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BURIAL-GROUNDS. 83
which the poor, under proper rules and regulations,
may be permitted to deposit the bodies of their dead
previous to interment;" and the following clause,
which authorises your Officer of Health, in case of
necessity, and for protection of the living, to cause
any dead body to be removed at your expense, to
whatever building may have been provided for the
reception of the dead, previous to interment. It may
hardly be necessary that I should trouble you with
any remarks on the subject of these clauses, till such
time as they are likely to come into operation.
With respect to the burial-grounds within the
City, which will fall into disuse so soon as the new
Interment Act becomes operative, I trust that your
Honourable Commission will procure the power of
regulating and supervising their maintenance, so that
they may no longer be hurtful to the health of their
vicinity. The arrangement of them which would be
most advantageous to their locality would be that
of planting them with whatever trees or shrubs may
be made to flourish in a London atmosphere. The
putrefactive processes which for some years longer
must proceed in these saturated soils, will be rendered
comparatively harmless and imperceptible, if
at the same time there advance in the ground a
sufficiency of vegetation, which for its growth would
gradually appropriate, as fast as they are evolved,
the products of animal decay.
It seems almost superfluous to observe, that, from
the time when burials are discontinued, no