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Trinity Church, Cottage Grove, is of small extent and but little used.
Those which are closed, under the "Act to Amend the Laws concerning
the Burial of the Dead," consist of Wycliffe Chapel, Mile End
Cemetery, and the East London Cemetery, besides the vaults beneath
Brunswick Chapel. The German Jews' Cemetery, adjoining the Mile
End Workhouse, was closed, pursuant to their own regulations, some
time since.
PLANTING CEMETERIES.
It would be conducive to the general health, where they will
permit of it, if these places of interment which are now closed,
occupying conjointly a considerable area, were drained a short depth
beneath the surface, partially levelled, so as not to lessen the distinction
of particular graves, and planted with shrubs and trees. Plants
assimilate the hydrogen of water, while they consume and liberate the
oxygen; they also absorb carbonic acid, and appropriating the carbon
emit oxygen from this additional source. There are other modes by
which the existence of plants in the exercise of their vital processes
tend to purify the atmosphere generally, by affording that which is
good for the support of animal life, and consuming that which is
noxious to it. Thus an undoubted and considerable advantage would
be gained by interposing between the dead and the living that which
would neutralize the products and effects of decomposing animal
matter with which the soil of places, long and freely used for burying
the dead, is always strongly impregnated.
MANUFACT^^S AND NOXIOUS TRADES.
Mile End Old Town appears to possess all the local conditions
requisite for a healthy place of residence, and if it is not so to the
fullest extent at the present time it is evident that it is capable of
being made so by judicious management. Noxious trades are comparatively
few, and it is to be hoped that in most cases, where
unpleasant odours arise from certain manufacturing processes, some
means may be devised to destroy their effluvia and noxiousness, and
so obviate the otherwise disagreeable necessity of interfering with
industrial occupation. Some trades caunot be carried on without a