THE DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. various subjects, both lny and professional, cropperiodically, almost with the regularity of the seasons. The large gooseberry, the three-legged calf, the servant girl pest, married life on ?300 per annum, are stock subjects when
There
ping
are
up
Parliament is up, and with which
Brighton,
London
is gone to the moors or to even the Times itself
the columns of
padded. Cobweb a3 a cure for malarious fevers, the prophylactic against, cholera, mercurial ointment as a preventive of the pitting of small-pox, burnt sugar for certain ophthalmic affections, giving physic via the nostril?, cum multis aliis, are constantly appearing and re-appearing in the Medical Journals, the writers at least apparently regarding their contributions as novelties ; although those among
is sometimes use
of salt
as a
who have
us
or
attained the climacteric lustrum will
than
a
dozen times often
too
uncon-
undetected imitation.
pretensions to Byron has told
that all one
even
noticed similar proposals half
For, unfortunately, originality is but
before.
scious,
not
have
probably
Byron, years ago, remarked originality are ridiculous, and a wiser " there is nothing new under the us,
sun." The most recent novelty of both
lay
and
professional journals on cremation, and
at homo is the "revival" of the discussion
of the proper method of disposal of the dead. ber
rightly,
incineration of the dead
was
If
many years since, about the time Victoria was first the pages of the Lancet.
remem-
we
advocated in
England
Queen, in
Then two or three years ago, cremation again came to the front, under the advocacy of no less an authority than Sir Henry Thompson. Now we have Mr. Seymour Haden as the champion of what he terms burial, so as to fulfil the sentence which we are taught to believe was pronounced by the Almighty,?" Dust thou
art, and into dust thou shalt return."
This is to be
accomplished, as perhaps many of our readers have already learned, by dispensing with coffins, and by burying bodies in "
The soil light permeable material, such as wicker work. at our feet," says Mr. Haden, " is the most potent antiseptic known, and the readiest of application, and that by a combination of forces inherent in it, which might well appear contradictory, but for the wonderful purposes they are destined to effect; it is resolvent and reformative as well, that which under the influence of the air was putrefaction, in the earth
some
is resolution ; that which was offensive becomes inoffensive; . ? decay a process of transmutation method of burial as this, bodies would be resolved
that which was
With such in
five,
or
iutervuls
as
a
interval, or at might bury again
at the most six, years, and at that much
longer
as
we
please,
we
Apeil 1, and
THE DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.
1875.] in the same
again
ground,
with
other effect than to
no
increase its substance and raise its surface." It is not,
going
on
however,
at home
our
intention to
in the debate
join
for the twentieth time
now
the best
regnrding disposal of the dead. For we believe that the unwholesome practice of keeping a corpse in the house with living people, until it is far advanced in putrefaction, and the scarcely less defensible procedure of endeavouring, by means of bricks, wood, and lead, to retard that putrefaction when the method of the
corpse is
once
committed to the grave,
in the mind of the British nation that Uaden or any
are
so
firmly implanted nothing Mr. Seymour
else may say will cause radical
one
or general (like dustoor in India) "hangs upon us with a weight, heavy as frost, and deep almost as life." But wo have in the foregoing at least fashioned a peg, on which a few remarks regarding methods of burial in this country may be hung. Speaking broadly, (and without entering into the innovations of classes) as every one knows, the Hindoos burn their dead, the Mahomedans bury without any coffin, the Europeans bury with a coffin, and the Parsees expose their dead to be eaten by
"For custom"
alteration.
birds of prey.
