e approval of the home
secretary; but the fees for services rendered by ministers of religion and
sextons must be the same in the consecrated as in the unconsecrated part of
the burial ground, and no incumbent of a parish or a clerk may receive any
fee upon burials except for services rendered by them (act of 1900). On
burials under the act of 1880 the same fees are payable as if the burial
had taken place with the service of the Church.

4. A corpse is not the subject of property, nor capable of holding
property. If interred in consecrated ground, it is under the protection of
the ecclesiastical court; if in unconsecrated, it is under that of the
temporal court. In the former case it is an ecclesiastical offence, and in
either case it is a misdemeanour, to disinter or remove it without proper
authority, [v.04 p.0824] whatever the motive for such an act may be. Such
proper authority is (1) a faculty from the ordinary, where it is to be
removed from one consecrated place of burial to another, and this is often
done on sanitary grounds or to meet the wishes of relatives, and has been
done for secular purposes, _e.g._ widening a thoroughfare, by allowing part
of the burial ground (disused) to be thrown into it; but it has been
refused where the object was to cremate the remains, or to transfer them
from a churchyard to a Roman Catholic burial ground; (2) a licence from the
home secretary, where it is desired to transfer remains from one
unconsecrated place of burial to another; (3) by order of the coroner, in
cases of suspected crime. There has been considerable discussion as to the
boundary line of jurisdiction between (1) and (2), and whether the
disinterment of a body from consecrated ground for purposes of
identification falls within, (1) only or within both (1) and (2); and an
attempt by the ecclesiastical court to enforce a penalty for that purpose
without a licence has been prohibited by the temporal court.

See also CHURCHYARD; and, for methods of disposal of the dead, CEMETERY;
CREMATION, and FUNERAL RITES.

AUTHORITIES.--Baker, _Law of Burials_ (6th ed. by Thomas, London, 1898);
Phillimore, _Ecclestastical Law_ (2nd ed., London, 1895); Cripps, _Law of
Church and Clergy_ (6th ed., London, 1886).

(G. G. P.*)

BURIAL SOCIETIES, a form of friendly societies, existing mainly in England,
and constituted for the purpose of providing by voluntary subscriptions,
for insuring money to be paid on the death of a member,