Posted on 07/03/2006 8:25:45 PM PDT by blam
Time to start building catacombs.
I struggled to even understand what I was feeling at reading this article... I have to say your comment just about sums it up for me.
"It is illegal to disturb human remains but Parliament is considering allowing authorities in London to rebury old bones in abandoned Victorian graves deep enough to allow for more coffins - if there are no surviving relatives who object."
Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad.
I don’t know if this is true at least not of older traditional English culture.
Specifically I recall in Shakespeare’s Hamlet when Hamlet returns from England to Denmark he comes upon the grave digger digging up an old grave and removing the bones to make room for Ophelia.
I don’t know if Shakespeare was speaking of English habits or Denmark’s but I would suspect he was describing English habits because he was writing for an English audience.
Since you say that he signed the docs hours before his death, I suspect he didn't run down and do the actual rental. Who ever did is an accomplice. This isn't cute. It's thievery, plain and simple. The flippant tone in which you present it disgusts me.
It would be just my luck to buy a grave and have it go condo on me.
"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed here!
Blest be ye man that spares thes stones
And curst be he that moues my bones."
The company declined to take legal action. Smart move.
They would have had perfectly reasonable grounds to do so. Your (or your relative's) actions were clearly out of line.
I sure hope they don't dig into graves of smallpox victims. There was actually an outbreak of smallpox in 19th century London when some 18th century graves were disturbed.
don’t know if Shakespeare was speaking of English habits or Denmark’s but I would suspect he was describing English habits because he was writing for an English audience.
My grandmother is buried in Tuscany and if the family does not continue to pay a fee, the bones are dug up and placed in an ossury and the site is, I assume, resold.
I never heard about this but, I confess to have wondered if it's possible.
I don’t know what Lokibob’s relative was worth but it seems more reasonable that they would place a lean on the estate for the cost of the Tux.
Is your grandmother buried in a church yard or public cemetery?
I think it is a town cemetary although it could be affiliated with the Church. It is not a churh yard.
I think it is the town.
I thought it might be a church yard, it was the practice (maybe still is) to charge rent for a pew is Anglican churches.
I read about it in the book Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox. The book was released September 2001, and it had incredible timing. It was just before the terrorist attacks on September 11 and a month before the anthrax attacks on the US Senate via the US mail.
Another good book on the topic of biological warfare is The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story. 
Jumping in someone's grave...not nice.
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