With
all these different systems
going
on
around us, it may perhaps be worthwhile enquiring which is best in this country ? To commence with the Hindoo system.
believe the fiat of the creator, but into those still more subtle, ultimate elements, from which the dust itself is derived. Disof in this manner, there is not even the melancholy imagination that the dear departed, dead and turned to clgy, may
posed like
say,
Cscsar
imperial
reference "
The dust
There is
stop
a
hole to
keep the wind by fire, we
the dead thus consumed
to
we
indeed,
tread upon
was
once
the result of
as
a
away ! With cannot
even
alive!" well-conducted funeral
pyre, utter annihilation of the substance do either harm
a
putrefaction. consumption
It has in
or
body. It can never again as good, either by resolution or by Of course,
short ceased to exist.
is not thus
complete at every funeral pile. At most Hindoo burning places, bones half destroyed by five may be seen in numbers, and it not unfrequently happens that during the process of burning there are some unpleasant effluvia. This, however, is simply the result of want of precaution, or of want of fuel, and is therefore only, or at least chiefly, noticed at the funeral rites of the poor and needy. With sufficient wood the destruction may always be rendered as complete as above described.* Now let us turn to a Mahomedan burial ground. Here the corpse is put into the earth, very much in the manner advocated by Mr. Haden, and it appears rather surprising that that author in his paper on the proper method of the disposal has not prominently noticed the Mahomedan
The
of the dead
corated with
system. But Mussulman graves are generally shallow, often not filled with earth, but covered by a flat stone. The yards
body dressed in its best garments, and after being degarlands of flowers, is placed in a sitting posture, and surrounded with piles of wood ; the richer classes using the scented sandal wood. Then, if the deceased bo a noble or native magnate of some parts of India, the heir first breaks open the skull of the corpse with a hatchet, after which lie lights the funeral pyre. If there is a sufficient quantity of wood, and the wood is a good fuel wood, and has been artistically arranged, nothing offensive is presented to either the senso of smell or vision. The devouring element," (and "
scarcely this
in any exhibition of its powers does it better deserve term) rapidly envelopes the different faggots
penny-a-liner's
until the whole is
idea,
vivid
a
mass
the beholder
of blaze, giving very " suttee" could not have entailed a
that the rite of
death. Even should the or very prolonged the flames and his between to wind the allow looker-on pass ho nothing, except, perhaps, the odour u
105
very
painful
distinguishes nobility, of burning wood, and he
sees nothing, except fire. Above the blazo and below the smoke, when the latter occurs from damp wood, thoro iB a bright ethereal glimmer, somewhat
resembling, but moro the distant atmosphere
by far, day. This,
diamond-like on a
hot
the appearance were
of
incineration
practice at home, would probably bo of the laws of the rareregarded by the hoi polloi, (innocent the earthly tenement. from the escaping faction of air) as spirit But the natives, less sentimental than even the Briton in nor popular theory on the such matters, have neither scientific this glimmer subsides, and the subject. Then, as minutes pass, red a is glowing mass, which in flame lessens until the wholo until nothing remains but an it as were, melts and its turn sinks, The body has changed ashes. white of insignificant heap greyish to be discovered, as little ?o something else, as different, and as A abode. pyre, big as that of the soul in its new Pythagorean even
to become the
ashes of the dead.
Sardanapalus, affords no protection to the Everything lias gone, not perhaps to dust, as
we arc
taught
to
also
rule without enclosure, and are the habitations wild cats and other animals, by which not wolves, jackals, unfrequently the dead are disinterred and devoured. As a general rule, a Mahomedan burial-ground only requires the with shrivelled presence of few hideous looking fukeers, are
as a
of
"
skins and matted
locks,"
render it
to
into which any For, unlike the English
pleasant places stroll. to
interest, either the
mounds,
senses or
there
one
of the most
un-
happily-minded person may church-yard, there is nothing
the sentiments.
