutilated, and dissecting them with the spade, to pack them closer. Such prac- tices are general in respect of locality and frequent in respect of time ; they are repugnant to the lowest and coarsest ideas of de- cency and to the rudest ideas of sanatory police : they are there- fore "nuisances " in the most literal and popular sense of the word, and "cry for the intervention of police. Whatever may be the privileges of corporations, aggregate or sole or of private per- sons, it is manifest that they must be exercised with due regard to decency and public safety ; therefore it would seem possible to stop that which is indecent and noxious. Without " prohibiting " interment in a single burial-ground of London, it might be possi- ble to prevent interment ;here it ought not to take place, by watching the process, and holding the operators responsible for every specific act that violates decency or public safety. Say to the sexton in a crowded churchyard, Bury this body there if you please ; but you must do it without damage to the coffins already lodged there, without exposure of human remains, without dis- engagement of malaria.
