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influence on the ranks below them would soon be felt, and the pernicious
practice of retaining the dead amongst the living for a week and upwards
would cease. In order, however, to induce the poor to adopt a more speedy
interment of their dead, an encouragement might be held out to them, by
the parochial authorities offering to contribute a certain amount of the expenses
in every case where the body was buried within three or four days.
This offer would, no doubt, in many instances, be readily accepted, and it
would probably be found, that after the custom of more early burial had
prevailed among the people, it might be advantageously enacted that any
person or persons retaining a dead body in any room of a dwellinghouse
beyond the period prescribed by Act of Parliament, should incur a
penalty of a certain amount for every twenty-four hours after the expiration
of the time permitted by the Act.
The subject of interments, both as regards its economic arrangements
and sanitary importance has not received that consideration from the
public which it demands. The great desideratum is to change the habits
and taste of the people in their desire to have expensive funerals; for the
delay of interment among the poor is principally caused by the difficulty
they experience in raising a sufficient sum of money to pay the *
undertaker.
Trades' Nuisances.
A memorial, very numerously signed by the inhabitants of Back
Church Lane and its vicinity, was presented to the Board, complaining of
the nuisance from the premises of Mr. Bringes, who carries on the business
of re-burning animal charcoal. Upon the receipt of this memorial, the
Board instructed me to inspect the premises complained of and report the
result of my inspection to them at their next meeting.
In accordance with my instructions, I visited the premises of Mr.
Bringes, on the 14th May, and I reported that the complaints of the
inhabitants were, in my opinion, well founded, for the smell from the
factory was very offensive, and pervaded the neighbourhood to a considerable
extent. The business appeared to me to be conducted in a very
careless manner, a portion of the noxious gases escaping from the cylinders
into the building and from thence through the open windows into the
neighbourhood. Upon inquiry into the mode of conducting the business,
I learnt that no proper provision was made for burning or otherwise destroying
the gases given off from the process of re-burning the animal charcoal,
but the greater portion of them was conveyed from the cylinders into
the chimney-shaft and diffused over the neighbourhood to a considerable
distance from the factory. Upon my report being submitted to the Board, J
an order was signed by the Chairman to enable the Inspector to take legal