There
are
no
tomb stones
(recording virtues, often not found out during life). There are no neatly kept walks or flowers; there is, in short, nothing which would'cause us to venerate the place, as we do our grave-yards at home, " where the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." But grave-yards in this country set apart for Europeans are not always pleasant places, or much better than the neighbouring Mahomedan burial-ground. English grounds grassy
are
no
neglected, overgrown with weeds, without properly enclosed, and in other ways a sanitary drainage, Then under our system of buiialj nuisance. and eyesore these grounds what a mass of slowly putrefactive matter are
too
often not
The dead are enclosed in lead?the richer more impervious the sepulchre-the lead is the the person and the masonry in enclosed in wood, the wood in masonry, is made to retard that change, effort earth. In short, every even to the or later, must come, corpse in the must contain!
which,
sooner
centre of
a
pyramid. Every
endeavour is
used,
so
that if in
Municipalities, Magistrates, or others have at time9 laid down a law, The a pauper pyre. so many pounds of wood ehall be sufficient for on the kind of wood exact amount of wood required will however depend ?
that on
its condition, and on the
season
of the year.
(
THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.
106 future years the body
disinterred, the lines of Scott, in the "Lay of the last Minstrel," might be applicable :? Before their eyes the wizard lay, As if he'd not been dead a day." The Parsee method is exactly the reverse! It aims at and accomplishes the rapid destruction of the body. Any one visiting Bombay, or other localities where worshippers of the sun" most do congregate, may, from some convenient coign of vantage, observe large round massive masonry towers. were
ever
"
friends, feeling in the
poet
or
are
the
"
Parsee towers of silence." and above
well,
is said to
be
latter
laid the Parsee
are
a
an
dead,
Beneath
the tower
iron frame work.
On the
and before the bearers well
top, the corpse is attacked by flights of vultures, always remaining in the immediate neighbourhood, hungry and craving for their hoirible feast. The birds fight and struggle over their prey, and it is stated that in a very few minutes scarcely a vestige of the body remains, bones or any other parts not consumed by the vultures falling into the well beneath the tower. As we possess our family tombs and vaults, so the Parsees possess private "towers of silence," although we believe there are public ones for the poorer depart
from
the
Zoroastrians. on one
side,
think it
we
will be admitted that to the Hindoo system must be
credited
the most forcible
sanitary arguments. Certain subjects, as arithmetic and geometry for instance, are in themselves so conclusive as to receive ready assent, from all. And we think, if sentiment is set aside, the system of cremation might be almost added to the above category. sensible objection to cremation in
a
view.
If,
for instance, Colonel
I'liayre
It is true that there is a
medico-legal point
had died and been burnt,
could have criminated the Guikwar.
post-mortem
of
But
we
doubt if any objection of this nature should be allowed to over-ride the manifest sanitary advantages of the plan, for
they are ever present, while exhumation in cases of poisoning is comparatively rare. Mr. Seymour Haden also advances another objection in cost and waste of fuel. The cost, however, is not so great in India as it would be in England, and sometime ago was reduced to a minimum of several annas by tho use incinerator" invented by a whilehome sanitary of a patent official (not professional) of Bombay, of which, however, the Hindoo community declined taking advantage. There remains therefore tho sentimental objection. The idea is that the physical form, shape and beauty should be preserved after death ; that the body should be protected from worms, which must however some time or other find their way through both lead, "
wood, and urn
or
lies.
feeling
masonry.
There is also the wish that
some
funeral
other monument should mark the place where the body
But
wo
are
so sure
none
regard
evinced with
to
that much of the sentimental the dead
is
aught
else than
the result of the iron law of custom or dustoor ! The neglected condition of burial-grounds has already been referred to, many of which
(although improvements have taken place during years) certainly do not evidence any great care on the part of the living. It has been stated that the natives, of the Andamans express joy by weeping and wailing ; and, doubtless, recent
it has fallen to the lot of some of our readers to 8ame
thing,over
we are
of
"
the
"
funeral cold, meats."
sorry to say, not
a
witness the
There are,
indeed,
few who witness the demise of their
:?
