but as I have remarked that undertakers invariably
use the latter, I have long inferred that its
enunciation is, in some inexplicable way,
considered to be more palatable to survivors. Be
this as it may, an interment had detained the
clerk, whose name I have not the pleasure of
knowing, but whom I mentally christened Mr.
Dawe. He was a little man, dressed in black,
with the conventional white tie, and his daily
occupation had left its trace both upon his bearing
and his voice. The one was sympathetic,
and the other soft, and his general demeanour
was that of sparing your feelings. Both
communicative and intelligent, he never wearied,
either of ministering to my inquisitiveness, or
accompanying me on my rounds, but he was
consistent throughout, and furnished me with
statistics in a manner which impressively said
all flesh is grass. The conservatory to the right,
Mr. Dawe informs me, has only been in existence
this year, and was started by the cemetery
company, to supply an increasing demand for flowers
on graves: a demand which the adjacent nursery
gardeners were not always able to meet. Would
I like to see the inside of it?

Not greatly different from other buildings of
the same character: flowers, blooming in their
several pots, and the usual paraphernalia of a
greenhouse lying about. Each of these plants
is destined to be transferred to a grave, but as
the end for which they are tended and nurtured
is their only speciality, we leave the greenhouse,
and proceed up the centre road. Those wooden
"sleepers" reared against the wall are of seasoned
wood, and are used during the formation of
earthworks and in building brick graves. On our
way to the chapel, disturbed neither by the
constant whizzing past of trains on the divers
lines adjacent, nor by the incessant "Crack, crack"
from the riflemen at practice on Wormwood
Scrubs, Mr. Dawe informs me that the
cemetery is vested in a joint-stock company of
proprietors, that it has been in existence more
than thirty years, and that from fifty to sixty
thousand persons are interred herein. This he
considers a low estimate, as there are some
eighteen thousand graves, and an average of
three or four bodies in each. How many burials
does he consider the rule per week? Perhaps
seven a day in summer, and eight in winter;
he has known as many as twelve in one winter's
day, but that was exceptional. No, this cemetery
never inters on Sundays. It used to do so
formerly, but has given up the practice for
years; the Roman Catholic one adjoining it to
the west does, and also, he believes, the one
at Willesden; and if I should ever attend the
chapel of Lock Hospital, and hear of, or see,
irreverent burial processions passing on the
road, perhaps I will remember that they are
not coming here, but to one of the two grounds
adjacent.

What is the size of the cemetery? Well,
between seventy and eighty acres. Forty-seven
acres are at present in actual use, but thirty
additional acres have been recently consecrated, the
party wall having just been taken down; and
workmen are now employed in making roads and
laying out the ground. A portion of the original
forty-seven acres is unconsecrated, and
appropriated to dissenters. This portion has its
separate chapel and catacombs; and a dissenting
minister, provided by the company, attends the
funerals therein. Any other minister preferred
by the friends of the deceased is permitted to
officiate, and, if desired, the body may be
consigned to earth without any ceremony. Perhaps
I have read in the papers of the Indian princess
brought here the other day, and whose
remains some of her Sikh servants wished to
have burnt? Well, this was a case in point.
The coffin was placed in the dissenters'
catacomb, and, though a speech was delivered
which Mr. Dawe, though not speaking the Sikh
tongue, believes to have been on the virtues of
the deceased, the burial is described in the
company's registry book by the words "no ceremony."
It was a large funeral with many carriages. No,
not the largest he had seen, perhaps one of them;
but then he had only been here a few months,
and it is in place of the superintendent, who is
away, that he is acting as my guide. The most
numerously-attended interment coming under
his own observation, wasthat of the secretary
to the Young Men's Christian Association; and
the next that of Sir Cresswell Cresswell, who
lies under the plain slab before us. There has
not been time to procure a monument, explains
Mr. Dawe, but you will be interested to learn,
sir, that the poor gentleman came up here and
selected that bit of ground for himself, not ten
days before he met with the accident from the
effects of which he died. What constitutes a
dissenter in the eyes of the company? Well,
nobody can be buried in consecrated ground
unless the "committal service" is read by a
clergyman of the Church of England. That
is the only stipulation, and other rites may be,
and sometimes are, previously performed
elsewhere. The company has nothing to do with
that: only, if the church service be objected to,
the burial must be in the dissenters' or
unconsecrated portion of the cemetery. Are there
any quaint out-of-the-way epitaphs or inscriptions
on any of the tombs? No, Mr. Dawe does
not know of one. You see nothing can be
inscribed upon any tomb until it has been
submitted to, and approved by, a sub-committee of
the directors, which meets every month; and any
ludicrous or unseemly proposition would be at
once refused. Does he know of many instances
in which it has been fruitlessly attempted to put
up questionable inscriptions? Of none, and he
believes that an out-of-the-way country churchyard
might be found which contains more of
these curiosities of bad taste than have ever been
even "tried on" since the formation of the
cemetery. This, Mr. Dawe attributes to the
spread of education, and to the cemetery being
devoted principally to the well-to-do classes.
Nothing would have tempted me to shake a
standard of taste shared in by so many people
besides this worthy clerk; so, agreeing that the
possession of money invariably elevates the