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119
the distance be a hundred yards or a couple of miles. I
could not recommend your Vestry, therefore, to entertain
the question of a second mortuary until the present building
has been proved to be of insufficient capacity, or inconvenient
in position. It is a real difficulty to get people to avail
themselves of the accommodation furnished by a mortuary;
this difficulty, however, I have always felt would be, to a
certain degree, overcome by the sacred associations connected
with the site on which the Mortuary is placed. I
trust the building will be used more and more every year,
and that it will prove a benefit to our poorer parishioners,
who are now often condemned, in following an unwise
custom, to retain their dead for many days in rooms occupied
by the living.
Few, absolutely, as were the bodies admitted during the
first year many of the cases were of a nature to prove the
necessity, and to justify the provision, of the mortuary. In
course of time the advantages of the institution must come
to be more and more appreciated and larger use of it will
then be made. If only medical men and clergymen would
inculcate the propriety of removal of the dead to the
mortuary in suitable cases, there would be no cause of complaint
on the score of its disuse. Much might be done if
medical men would give the certificate necessary in respect
of infectious bodies, and bodies in an offensive condition
from decomposition, so as to enable a Justice to order the
removal of such bodies to the mortuary, under Section 27 of
the Sanitary Act, 1866. Medical men highly appreciate the
facilities offered by the mortuary when they have to make
post-mortem examinations; and well they may, the inconvenience
of making such examinations in private houses
being well known, and the objections to the practice in the
homes of the poor very serious.
Mortuary Keeper's Residence:—Some inconvenience
has resulted from the difficulty, hitherto insuperable, of
finding lodgings for the Mortuary Keeper within a reasonable