Charlotte, when
she
Like
his
saw
Borne before her
on a
body,
shutter,
well conducted person, on cutting bread and butter."
a
Went In truth
we are
that too much has been
disposed to think argument.
made of the sentimental the
living,
not
The
latter is most
use
is for
which is "the
Times,
the words of the
utilitarianism which would
extreme
great question
What method of disposing of the to the sanitary benefit and advantage of the
for the dead.
former? or, to
turn
to
the best account
the last ounce of of
departed humanity" ? We have the choice vaults, of burial in wicker without any envelope, of burning, and of giving the
embalming,
of burial in massive
cages, or corpse up to the tender mercies of birds of prey.
We cannot
help thinking that burning possesses most sanitary advantages, particularly so during epidemic seasons, when the pestilence " Bushes as a storm over half th' astonished isle," "And strews with sudden If there be
IsTow, putting sentiment altogether
no
relatives, with scarcely less absence of fitting composure displayed by Charlotte Werther, and which lias been described by the of their
even
follows
"
These
1, 1875.
than the
case
us
[Apeil
spread
any
carcases
truth in various
the land."
accepted theories
of the
of
tion of
epidemic diseases, it must be admitted that destructhe poisoned body by fire is the safest method for
the survivors. And what
indeed,
to
the
dead,
after "life's fitful fever" is past,
it matter ? Unless to
can
these, holding
the
certainly
unscientific belief of the body rising again from the grave, in the veritable flesh and blood
as
it
was
placed
in the grave,
it matter what becomes of the corpse, when the soul has passed into that thick and blinding fog for ever and
what
ever
can
hanging
over
both the
fatally
easy descent to A vermis and
the arduous ascent to Paradise ? The lowest of our
whispers
eternity, for it is not so very far from any of us; and if spiritualism were not the humbug," it is, we would a of course medium," if the method through propose asking, of tlio disposal of the dead in this world matters to those in eternity ? so far away yet so near to us ! We fancy the answer it matters naught!" At the best then, the pomp would be and circumstances of mourning coaches and mutes, of marble tablets and mausoleums, arc simply testimonials to selfishness, or deference to the despotism of dustoor ! This Ave shall all some day discover, when our lamenting friends and relatives may reach
"
"
"
say? "
Close up his eyes, and draw the curtains And let us all to meditation."
close,
There
ping
are
up
Parliament is up, and with which
Brighton,
London
is gone to the moors or to even the Times itself
the columns of
padded. Cobweb a3 a cure for malarious fevers, the prophylactic against, cholera, mercurial ointment as a preventive of the pitting of small-pox, burnt sugar for certain ophthalmic affections, giving physic via the nostril?, cum multis aliis, are constantly appearing and re-appearing in the Medical Journals, the writers at least apparently regarding their contributions as novelties ; although those among
is sometimes use
of salt
as a
who have
us
or
attained the climacteric lustrum will
than
a
dozen times often
too
uncon-
undetected imitation.
pretensions to Byron has told
that all one
even
noticed similar proposals half
For, unfortunately, originality is but
before.
scious,
not
have
probably
Byron, years ago, remarked originality are ridiculous, and a wiser " there is nothing new under the us,
sun." The most recent novelty of both
lay
and
professional journals on cremation, and
at homo is the "revival" of the discussion
of the proper method of disposal of the dead. ber
rightly,
incineration of the dead
was
If
many years since, about the time Victoria was first the pages of the Lancet.
remem-
we
advocated in
England
Queen, in
Then two or three years ago, cremation again came to the front, under the advocacy of no less an authority than Sir Henry Thompson. Now we have Mr. Seymour Haden as the champion of what he terms burial, so as to fulfil the sentence which we are taught to believe was pronounced by the Almighty,?" Dust thou
art, and into dust thou shalt return."
This is to be
accomplished, as perhaps many of our readers have already learned, by dispensing with coffins, and by burying bodies in "
The soil light permeable material, such as wicker work. at our feet," says Mr. Haden, " is the most potent antiseptic known, and the readiest of application, and that by a combination of forces inherent in it, which might well appear contradictory, but for the wonderful purposes they are destined to effect; it is resolvent and reformative as well, that which under the influence of the air was putrefaction, in the earth
some
is resolution ; that which was offensive becomes inoffensive; . ? decay a process of transmutation method of burial as this, bodies would be resolved
that which was
With such in
five,
or
iutervuls
as
a
interval, or at might bury again
at the most six, years, and at that much
longer
as
we
please,
we
Apeil 1, and
THE DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.
