shall be, and he shall have power, to carry into execution all laws, ordinances, regulations and orders relating to the interment of the dead, subject always to the direction, authority and control of the mayor and aldermen.

SECT. 40. The said registrar shall have the care and custody of all the burying-grounds in the city, and it shall be his duty to keep the same in good repair, and secured from trespassers, and to prevent any and all nuisances therein.

SECT. 41. The said registrar is authorized to give licenses for burials, and the removal of dead bodies from the city, and to point out the place, depth, width and range of all graves to be dug in the several burying-grounds, and to declare the limits in such grounds, within which no grave shall be dug, which in his judgment would be dangerous to the public health.

SECT. 42. No person shall bury or inter, or cause to be buried or interred, any dead body, without having first obtained a license so to do from the city registrar, nor in violation of any direction or order of the said registrar, given in accordance with the preceding section.

SECT. 43. No person shall inter, or cause to be interred, any dead body in a grave which shall be less than three feet deep from the surface of the ground surrounding the grave to the top of the coffin.

SECT. 44. The said registrar shall provide all funeral cars used in the city, and shall have the care and custody of the same. He shall cause them to be kept clean and in good repair, and shall permit no person to use the same except funeral undertakers, appointed by the mayor and aldermen, as provided in the following section.

SECT. 45. In the month of January, annually, the mayor and aldermen shall appoint, for a period of one year, such a number of funeral undertakers as they may deem expedient, who shall be responsible for the decent, orderly and faithful management of the funerals undertaken by them, and for a strict compliance with the ordinances of the city in this behalf. Each undertaker may employ porters, of a discreet and sober character, to assist him, and shall be accountable

whenever a vacancy occurs, by concurrent vote of the two branches of the city council, a city registrar, who shall hold his office until a successor is appointed, or he is removed, and who shall be removable at the pleasure of the city council.

SECT. 2. The said city registrar shall perform the duties required by law to be performed by town and city clerks, or town and city registrars, in relation to births, marriages and deaths; and he shall have the custody of all records, books and papers, belonging to the city, relating to these matters.

SECT. 3. The said city registrar shall, in the month of January, annually, report to the city council a statement of the number of births, of intentions of marriage entered according to law, of marriages solemnized, and of deaths recorded, during the previous year, with such other information, and suggestions in relation thereto, as he may deem useful; and he shall perform such other duties as may be required of him by the mayor and aldermen or the city council.

SECT. 4. The said city registrar is authorized to employ one or more assistants, to act under his authority and direction, in obtaining information concerning all matters which may legally come under his superintendence.

SECT. 5. The said city registrar shall receive, in full compensation for all his services, under the general laws and the ordinances of the city, such salary, and such additional allowance for necessary clerk hire and assistants, as the city council may, from time to time, determine.

SECT. 6. The compensation required by law to be paid for obtaining and returning to the city registrar the information required concerning persons deceased, shall be understood as included in the fees, provided to be paid to undertakers, in the fifty-first section of an ordinance relating to public health, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty; and this section shall be considered as part of the agreement in accepting office.

for their conduct; and said undertakers and porters shall always be removable at the pleasure of the mayor and aldermen. No person not appointed as aforesaid, shall undertake the management of any funeral.

SECT. 46. No person shall bury or inter, or cause to be buried or interred, any dead body at any other time of the day than between sun-rising and sun-setting, except when otherwise ordered by the city registrar. No bell shall be tolled in the city of Boston, at any funeral, without a special permit therefor from the mayor. The corpse of every person of ten years of age and upward, shall be conveyed to the grave or tomb in a funeral car, to be drawn by not more than two horses: provided, however, that, on extraordinary occasions, permis sion may be obtained from the mayor and aldermen, on application for that purpose, to dispense with any of the provisions of this section. SECT. 47. No graves shall be opened or dug in any of the burying. grounds in the city, excepting at East Boston and South Boston, unless by permission of the mayor and aldermen, or the city registrar.

SECT. 48. No person shall remove, or cause to be removed from the city, any dead body, for interment, without having first obtained the license of the city registrar.

SECT. 49. No person shall remove any dead body, or the remains of any such body, from any of the graves or tombs in this city, or shall disturb, break up or remove any dead body in any tomb or grave, without the license of the city registrar.

