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is scarcely any difference in their charges,—a fact which shows that their demands are based upon commercial justice.

But, Sir, this is not the end of the matter. The science and practice of extortion, in connexion with this subject, appear to have formed a clerical study. The business is refined beyond credibility. The most consummate financier could scarcely have carried it farther. No opportunity of robbing and fleecing mankind has been lost sight of. Non-parishioners are almost everywhere charged double fees, and, in some cases, considerably more, a deed wholly without a justifiable reason. In St. Peterle-Poor, a parishioner is charged 17. 15s. 2d.; "strangers, if in lead or wood, 201. extra, and double the above fees; if in iron, 50%. extra."

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In districts where lodgers are numerous, they are treated as strangers," and are charged double fees. This is a rich corner of the field.

In London, the mortality among children is very great, and in fixing the table of fees for their interment, it was needful to take great care so as to turn it to good account. This care has been duly taken. Incredible as it may seem, the fees for children are, in many cases, the same as those for adults; in others, 1s. 6d. less; in others, only 2s. less; in others, one-half. Another fine point was, to determine when childhood ends, and when manhood begins. In some parishes, it terminates at 12; in others, at 10; in others, at 9; and, in others, at 7 years of age! All beyond these ages are charged as full-grown persons.

The doctrine of extra digging, too, is a nice question, and a fertile source of extortion! The standard of depth varies as much as the standard of childhood. In some cases, it actually begins at four feet, and all beyond that must be paid extra! Where the soil is virgin, also, there is frequently a fee demanded for breaking it!

Sir, do you perceive the bearing of this multitude of facts Are upon your scheme? you really aware that there are within the walls of the City no fewer than ninety-seven parishes? Are you aware that there are seventeen parishes without the walls? Are you aware that there are twenty-four out-parishes in Middlesex and Surrey? Are you aware that there are ten parishes

in the City and Liberties of Westminster? Here are one hundred and forty-eight parochial burying-grounds: do you really intend to construct an equal number of new Cemeteries? You propose to enact, that "it shall be lawful for the rectors, vicars, or incumbents, and churchwardens, of any two or more parishes, to form such parishes into a Union for the purposes of this Act." It shall be "lawful," but it is not binding. It may be made lawful, but who shall make it practicable? Do you know any thing of the real state of the interments in these grounds? Are you aware, that, from December 15, 1840, to December 14, 1841, the total of the interments in these ninetyseven parishes was only 582? Dividing the latter by the former, how many burials a year was that to each parish? Exactly six! But let us take a few particulars.

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Here we see, that, while the average number of interments is six, the highest number reached in any parish is forty-nine. Only four parishes reach fifteen burials each; no two parishes have attained a higher number. What now becomes of Mr. Walker's dismal declamations? This gentleman has, for several years, gone up and down Drury Lane, and other lanes, crying out, Pestilence! pestilence! pestilence! till, according to the public prints, upwards of eight thousand good citizens, filled with awful apprehensions of their coming doom, have actually signed a Petition to Parliament, praying that the City Burial Grounds may be closed! Can aught, in the records of medical fanaticism or popular delusion, be found to equal this? Surely, after this exposure, Folly herself, notwithstanding the stimulant aids

of both ignorance, impudence, and the lust of notoriety, will hold her peace! Never, since London was a city, was there so little danger from intramural sepulture as at this moment, because never was there so small a number of interments in it. pass an Act to close these grounds, is a deed which

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"Resembles ocean into tempest toss'd,

to drown a fly!"

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For all practical purposes, they are closed already. perhaps, you will ask, what of the seventeen parishes without the walls? This, and no more: during the year above specified, the total of their interments was just 2,419! Does this small number, scattered over such a surface, augment the danger of pestilence? If so, let trembling citizens comfort themselves with the fact, that no fewer than 991 of these burials took place in St. George's, St. John's, and St. Saviour's, all in Southwark.

But what of the out-parishes in Middlesex and Surrey? This: they buried 9,696 corpses within the same period; and, had the hundreds been thousands, and the thousands multiplied by tens, there need be no panic.