1875.] in the same
again
ground,
with
other effect than to
no
increase its substance and raise its surface." It is not,
going
on
however,
at home
our
intention to
in the debate
join
for the twentieth time
now
the best
regnrding disposal of the dead. For we believe that the unwholesome practice of keeping a corpse in the house with living people, until it is far advanced in putrefaction, and the scarcely less defensible procedure of endeavouring, by means of bricks, wood, and lead, to retard that putrefaction when the method of the
corpse is
once
committed to the grave,
in the mind of the British nation that Uaden or any
are
so
firmly implanted nothing Mr. Seymour
else may say will cause radical
one
or general (like dustoor in India) "hangs upon us with a weight, heavy as frost, and deep almost as life." But wo have in the foregoing at least fashioned a peg, on which a few remarks regarding methods of burial in this country may be hung. Speaking broadly, (and without entering into the innovations of classes) as every one knows, the Hindoos burn their dead, the Mahomedans bury without any coffin, the Europeans bury with a coffin, and the Parsees expose their dead to be eaten by
"For custom"
alteration.
birds of prey.
With
all these different systems
going
on
around us, it may perhaps be worthwhile enquiring which is best in this country ? To commence with the Hindoo system.
believe the fiat of the creator, but into those still more subtle, ultimate elements, from which the dust itself is derived. Disof in this manner, there is not even the melancholy imagination that the dear departed, dead and turned to clgy, may
posed like
say,
Cscsar
imperial
reference "
The dust
There is
stop
a
hole to
keep the wind by fire, we
the dead thus consumed
to
we
indeed,
tread upon
was
once
the result of
as
a
away ! With cannot
even
alive!" well-conducted funeral
pyre, utter annihilation of the substance do either harm
a
putrefaction. consumption
It has in
or
body. It can never again as good, either by resolution or by Of course,
short ceased to exist.
is not thus
complete at every funeral pile. At most Hindoo burning places, bones half destroyed by five may be seen in numbers, and it not unfrequently happens that during the process of burning there are some unpleasant effluvia. This, however, is simply the result of want of precaution, or of want of fuel, and is therefore only, or at least chiefly, noticed at the funeral rites of the poor and needy. With sufficient wood the destruction may always be rendered as complete as above described.* Now let us turn to a Mahomedan burial ground. Here the corpse is put into the earth, very much in the manner advocated by Mr. Haden, and it appears rather surprising that that author in his paper on the proper method of the disposal has not prominently noticed the Mahomedan
The
of the dead
corated with
system. But Mussulman graves are generally shallow, often not filled with earth, but covered by a flat stone. The yards
body dressed in its best garments, and after being degarlands of flowers, is placed in a sitting posture, and surrounded with piles of wood ; the richer classes using the scented sandal wood. Then, if the deceased bo a noble or native magnate of some parts of India, the heir first breaks open the skull of the corpse with a hatchet, after which lie lights the funeral pyre. If there is a sufficient quantity of wood, and the wood is a good fuel wood, and has been artistically arranged, nothing offensive is presented to either the senso of smell or vision. The devouring element," (and "
scarcely this
in any exhibition of its powers does it better deserve term) rapidly envelopes the different faggots
penny-a-liner's
until the whole is
idea,
vivid
a
mass
the beholder
of blaze, giving very " suttee" could not have entailed a
that the rite of
death. Even should the or very prolonged the flames and his between to wind the allow looker-on pass ho nothing, except, perhaps, the odour u
105
very
painful
distinguishes nobility, of burning wood, and he
sees nothing, except fire. Above the blazo and below the smoke, when the latter occurs from damp wood, thoro iB a bright ethereal glimmer, somewhat
resembling, but moro the distant atmosphere
by far, day. This,
diamond-like on a
hot
the appearance were
of
incineration
practice at home, would probably bo of the laws of the rareregarded by the hoi polloi, (innocent the earthly tenement. from the escaping faction of air) as spirit But the natives, less sentimental than even the Briton in nor popular theory on the such matters, have neither scientific this glimmer subsides, and the subject. Then, as minutes pass, red a is glowing mass, which in flame lessens until the wholo until nothing remains but an it as were, melts and its turn sinks, The body has changed ashes. white of insignificant heap greyish to be discovered, as little ?o something else, as different, and as A abode. pyre, big as that of the soul in its new Pythagorean even
to become the
ashes of the dead.
