Note 94 — INTRODUCTORY REPORT SUGGESTING THE OUTLINE OF A SCHEME FOR EXTRAMURAL INTERMENT.

In regard of these exceptional burials, it will be requisite to fix certain regulations; especially for the construction of family graves, wherein it will be desired that many who during life have been united, shall after death have their ashes mingled together in the soil. A frequent custom in private Cemeteries for fulfilling this purpose has been, for graves to be dug to a considerable depth—sometimes such that twelve coffins could be piled there, one on the other; and these deep pits have commonly been provided with brick walls. Now, for the same reason as determined my opinion against the multiple burial of the poor, I would argue against this arrangement, as one which might occasion excessive accumulation in single spots of your Cemetery, and as being in principle bad. In preference, I would venture to recommend the endeavour to introduce an interment-custom, which is prevalent abroad, of family plots of ground instead of family pits. Under ordinary circumstances, all the accommodation heretofore sought in the one arrangement would be found superiorly in the other; and in a well-projected suburban Cemetery the larger superficial extent could probably be afforded at much less cost than is usually paid for the pit. Persons familiar with the details of Cemetery-burial would easily devise an arrangement of such plots, whereby they should be separate and secluded, admitting of appropriate decoration, and altogether likely to prove more acceptable to public opinion than many existing arrangements. In regard of such plots, too, there might be conceded a privilege which I believe has not been allowed in private Cemeteries; namely, an hereditary right to refill the ground for any successive number of times, subject only to such restrictions as will determine the succession of interments in other parts of the Cemetery.