The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-03-31 00:00:00

BODY BURNING.

A correspondent writes from Milan : "I have taken
the opportunity,while in Milan, to ascertain what pro-
gress is being made in cremation, for Milan, as your
readers are aware, has been the pioneer, at all events
as far as Italy is concerned, in the revival of this
ancient method of disposing of the dead. With the
exception of Florence, where the body of the Maha-
arajah of Kolapore was burnt upon a funeral pile in
the year 1870, but where cremation was not regularly
practised until 1884, Milan was the first Italian
city in which cremation obtained the sanc-
tion of the Government, and the first body
cremated there (January 22, 1876) was that
of Signor Albert Keller, who had died just two years
before and had left a sum of £4OO to defray the cost.
The difficulty of obtaining the necessary permission
of the Government was so great that his body had to
be embalmed and buried, but when the consent of
Signor Nicotera, the Minister of
.the Interior, was at
last obtained, the association in favour of cremation,
which had in the meanwhile been formed, carried out
his wishes, having first erected a crematorium, which
has since been replaced by a much larger one, in
which the process of incineration is carried out, as I
can from personal observation testify, with all due
regard, not only to hygienic principles, but to the
sentiments and feelings of the relatives and friends
who attend the ceremony. The new crematorium is
at the extreme end of the Campo Santo, just outside
the walls of Milan, and it is open to the inspection
of visitors. The temple, as it is called, is a building
in the GrEeco-Doric style, constructed of stone, and
having an open facade supported by columns, from
behind which rises a tower which, as seen from the
outside, looks as if it formed part of the temple,
although in reality it stands quite by itself and is the
chimney. The inside of the building is divided into
several rooms, in the first of which the religious rites
which attend the incineration take place, and the
walls of which are lined with funeral urns containing
the ashes of many of those who have been cremated
at Milan. There is a separate room in which the
bodies are placed pending cremation, and a third in
which the relatives and friends spend the two hours
occupied by the cremation itself. There are two
furnaces—one being for general use, and the other for
the bodies of persons who have died of contagious
diseases and are not natives of Milan. In both
cases the process lasts about two hours, and the
body is not visible to the onlookers when
being put into the furnaces, nor are the ashes
afterwards. The example of Milan soon found
imitators, especially in the northern and central pro-
vinces of Italy, and there are now something like 32
societies and committees for favouring cremation,
though they have not all got crematories of their own,
many of the societies sending the bodies of those who
have left instructions to be cremated to Milan, Rome,
or Florence. Cremation has not for the last two
years or so made so much headway as it did at first,
for the number of persons burnt last year was only
165, as against 181 in 1886. It should be added,
however, that the Pisa Society has not yet sent in its
statistics for 1887, and that crematoriums will be
opened in the course of this year at Turin, San Remo,
Verona, Bologna, Pavia, and one or two other towns.
Of the total number of 952 cremations that have
occurred in 17 cities in Italy since 1876, as many as
518 have taken place in Milan and 155 in Rome."

There were no criminal cases for trial at Limerick
Quarter Sessions, and the judge was presented by the
sheriff with a pair of white gloves.
While some men were engaged the other day in
demolishing a brewery at Nine Elms, they came across
a number of coins of the early part of the reign of
Charles I.

A joint committee of Liberal Unionists and Conser-
vatives at Rochdale have agreed to invite Mr. John
Albert Bright, eldest son of the Right Hon. John
Bright, M.P., to stand as the Unionist candidate, in
opposition to Mr. T, B. Potter. M.P., Gladstonite.