Note 153 — OF THE PRESERVATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH.

It is notorious that there are many church-yards in which the soil has been raised several feet above the level of the adjoining street, by the accumulated remains of mortality; and there are others, in which the ground is actually probed with a borer before a grave is opened. The Commissioners for the improvements in Westminster, reported to Parliament in 1814, that St. Margaret’s church-yard could not consistently with the health of the neighbourhood be used much longer as a burial ground, “for that it was with the greatest difficulty a vacant place could at any time be found for strangers; that the family graves generally would not admit of more than one interment, and that many of them were then too full for the reception of any member of the family to which they belonged.”

Many examples might be adduced of overloaded church-yards and burial grounds, which have become if not serious nuisances to the health of their neighbourhood, at least highly offensive to comfort and decency. There is one instance in our sister kingdom so flagrant, that we cannot omit noticing it, in the hope that attention may be drawn to this and similar inconveniencies. There is a burial ground at the back of Kilmainham hospital (and consequently under the immediate view of the Commander and Adjutant-General of the Forces), so disproportioned to the number interred in it, that the older coffins are frequently broken and the undecomposed limbs constantly thrown on the surface, to make room for new tenants of this human soil; yet after heavy showers, the earth being washed away, the lids of coffins may be plainly discerned, so slight is the covering which can be afforded them. Immediately below the rising ground on which this cemetery is situated are the Island Bridge Barracks for the Artillery, the wells of which must of necessity be filled with the filtrations from the putrid mass above them. One at least of the principal Tanks at Gibraltar was similarly situated. The present Lieutenant Governor, Sir George Don, among the numerous improvements in the regulation of cleanliness and ventilation which he has introduced on the rock, has converted the burial ground into a public garden; to this, among his other measures, the garrison may owe some future exemptions from the diseases which have so often afflicted them.