On the solicitation of various country-towns in England and Wales,
" and some in Scotland," the Board of Health has presented to the Crown a report, embodying the suggestion of a plan for ex- tending to the country certain provisions of the Metropolitan In- terment Act, to abolish urban burial. The demand proves the existence, and we believe the extension, of a desire for better ar- rangements ; but it must not be forgotten that an opposite feeling, or rather one of excessive dislike to the administration of the Board in London, exists in several important places. One town boasts that it has beaten off the Board, and ever will ; another, that it has made the Board an object of abhorrence to the whole community, and so on. There can be no doubt, that the main objects of the Sanitary Association, which virtually nominated the Board for official in- duction, are excellent ; but the methods countenanced by the Board are the subject of more than one unsettled controversy ; and the general question of local government or centralization, although it does not much move the public, is a standard of fierce warfare in circles that have an influence on administration. Beyond these obstructions lies the grand damper on all action—the general in- ertness, apathy, indecision, and doubtful faith, of the grandees in office. All these impediments must be overcome before the present scheme can become a reality.
