THE CHRONLCLES OF EARLY
MELBOURNE.
697
" B y Part I. of the Amending Health Act, N o . 310 (6th September, 1867) sec. 3, power was given to the Governor-in-Council to close any cemetery subject to exceptions, and by the 5th section of the Act rights of exclusive burial were saved if claimed as there mentioned. " B y Order-in-Council (28th October, 1867), under the last-mentioned Act, it was ordered that burials in the Old Cemetery should be discontinued, except by persons having rights of burial, w h o claim the right by notice in writing, left at the department of the Public Works within three months. This Order is published in the Gazette of 8th November, 1867. "Application was made to the City Council to allow the foundations of a new wall proposed to be built round the Old Cemetery to be brought out on the footpath, and it appears that a new wall was built by arrangement with the City Council without reference to the parcels actually included in the grants of the Old Cemetery." T h e Episcopalian subdivision of the ground was consecrated 18th April, 1838, by Dr. Broughton, the Metropolitan of N e w South Wales, on the occasion of hisfirstEpiscopal visitation, to Port Phillip; and on 20th October, 1844, a similar ceremonial was performed for the R o m a n Catholic compartment, by Archbishop Pohlding, then in Melbourne from Sydney. In 1839, the Church of England authorities issued a formidable looking Schedule of Diocesan Fees, from which I transcribe the following items, as bearing on the topic under treatment :— Burial in a grave—Clergyman, 2s. ; Parish Clerk, is.; Sexton, 3s. 6d. ; Total, 6s. 6d. Burial in a brick or stone grave—Clergyman, 10s.; Parish Clerk, 5s. 6d.; Sexton, 5s. 6d. ; Total, _£i is. Burial in a vault—Clergyman, ,£i is.; Parish Clerk, 7s. 6d. ; Sexton, 7s. 6d. : Total, ^£1 16s. The proportionate equity of this tariff of required disbursements is not so self-evident as would be desirable, for one cannot well see any just reason why a Clergyman should be paid five-fold as m u c h for reading at a stone grave as at an ordinary one, and more than ten-fold in a vault; or that whilst the Clerk's responses were worth only a shilling in one instance, they should run up to 7s. 6d. in another, without the addition of a single syllable in the latter case. T h e Sexton as the hardest worked, was underpaid in proportion ; but then his grave digging was soft and shallow, and in no way to be compared with similar work at the present day. T h e charges made by other religious denominations were m u c h the same, and except the prayerful portion, whose efficacy I do not presume to question, precious little equivalent was given. In addition to these items the ground had also to be paid for. O n e of the pioneer grave-diggers is, I a m informed, alive in the year of grace, 1884, a resident of Collingwood. His name is William Willis, and though past his seventy-sixth year, is a hearty old buffer, w h o was provident in making provision for the sunset of life, and is reported to be fairly well in. As was to be naturally expected, the tenanting of graves was followed by the erection of tombstones, and other more ostentatious monumental remembrancers. S o m e of the mementoes were fabricated of wood, and those of stone were chiselled out of a material imported from Hobart Town. Vaults after a time followed. T h e most skilful artist in this branch of masonry, was an individual named John Hughes, who stuck to his craft until after the gold discoveries of 1851, when he turned shopkeeper in a general way, and sold his wares at a small tenement in Bourke Street, next to the now so well known " Beehive" corner. H e died in a few years, leaving a wife and son. T h e wife still lives in Fitzroy, and the boy, grown into a curious looking mannikin, was a well-known pauper exhibit in Bourke Street, where with a tin plate, inscribed " T h e Oldest White Child in Melbourne," fastened on his breast, he solicited the alms of the thousands of wayfarers who daily passed him, H e too has followed his father to that country where mendicancy is unknown.
PRIMITIVE FUNERALS AND UNDERTAKERS.
Nothing could well exceed the rough-and-ready style in which some of the early funerals were conducted, before the era of solemn-faced undertakers, glass hearses, nodding plumes, and automatic mutes. T h e coffins were uncouth specimens of clumsy carpentry—small packing-cases—wherein the defunct were thrust, with little or no attempt at sentiment. In one notable instance, an un-coffined
