Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839 edition. Excerpt: ... materially, burial expenses, and be a source of emolument and patronage to Government, as well as ornament to the nation. A SEXTON. f_We have received more than fifty letters relating to the brutal mutilation of a corpse in the church yard of St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield; and we hope, with our correspondent, that some plan will be devised, to prevent a repetition of such an abominable outrage. The making, however, of church yards a source of patronage and emolument to the Government, is not a commendable feature in our correspondent's plan.] It will be noticed that the general or particular remarks I have made in the course of these observations, in some instances prove, and in others originate suspicions, that dead bodies have in some places been deposited in such numbers that the spaces would have been utterly inadequate to receive them without the dispossession of previous occupants. The reflective portion of the community, upon a careful review of all the facts I have thought it necessary to detail, will be prepared to receive, and will cease to wonder, at an otherwise startling avowal--in one of the most influential of the literary and scientific periodicals of the present day, viz. that "Many tons of human bones every year are sent from London to the North, where they are crushed in mills constructed for the purpose, and used as manure."--Quarterly Review, No. XLII. p. 380. It might reasonably be asked, by whom and by what authority have these supplies been furnished? From what grounds--public or private? Who have derived the emoluments? and to what purposes have the products been applied? The extract given below from the life of a late eminent architect, Thomas Telford, Esq. will prove the insecurity of churches and other...