SECT. 50. No grave or tomb shall be opened, from the first day of June to the first day of October, except for the purpose of interring the dead, without the special permission of the mayor and aldermen, or the city registrar.

SECT. 51. The following fees shall be paid for services in the exe cution of this ordinance, to wit: to the city, fifty cents for every child under the age of ten years, and one dollar for every person of the age of ten years or upwards, buried, and twenty-five cents per mile for any distance that a funeral car may be sent out of the city, which, together with the fees for graves and tombs, are to be collected by the undertaker in each and every case, from the families of the persons interred. The undertakers shall be entitled to receive the following fees, and no more, namely:-for digging a grave eight feet deep, and covering the same, two dollars and fifty cents; for digging a grave six feet six inches deep, one dollar and fifty cents; for digging a grave five feet deep, one dollar and twenty-five cents; and for one four feet deep, one dollar. For opening and closing a tomb, seventy-five cents. For attendance and service at the house of a person deceased, in collecting and returning chairs, and other service, one dollar. For every family notified by request, five cents. For tolling a bell by special permission, fifty cents. For placing a corpse in a coffin, when requested, and removing the same down stairs, one dollar. For the use of one horse in the car, and leader, one dollar and fifty cents; and for each additional horse, seventy-five cents; and twentyfive cents each mile in addition for every horse attached to the car, when the same is sent out of the city. For carrying a corpse from the house to the car, and from the car to the grave, tomb or vault, and placing the same therein, and closing the same, including the assist

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ance of the funeral porters, three dollars; and the same fees shall be allowed and paid in all cases of removing a corpse from any public vault, and reburying or entombing the same, as are allowed and paid for buring or entombing a corpse in any grave, vault or tomb, as aforesaid. For the burial of children, under ten years of age, to wit: for digging a grave three and a half feet deep, seventy-five cents; for service at the house, one dollar; for tolling a bell by special permission, fifty cents; for carrying the corpse to the carriage, and from the carriage to the place of deposit, one dollar; and for the use of a pall, twenty-five cents. And when a corpse shall be carried into a church for a funeral service, the undertaker may make an additional charge of two dollars; and when the ground shall be frozen, the charge for digging graves may be augmented, at the discretion of the city registrar. And it shall be the duty of the several undertakers to pay over, monthly, to the city registrar, the fees received by them on account of the city, provided for and established in this section.

SECT. 52. The mayor and aldermen are authorized to make and adopt any regulations in relation to the interment of the dead which they may deem expedient, not inconsistent with the foregoing provisions.

SECT. 53. Every person offending against any of the provisions of this ordinance, in relation to which a penalty is not prescribed by the laws of the Commonwealth, shall forfeit and pay a sum not less than five dollars, nor more than twenty dollars, for each offence.

VII. CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE MEDICAL SOCIETY. BOSTON, Oct. 1, 1849. To the Councillors of the Massachusetts Medical Society :

GENTLEMEN,-Commissioners have been appointed by the State, under a resolve of the Legislature, passed May 2, 1849, "to prepare and report to the next General Court, a plan for a sanitary survey of the State, embracing a statement of such facts and suggestions as they may think proper to illustrate the subject;" and they desire to avail themselves of all the information within their power to obtain in relation to the object of their appointment. They would feel themselves under special obligations to the Councillors of the Massachusetts Medical Society

and

First, for any suggestions as to the objects of such a survey;
Second, as to a plan by which these objects may be accomplished;

Third, for any facts or statements which may illustrate the subject. Among other matters, the Commissioners desire to present, in their report, a systematic nomenclature of diseases and causes of death, which shall meet general approbation, and serve as a simple classification for sanitary and statistical purposes; and as a standard of comparison of the different parts of the State with each other and with other places. In the enclosure is a report of a plan recommended by the National Medical Convention, at Philadelphia, in 1847. This nomenclature was prepared on the basis of that used by the Registrar General of Births, Marriages and Deaths, in England, and is fully

explained in his Fourth and Seventh Annual Reports. We would thank you to inform us how far it meets your approbation, and what alterations, if any, you would propose.

In behalf of the Commissioners,

I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,

LEMUEL SHATTUCK, Chairman.

