Church-yards  cannot  be  made  commensurate  to  a  large  and  increasing  population;
the  period  of  decay  and  dissolution  does  not  arrive  fast  enough  in  the  accustomed
mode  of  depositing  bodies  in  the  earth,  to  evacuate  the  ground  for  the  use  of  succeed-
ing claimants.  New  cemeteries  are  to  be  purchased  at  an  enormous  expense  to  the
parish,  and  to  be  used  at  an  increased  expense  to  the  families,  and  at  the  inconvenience
of  their  being  compelled  to  resort  to  very  [359]  incommodious  distances  for  attend-
ance upon  the  offices  of  interment.  Three  additional  burial  grounds  in  this  very
parish  have  been  so  bought.  This  is  the  known  progress  of  things  in  their  ordinary
course ;  and  if  to  this  is  to  be  added  the  general  introduction  of  a  new  mode  of  inter-
ment, which  is  to  insure  to  the  bodies  a  much  longer  possession,  the  evil  will  be
intolerable.  A  comparatively  small  portion  of  the  dead  will  shoulder  out  the  living
and  their  posterity.  The  whole  environs  of  this  metropolis  must  be  surrounded  by  a
circumvallation  of  church-yards,  perpetually  enlarging,  by  becoming  themselves  sur-
charged with  bodies;  if  indeed  land  owners  can  be  found  willing  to  divert  their
ground  from  the  beneficial  uses  of  the  living  to  the  barren  preservation  of  the  dead,
contrary  to  the  humane  maxim  quoted  by  Tully  from  Plato's  Republick,  Quae  terra
fruges  ferre,  et,  ut  mater,  cibos  suppeditare,  possit,  earn  ne  quia  nobis  miuuat  neve
vivus  neve  mortuu8.(a)

If,  therefore,  these  iron  coffins  are  to  bring  additional  charges  upon  parishes  they
ought  to  bring  [360]  with  them  a  proportionate  compensation  ;   upon  all  common

(a)  De  sepulcris  dicit  (Plato)  hsec :  vetat  ex  agro  culto,  eove,  qui  coli  possit  uUam
partem  sumi  sepulcro,  sed  qusa  natura  agri  tantummodo  efficere  possit,  ut  mortuorum
corpora  sine  detriment©  vivorum  recipiat,  ea  potissimum  ut  compleatur :  quse  tei'ra
fruges  ferre,  et,  ut  mater  cibos  suppeditare  possit,  earn  ne  quis  nobis  minuat,  neve
vivus,  neve  mortuus.  Extrui  vetat  sepulcrum  altius  quam  quod  quinque  diebus
homines  quinque  absolverint,  nee  e  lapide  excitari  plus,  nee  imponi,  quam  quod  capiat
laudem  mortni  incisam  quatuor  herois  versibus,  quoa  longos  appellat  Ennius. — Cicero,
De  Leg.  lib.  ii.  a.  27.