Sardanapalus, affords no protection to the Everything lias gone, not perhaps to dust, as
we arc
taught
to
also
rule without enclosure, and are the habitations wild cats and other animals, by which not wolves, jackals, unfrequently the dead are disinterred and devoured. As a general rule, a Mahomedan burial-ground only requires the with shrivelled presence of few hideous looking fukeers, are
as a
of
"
skins and matted
locks,"
render it
to
into which any For, unlike the English
pleasant places stroll. to
interest, either the
mounds,
senses or
there
one
of the most
un-
happily-minded person may church-yard, there is nothing
the sentiments.
There
are
no
tomb stones
(recording virtues, often not found out during life). There are no neatly kept walks or flowers; there is, in short, nothing which would'cause us to venerate the place, as we do our grave-yards at home, " where the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." But grave-yards in this country set apart for Europeans are not always pleasant places, or much better than the neighbouring Mahomedan burial-ground. English grounds grassy
are
no
neglected, overgrown with weeds, without properly enclosed, and in other ways a sanitary drainage, Then under our system of buiialj nuisance. and eyesore these grounds what a mass of slowly putrefactive matter are
too
often not
The dead are enclosed in lead?the richer more impervious the sepulchre-the lead is the the person and the masonry in enclosed in wood, the wood in masonry, is made to retard that change, effort earth. In short, every even to the or later, must come, corpse in the must contain!
which,
sooner
centre of
a
pyramid. Every
endeavour is
used,
so
that if in
Municipalities, Magistrates, or others have at time9 laid down a law, The a pauper pyre. so many pounds of wood ehall be sufficient for on the kind of wood exact amount of wood required will however depend ?
that on
its condition, and on the
season
of the year.
(
THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.
106 future years the body
disinterred, the lines of Scott, in the "Lay of the last Minstrel," might be applicable :? Before their eyes the wizard lay, As if he'd not been dead a day." The Parsee method is exactly the reverse! It aims at and accomplishes the rapid destruction of the body. Any one visiting Bombay, or other localities where worshippers of the sun" most do congregate, may, from some convenient coign of vantage, observe large round massive masonry towers. were
ever
"
friends, feeling in the
poet
or
are
the
"
Parsee towers of silence." and above
well,
is said to
be
latter
laid the Parsee
are
a
an
dead,
Beneath
the tower
iron frame work.
On the
and before the bearers well
top, the corpse is attacked by flights of vultures, always remaining in the immediate neighbourhood, hungry and craving for their hoirible feast. The birds fight and struggle over their prey, and it is stated that in a very few minutes scarcely a vestige of the body remains, bones or any other parts not consumed by the vultures falling into the well beneath the tower. As we possess our family tombs and vaults, so the Parsees possess private "towers of silence," although we believe there are public ones for the poorer depart
from
the
Zoroastrians. on one
side,
think it
we
will be admitted that to the Hindoo system must be
credited
the most forcible
sanitary arguments. Certain subjects, as arithmetic and geometry for instance, are in themselves so conclusive as to receive ready assent, from all. And we think, if sentiment is set aside, the system of cremation might be almost added to the above category. sensible objection to cremation in
a
view.
