The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo. SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1886.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 98, 24 April 1886, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo.

SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1886.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong thai needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The resolutions of the meeting of clergymen on the subject of cemetery by-laws have given a useful filip to the sluggish movements of the Council. The cemetery is open, after months of preparation, and yet the Council has not adopted any code of by-laws. The double set of regulations promulgated have tended to confuse outride critics, and it is evident from the remarks of the Mayor that the Councillors themselves are not agreed upon the interpretation to be put upon some of the proposed regulations. The power taken to summarily re open the graves of the poor, after a lapse of five years, and tumble in other bodies on top, is unnecessary at the present stage, and is repugnant to that sense.of reverence which makes " God's acre " sacred to all classes of the people. We are glad to learn, on the word of the Mayor, that it is a mistake to suppose that the poor are to be shunted into some far away corner of the land, separated by a sharply-drawn dividing line from the wealthy and the "respectable ;" but if this was not the original intention of the framers of these by-laws, they have managed very successfully to use language to conceal their thoughts. From the first clause to the last, money is plainly indicated as the key to give admission to the pleasant parts of the ground ; and without money there was no surety of final resting-place to the decaying bones of the tenant in his narrow cell. The six feet of earth supposed to be the inalienable right of all men seemed by no means the secure possession of the poor citizen whose misfortunes made him a profitless occupant of one of the Council's Waikomiti leaseholds. It is true that the fees for burial must be assessed at a rate that will make the Cemetery self-supporting, and provide for its beautification; but that may easily be accomplished without adopting a code of regulations which deal with the ground as if it were improving leaseholds that were offered for disposal instead cf graves. Above all things, there should be no distinction between rich and poor in laying off the graves. Let the humblest person in the community lie, if his lot so fall, side by side with the rich man, his plot being as sacred in the eye of the public, and as secure to the loving hands which tend his mound, as the showy mansoleum of his rich neighbour. We believe that if the resolutions passed by the clergy ensure this they will not have been adopted in vain.