This item picked by the Mercury from the Journal de Paris is a fine example of Napoleon Buonaparte’s propaganda machine. It was not for another fifty years that England began to move its town-centre church graveyards to purpose built cemeteries on the outskirts of settlements, owing to fears of cholera and itinerant tramps.
“The King of Spain has followed the examples of all other enlightened sovereigns. No persons can in future be buried in churches in Spain, and all church-yards are in future to be at some distance from cities, towns, or villages. England is now the only country in Europe, where the barbarous usage still continues of burying persons in churches and in church-yards, situate in the middle of the most populous streets, and where the dead have the privilege to infect and poison the living. This is another evidence of the vilisation* of the nation of boxing shop-keepers.”
Stamford Mercury 24 August, 1804.
*presumably this is a ‘dig’ at our ci-vilisation!