A letter of a similar purport was addressed to the Consulting Physi cians of the city of Boston. The replies are subjoined :

BOSTON, Oct. 9, 1849. To LEMUEL SHATTUCK, Esq., Chairman of the Sanitary Commission: SIR,-In conformity with your request, I have laid before the Board of Consulting Physicians of the city of Boston, your communication on the subject of a sanitary survey of the State. The Board having been informed that the Councillors of the Massachusetts Medical Society have appointed a committee, who will probably make a laborious investigation of the subject, have thought it best to propose to that committee to see the results of their labors, to which they will either give their approval, or will invite a conference on such points as it might be useful to discuss.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. C. WARREN.

To LEMUEL SHATTUCK, Esq., Chairman of the Board of Commissioners on a Plan for a Sanitary Survey of the State :

SIR,-Your communication of the date of October 1st, addressed to the Councillors of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and asking their advice in respect to the proposed sanitary survey, was received on the 3d, and then referred by the Counsellors to the undersigned, as a committee for consideration and answer.

The commissioners, being appointed to furnish a plan of a sanitary survey merely, have limited their inquiries of the Medical Society to three points. They only ask to be advised as to

The objects of the proposed sanitary survey,

The plan by which the survey shall be conducted,

And some facts which may serve to show the practicability and usefulness of the survey.

The objects of the sanitary survey, and some of the reasons which should influence the Legislature in authorizing it, have been stated at considerable length in two memorials which have been presented to the Legislature, one in 1848, by the American Statistical Associa tion, printed as House document No. 16, of that year, and the other by the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1849, and printed as House document No. 66, of that year.

It is the object of the proposed survey to ascertain the hygienic resources and influences of the State;

To know the amount of vitality, of life and health enjoyed by the

people of this Commonwealth;

To learn whether there are any differences in regard to life and health among our people, and what those differences are.

Even without inquiry, it is manifest that the health, strength, and length of life differ very widely in different persons.

And it is suspected, though not demonstrated, that these differences exist in regard to whole communities living in different places or regions, and in regard to different classes living together.

It is, then, to remove or to confirm this last suspicion that the sanitary survey is asked to inquire

Whether there are differences of vitality-of life and health, among the people in the different parts and classes of the State;

In the interior and on the seacoast;

In the eastern counties exposed to the east winds, and in the western counties, which are protected by the high lands from these winds; In the high and mountainous districts, and in the lower and level towns;

In the dry and level towns, and in those which are low and marshy, as in the valley of the Concord River;

On the borders of ponds and streams which vary but seldom in fulness, and on the borders of artificial mill-ponds and streams that are interrupted by dams, and which, varying constantly in fulness, leave their muddy margins bare for the exhalation of vapors, perhaps of miasms; In the dense cities and in the open country, with pure air;

In houses that are well ventilated, and those that are crowded with occupants and without the means of obtaining pure air for respiration. The survey proposes to ascertain, whether there are differences of vitality in the various kinds of occupation,

Among those engaged in agriculture, in manufactures, in the mechanic arts, in navigation, trade and commerce, the learned professions, &c. There may be differences of life and health in different domestic conditions, of prosperity and adversity, of wealth and poverty.

The tone of health may be higher or lower and the length of life greater or less among families whose dwellings are variously situated, on dry or wet sites; on natural or on artificial land; in the vicinity of, or at a distance from, the seats of decomposing animal or vegetable matters, as burial-grounds, cemeteries, slaughter-houses, barn-yards, cesspools, depositories of offal, manufactories of glue, leather or chemicals, laboratories, &c.

These differences of locality, circumstance, and condition, suggest themselves to the undersigned as worthy of investigation in regard to their sanitary influences. But they are not all; more might be mentioned, and the progress of the survey will probably discover many others that have not been exposed or even suspected.

In those countries where such a sanitary survey has been made, life and health are found to be different in their various localities, circumstances and conditions; and in some of them these differences are very great.

Some partial inquiries, and the general belief of those who are most familiar with sickness and suffering, afford good ground for the suspicion that similar differences exist here; and it is important for the people to know whether it is so or not, and to what extent.

The facts of health and sickness, of life and mortality, can be ascertained by the sanitary survey as certainly and as easily as the various conditions of agriculture were by the agricultural survey, which have been effected by the authority of the Legislature and laid