§ LORD WILLIAM GRAHAMSaid, he wished to ask the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on what grounds he had refused to comply with the request of the parishioners of Grantham, that the right of interment in existing vaults in the parish church should be continued to the proprietors of the said vaults, the representation of the said vaults, the representation for closing the burial ground not having yet Council?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYSaid, the medical inspector of the Board of Health had applied to have the churchyard closed on sanitary grounds,; and an order had been made that it should be closed absolutely in two years—namely, on the 1st January, 1857. There had been recent applications to exempt the vaults in the churchyard from the operation of the order; but he did not think that he would be justified in acceding to it. He would not, however, say that same exception might not be made in special cases where sufficient cause for so doing was shown.
§ MR. WALPOLESaid, it had come to his knowledge that many had hardly been used, and that in several of these instances the families were most anxious that further understood it to be the general rule at the Home Office to make no exception in any instance when the churchyard was absolutely closed. He wished to know how far the right hon. Gentleman's discretionary power extended to meet this point?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, a discretionary power existed in the Secretary of State to grant licences for interment in such cases; but it could only be granted upon the report of the medical inspector of the Board of Health. If the application was made before the death of the party to be interred, then an inspector might be sent down, and the ease would be decided on its merits. But if the application was made after death had taken place, then he apprehended there would be no time to make these arrangements.