so has power to direct inspection of any burial ground or cemetery, and
to regulate burials in common graves in statutory cemeteries and to compel
persons in charge of vaults or places of burial to take steps necessary for
preventing their becoming dangerous or injurious to health. The vestry of
any parish, whether a common-law or ecclesiastical one, was thus authorized
to provide itself with a new burial ground, if its existing one was no
longer available; such ground might be wholly or partly consecrated, and
chapels might be provided for the performance of burial service. The ground
was put under the management of a burial board, consisting of ratepayers
elected by the vestry, and the consecrated portion of it took the place of
the churchyard in all respects. Disused churchyards and burial grounds in
the metropolis may be used as open spaces for recreation, and only
buildings for religious purposes can be built on them (1881, 1884, 1887).
The Local Government Act 1894 introduced a change into the government of
burial grounds (consequent on the general change made in parochial
government) by transferring, or allowing to be transferred, the powers,
duties, property and liabilities of the burial boards in urban districts to
the district councils, and in rural parishes to the parish councils and
parish meetings; and by allowing rural parishes to adopt the Burials Acts,
and provide and manage new burial grounds by the parish council, or a
burial board elected by the parish meeting.

2. The mode of burial is a matter of ecclesiastical cognizance; in the case
of churchyards and elsewhere it is in the discretion of the owners of the
burial ground. The Local Government Board now makes regulations for burials
in burial grounds provided under the Burial Acts; for cemeteries provided
under the Public Health Act 1879. Private cemeteries and burial grounds
make their own regulations. Burial may now take place either with or
without a religious service in consecrated ground. Before 1880 no body
could be buried in consecrated ground except with the service of the
Church, which the incumbent of the parish or a person authorized by him was
bound to perform; but the canons and prayer-book refused the use of the
office for excommunicated persons, _majori excommunicatione_, for some
grievous and notorious crime, and no person able to testify of his
repentance, unbaptized persons, and persons against whom a verdict of _felo
de se_ had been