If,
for instance, Colonel
I'liayre
It is true that there is a
medico-legal point
had died and been burnt,
could have criminated the Guikwar.
post-mortem
of
But
we
doubt if any objection of this nature should be allowed to over-ride the manifest sanitary advantages of the plan, for
they are ever present, while exhumation in cases of poisoning is comparatively rare. Mr. Seymour Haden also advances another objection in cost and waste of fuel. The cost, however, is not so great in India as it would be in England, and sometime ago was reduced to a minimum of several annas by tho use incinerator" invented by a whilehome sanitary of a patent official (not professional) of Bombay, of which, however, the Hindoo community declined taking advantage. There remains therefore tho sentimental objection. The idea is that the physical form, shape and beauty should be preserved after death ; that the body should be protected from worms, which must however some time or other find their way through both lead, "
wood, and urn
or
lies.
feeling
masonry.
There is also the wish that
some
funeral
other monument should mark the place where the body
But
wo
are
so sure
none
regard
evinced with
to
that much of the sentimental the dead
is
aught
else than
the result of the iron law of custom or dustoor ! The neglected condition of burial-grounds has already been referred to, many of which
(although improvements have taken place during years) certainly do not evidence any great care on the part of the living. It has been stated that the natives, of the Andamans express joy by weeping and wailing ; and, doubtless, recent
it has fallen to the lot of some of our readers to 8ame
thing,over
we are
of
"
the
"
funeral cold, meats."
sorry to say, not
a
witness the
There are,
indeed,
few who witness the demise of their
:?
Charlotte, when
she
Like
his
saw
Borne before her
on a
body,
shutter,
well conducted person, on cutting bread and butter."
a
Went In truth
we are
that too much has been
disposed to think argument.
made of the sentimental the
living,
not
The
latter is most
use
is for
which is "the
Times,
the words of the
utilitarianism which would
extreme
great question
What method of disposing of the to the sanitary benefit and advantage of the
for the dead.
former? or, to
turn
to
the best account
the last ounce of of
departed humanity" ? We have the choice vaults, of burial in wicker without any envelope, of burning, and of giving the
embalming,
of burial in massive
cages, or corpse up to the tender mercies of birds of prey.
We cannot
help thinking that burning possesses most sanitary advantages, particularly so during epidemic seasons, when the pestilence " Bushes as a storm over half th' astonished isle," "And strews with sudden If there be
IsTow, putting sentiment altogether
no
relatives, with scarcely less absence of fitting composure displayed by Charlotte Werther, and which lias been described by the of their
even
follows
"
These
1, 1875.
than the
case
us
[Apeil
spread
any
carcases
truth in various
the land."
accepted theories
of the
of
tion of
epidemic diseases, it must be admitted that destructhe poisoned body by fire is the safest method for
the survivors. And what
indeed,
to
the
dead,
after "life's fitful fever" is past,
it matter ? Unless to
can
these, holding
the
certainly
unscientific belief of the body rising again from the grave, in the veritable flesh and blood
as
it
was
placed
in the grave,
it matter what becomes of the corpse, when the soul has passed into that thick and blinding fog for ever and
what
ever
can
hanging
over
both the
fatally
easy descent to A vermis and
the arduous ascent to Paradise ? The lowest of our
whispers
eternity, for it is not so very far from any of us; and if spiritualism were not the humbug," it is, we would a of course medium," if the method through propose asking, of tlio disposal of the dead in this world matters to those in eternity ? so far away yet so near to us ! We fancy the answer it matters naught!" At the best then, the pomp would be and circumstances of mourning coaches and mutes, of marble tablets and mausoleums, arc simply testimonials to selfishness, or deference to the despotism of dustoor ! This Ave shall all some day discover, when our lamenting friends and relatives may reach
"
"
"
say? "
Close up his eyes, and draw the curtains And let us all to meditation."
close,
