§ Order of the Day for the Second Beading read.
§ EARL FORTESCUE,in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that the Bill in question had already passed through the House of Commons without opposition. The former legal requirements for the burial of persons who had committed felo-de-se? were well known. They had to be interred at the junction of four cross roads, with a stake driven through them, and without any religious service whatever. Most of these had been repealed nearly 50 years ago by an Act which admitted the suicide's corpse to the parish churchyard, but required interment to take place between 9 and 12 at night within 24 hours of the finding of the verdict; and that had been interpreted to mean privately by the police. Besides, a religious service would now be performed over them under the recent Burial Act. The object of the Bill was to allow persons who had committed suicide to be buried by their relatives instead of by the police, and at a reasonable hour instead of at night.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(The Earl Fortescue.)
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.