Act of Parliament. Independently of the harsh and illiberal feeling existing between the Church of England and the different Sects, the hierarchy of the former, by some unaccountable process of reasoning, really appear to have worked themselves into an honest conviction, that the clergy of the establishment have some pecuniary claim upon the bodies of the dead, and which must be accounted for per capita, before a cemetery project can obtain the sanction of the legislature. The author is aware, that a popular belief exists in favour of the right of an incumbent to claim payment of burialfees for every corpse removed from his parish for interment elsewhere. If this was a legal claim, the incumbents would have a right to the provision which is assigned them by the cemetery acts of parliament,-but then it ought to be there stated, that such provision is made in lieu or satisfaction of such claim, or else they would be in receipt of two compensations; the old customary one of double fees-and the new one assigned by the cemetery acts. This practice of demanding double fees (for in many parishes they are not only demanded but paid) no statute law or legal custom to support it. It is an exaction to which no individual entrusted with the sacred duty of burying his friend need submit, and the author feels it his duty towards cemeteries in general, and that of Abney Park in particular, to state this most emphatically, as the existence of this error may doubtless operate to the prejudice of cemetery interment. In order that parties interested

in supporting the custom,* and they who are interested in defeating it, may have a better authority than my own, I have inserted in the Appendix the opinion of an eminent ecclesiastical lawyer upon the point, taken expressly for this work.

The heavy expense, the uncertainty of result, and the facility with which any private local bill may be defeated by the chicanery of party, or the unworthy appliances of self interest, often induce the projectors of bills to submit to the most unfair requisitions rather than lose the general object of their endeavours, or return home wholly defeated in their purpose.

This assertion receives ample illustration in the instance of cemetery bills. It is not to be denied that the incumbents of London parishes, or the clergy inferior to them in point of ecclesiastical dignity, in some cases lose much, and must eventually lose still more, by the discontinuance of town interments. This is deeply to be regretted, as in some cases the emoluments of curates depend entirely on what are called surplice fees. The clergy are, however, precisely in the same situation in this respect with

* In one instance which has come under the author's personal knowledge, this mode of charging became a matter of amount, though to the parties it happened not to be one of consideration. The friends of a young lady were desirous of removing her from her own parish where she died, to the family vault in another parish. Her own parish authorities received burial fees, because the body was taken elsewhere, and the authorities of the other parish charged double fees because a stranger was brought into it!

the tradesman, whose thoroughfare becomes neglected and his shop deserted, by reason of some neighbouring street improvements: or, with the post master, the coach proprietor, or the hotel keeper, who finds his "occupation gone," because science and enterprise have, at great expense, and with all kinds of obstacles and discouragements, succeeded in establishing a mode of conveyance which has in a great degree superseded, and threatens in some instances almost to annihilate, the avocations of these useful and intelligent classes of society.

There was one course open to the clergy for adoption, and which, if adopted, would have proved a far more abundant source of just profit to themselves and of benefit to the public. I am a little surprised that with the known sagacity of the Bishop of London in matters relating to the temporal as well as spiritual interests of the church-his Lordship's unceasing and unwearied attention to all which relates to ecclesiastical things-his watchful care over his clergy, and his liberality in supporting church building and other charitable projects, (and the aptitude with which this shepherd can apply the hook of his crozier to the heels of any of his slipping sheep, is too well known to receive our humble comment,)-and under the bishop's patronage, and large parliamentary influence, a general metropolitan cemetery in connexion with the Establishment was not in the first instance formed. There can be little question but that such a project would have completely succeeded. A certain number of shares

should have been reserved for the metropolitan clergy, fairly distributed, and a certain portion of profit, say one tenth (as tithes are emphatically a sort of clerical fraction) appropriated to the clergy. Apart from the pecuniary profits, an opportunity would have occurred, which may never occur again, to erect a splendid national necropolis. The spirit and capital which the laity of the Establishment invariably bring to bear upon any operation connected with the church, especially if it can be shewn that the working clergy will be benefited by the result, would have ended in the establishment of the finest collection of national monuments, cenotaphs, and mausolea, in the world.

The genius of our young and talented architects and sculptors, would have received an impulse from the constant opportunity of conspicuously exhibiting their works, in fact and substance, instead of on paper, and the whole department of sepulchral designs and monumental architecture would have become entirely renovated. Instead of the "melancholy ranks" of ugly monuments and head-stones, with which our churchyards and burial-grounds now teem, the efforts of genius, combined with the beautiful influences of nature, would ere long soften and mitigate, and at last utterly destroy, the barbarous rites of city grave-digging and burial.

In returning from this digression, it may be stated that the chief, and indeed the only material distinction between the constitution of the Abney Park Cemetery, and that of the other cemeteries recently formed in the vicinity of

London, consists, in the former not being possessed as the latter are, of a special act of parliament and of Episcopal consecration; but the absence of neither of these concomitants, or of both of them, at all affects the stability or the legality of the institution.*

They are, however, so intimately connected with all the constitutional principles of the cemeteries which are subject to them, that the one is necessary to obtain the other.

The argument is altogether in a circle, for, on the one hand, the bishops refuse to consecrate a cemetery, according to the form of the church of England, unless the projectors obtain an act of parliament to carry out their object: and on the other hand, no sooner do the projectors find themselves plunged into all the difficulties of parliamentary tactics, than they are given to understand that the preamble of their bill will be reported "not proved," unless they

*The idea of Episcopal consecration being necessary to churchyards, receives some countenance from a popular error which exists to a great extent; viz. that consecrated ground cannot be devoted to secular purposes, and therefore that bodies deposited there will never be disturbed. To those who entertain this notion, and who prefer an example to a precept, or a fact to a dogma, I would only point out the instances constantly occurring, of churchyards being devoted to profane and secular purposes.

The St. Katharine's Docks partly stand on the site of a churchyard, the bodies interred therein being all disturbed and deposited elsewhere-and at this moment the contents of two churchyards, in the neighbourhood of the Royal Exchange, are being similarly treated-and very many other instances may be quoted.