But what of the ten parishes in the city and liberties of Westminster? This: they buried only 1,902; and in St. Clement Danes, of which some weak witnesses spoke as if it had devoured a daily hecatomb, only 308 burials took place.

Sir, if you combine all the facts set forth in this letter, you will surely perceive the preposterous and impracticable nature of your Bill. Is there a man, out of St. Luke's, who would propose to construct a new Cemetery for each of these City parishes? Are all these parishes to be taxed for such Cemeteries? Why, Sir, the total of the interments in the whole ninetyseven, would form but a limited business for even one small Cemetery! Is the whole City of London, then, to be taxed for the formation of that one Cemetery? If they should be so taxed, and were to submit, could the ninety-seven incumbents and the one hundred and ninety-four churchwardens be brought to concur in such a measure? If such a concurrence could be effected, how is the project to be carried out? Are we to have ninety-seven different tables of fees in it? and ninety-seven

different allotments of ground? Those who delight in ridicule will find a fit subject in your project.

The alarm which Mr. Walker and interested parties have laboured so long and so hard to raise, is wholly unfounded. In the City, there is no peril, nor is there more in the suburbs; while the new Cemeteries, already opened on all sides, are drafting off a large part of the business, and thus everywhere relieving the grounds that were filling too fast. Your new parochial Cemeteries are necessary only for one purpose,-to enable the clergy to recover the ground they have lost in the business of interment; for the tables we have laid before you show, that an immense majority of the interments are in grounds other than those of the Established Church. The effect of your Bill would be to close all such grounds as are not already Bishop-taxed, and to drive the whole business of burial to these, and to your parochial Cemeteries, thus augmenting the fees of the clergy three or four-fold.

Sir, is this the system which you are labouring to uphold and to extend?—a system as profligate in principle as it is unjust in practice;-a system which constitutes one of the chief abuses of our times, and a most foul blot upon the Christianity of our age? It is intolerable, and will, surely, not much longer be endured by this enlightened nation! While you are so much alive to one species of abomination, is it not strange that you should be so insensible to another? Why did you not examine your witnesses on these points? Why did your Bill not provide for the consolidation of all the parochial grounds under the new system, if a new system there must be, and for the equalising of the fees in all the new Cemeteries? In such a step, there would have been something statesman-like, and not a little gained to the cause of rectitude, justice, and decency. It would also have served both to dignify the more grovelling, and to decorate the less comely parts of your project, and thus have recommended it to the favour of reflecting and candid men. But it seems you do not aspire to be a reformer, but a conservator of ecclesiastical abuses.

December 1, 1842.

LETTER X.

RELATIVE POSITION OF CHURCH AND DISSENTING

BURIAL-GROUNDSANALOGY BETWEEN THE CHURCH-EXTENSION AND CEMETERY-EXTENSION SCHEMES-CLERICAL RAPACITY ILLUSTRATED IN NORWOOD CEMETERY.

SIR,-At the conclusion of our last Letter, we said, that "an immense majority of the Metropolitan interments are in grounds other than those of the Established Church." This is a point of so great importance in connexion with your Bill, as to demand special notice and further investigation. It is, moreover, happily, a point which may be determined with a satisfactory degree of correctness. We have before us a "General Bill of the Christenings and Burials at the Parish Churches within the City of London and Bills of Mortality, from December 15, 1840, to December 14, 1841, according to the Reports made weekly to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, and the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, by the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks." This accurate and trustworthy document presents a total of 14,599 interments in grounds belonging to the Established Church. Before us, likewise, lies another document, the "Death Report of the Registrar General," which extends from the 9th of January, 1841, to the 1st of January, 1842. This important production is headed, Metropolis :-Summary of the Weekly Tables of Mortality for 1841," and gives the total of deaths as 45,284. Here, then, are the materials of an argument; the difference in the Tables, of fifteen days with respect to the periods of beginning and ending the is of no moment. If these two documents refer to the year, same boundary, (and we are told nothing to the contrary,) the result will stand thus :—

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