pable source of disease and death to
those who frequented them. In the churchyards coffins were placed tier
above tier in the graves until they were within a few feet (or sometimes
even a few inches) of the surface, and the level of the ground was often
raised to that of the lower windows of the church. To make room for
fresh interments the sextons had recourse to the surreptitious removal
of bones and partially-decayed remains, and in some cases the contents
of the graves were systematically transferred to pits adjacent to the
site, the grave-diggers appropriating the coffin-plates, handles and
nails to be sold as waste metal. The neighbourhood of the churchyards
was always unhealthy, the air being vitiated by the gaseous emanations
from the graves, and the water, wherever it was obtained from wells,
containing organic matter, the source of which could not be mistaken. In
all the large towns the evil prevailed in a greater or less degree, but
in London, on account of the immense population and the consequent
mortality, it forced itself more readily upon public attention, and
after more than one partial measure of relief had been passed the
churchyards were, with a few exceptions, finally closed by the act of
1855, and the cemeteries which now occupy a large extent of ground to
the north, south, east and west became henceforth the burial-places of
the metropolis. Several of them had been already established by private
enterprise before the passing of the Burial Act of 1855 (Kensal Green
cemetery dates from 1832), but that enactment forms the epoch from
which the general development of cemeteries in Great Britain and Ireland
began. Burial within the limits of cities and towns is now almost
everywhere abolished, and where it is still in use it is surrounded by
such safeguards as make it practically innocuous. This tendency has been
conspicuous both in the United Kingdom and the United States. The
increasing practice of cremation (q.v.) has assisted in the movement for
disposing of the dead in more sanitary conditions; and the proposals of
Sir Seymour Haden and others for burying the dead in more open coffins,
and abandoning the old system of family graves, have had considerable
effect. The tendency has therefore been, while improving the sanitary
aspects of the disposal of the dead, to make the cemeteries themselves
as fit as possible for this purpose, and beautiful in arrangement and
decoration.

The chief cemeteries of