The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-01-23 00:00:00

"EARTH TO EARTH."

Amongst the numerous letters evoked by Mr. Seymour
Hayden's letter, "Earth to Earth," are the following which
have been sent to The Times for publication :
Sir,—With reference to "Earth to Earth," my ex-
perience, gained from superintending the removal of
the remains of some hundreds of persons buried under
the Church of St. Mildred's, Poultry, may be thought
worth communicating.
The vaults had been closed for more than 20 years.
The bodies of those buried in wooden coffins had in all
°wee turned to inoffensive dust, the skeletons being
more or less perfect. Where, however, leaden coffins
had been used it wonld be difficult to describe the offen-
sive state in which the remains were found—so sicken-
ing, so repulsive, that I would never consent to the
interment of any relative of mine in so unnatural an
enclosure.—Yours obediently,
J. W. BILLINGHURST, Vestry Clerk,
St. Mildred's, Poultry.
7, Bucklersbury, London, RC., Jan. 13.

Sir,—lf there are any who think that the want of a
coffin shows disrespect for:the dead, let me remind
them that at sea the body is simply sewn up in a can-
vas shroud. The service is reverentially performed,
and is quite as much calculated to fill the mind with
solemn feeling as at burial in a grave. I may also add.
that the body is, in the words of the service, "com-
mitted to the deep" the day after death, and sooner if
necessary.—Your obedient servant, R. N.
; annary la

Sir,—Mr. Seymour Haden deserves the thanks of
the public for his protest against the custom of the
day with regard to the burying of the dead. Ido not
propose to discuss his arguments in favour of reclaim-
ing and replenishing the lowlands of Essex and Boat
with human remains, but I must confess that I read
with sincerepleasure—unpleasant though the subject
be—the censure which he pronounces on the irrational
practice of keeping our dead for several days in the
house before they are interred, and on the manner in
which we inter them.
We all know what it is to be in a house where lies
one lately dead. We know the utter misery which is
felt by some and the chilling despondency which is
felt by all in the house. But do we make any effort
to make things as cheerful as circumstances permit?
Certainly not. We carefully pull down all the blinds;
we will not allow even the sun 'EI rays to penetrate the
gloom to which we consign ourselves. During the
days of wretchedness which elapse before the funeral
we see nothing but blackness around us. When the
day of the funeral arrives the climax of suffering is
reached. Our spirits are depressed to the utmost
degree of depressicn that they can bear, and our bodies
are suffering in proportion. I need not speak of the
undertaker's performar ces, of the revolting spectacle
which is presented by the hearse, and the mutes, and
and the mourning coaches. " Pompa mortis magis
tenet quam mors ipsa." In truth, the day of a man's
funeral may justly be regarded as sadder than at the
day of his death. And yet, surely, this need not
necessarily be so. Who would not be thankful to be
able to bury his dead quietly and decently instead of ,
being forced to conform to those rules which Mr.
Haden so severely and justly deprecates? Let us by
all means endeavour to establish a mode of burying
the dead which would return earth to earth without
the disgusting and expensive ceremony which would
be thankfully shaken off by the rich, and still raore
thankfully by the poor.—l am, Sir, your obedient
servant, F. E. W.
January 13.

Sir,—As public opinion may do more even than
legislative enactments, and as, at all events, free dis-
cussion must precede any legislation on such a subject,
I venture to add a few remarks to the very able obser-
vations addressed to you by Mr. Seymour Haden.
In the first place, it is perfectly evident that all arti-
ficial attempts to preserve the human body from the
resolution into its elements which is the ultimate fate
of all organic material on earth are in direct violation
of the natural order of the universe, and must in the
long run be failures. In order to realize this we have
only to imagine what the world would be now if, by
some means or other, we had contrived to preserve
intact the body of every human being that had ever
lived upon it. As the amount of material of which all
such bodies are composed is a definite and limited
quantity, it would, after a certain period, have all be-
come stored up in the preserved corpses, and the suc-
cession of life which now depends on the constant
change and circulation of that material would cease,
and the fair surface of the earth would become a barren
wilderness.
This being granted, why should we strive so earnestly
for the partial and imperfect application of a principle
which is obviously wrong if applied generally? Some
nations have tried it on a large scale, and with what
result? Where are now the bodies of the ancient
Egyptians, so sedulously, and at such coat, embalmed
and preserved by their contemporaries? A few
hideously dried and discoloured specimens are to be
seen in our museums ; the rest lie scattered, bleached
and decaying, over the sands of Sakkara and Thebes,
or, with their bitumenized wrappings, have served as
fuel for their degenerate successors. So it must ulti-
mately be with all such attempts to carry out a policy
at variance with the first principles of natural order.
How, then, should our dead be disposed of? It is
very improbable that the public generally will ever
receive cremation with favour, even if it should be
proved to be the most desirable mode. The affection
for our old conntry churchyards, with 'all their asso-
ciations, and for our beautiful and impressive Burial
Service, is too strongly implanted to be given up ; but,
keeping these unchanged, there can be no possible ob-
jection to Mr. Seymour Haden's proposal to abolish
heavy metal and wooden coffins and brick vaults, and
commit the body to earth in a simple wicker basket,
filled round, perhaps, with herbs or flowers. There is
no doubt but that by this change the greater part of
the evil which unquestionably arises from the present
system, and which has given such force to the advocacy
of cremation, would be done away with.
On this point I can fully confirm Mr. Haden's re-
marks. I need not shock your readers by attempting
to describe the condition of bodies which have lain for
years in a more or less perfectly closed coffin; but, on
the other side, I can affirm from considerable expe-
rience that such is the disinfecting power of earth that
the necessary changes in the resolution of an animal
body occur under its influence in the least offensive
and injurious manner. Decay in earth, in fact, is
quite a different process from decay in water or in air.
Not many years ago it was my duty to superintend the
digging up of the body of a whale which had been
buried' for about two years in a sandy soil on the
Norfolk coast. So far from the process being, as I had
anticipated from my experience of much more recent
whales carcasses, very unpleasant, the bones were
found nearly clean and quite odourless.
This reminds me that it is not the rule for the bones
to disappear so rapidly as the result of Mr. Haden's
experiment on the dog might lead your readers to
infer. Their hardness and mineral composition tend
to their preservation for a far more lengthened period,
as referred to by one of your correspondents to-day,
and their treatment in crowded cemeteries where re
interments are practised, would require consideration.
But the important point is that a body buried in con-
tact with a sufficient amount of earth is in a very
short time, by a natural process, reduced to a state
absolutely innocuous to the living, while another
buried in a solid, closed coffin remains for an indefinite
period in a condition of partial decomposition, in
which it can be no pleasure or consolation to the sur-
vivors to imagine it, and which is a source of danger
to the health, or even life, of those around.
There can be no hesitation as to which we should
prefer; and if we can once recognize the fact that the
great merit of an enclosure for the dead is that it
should be as perishable, instead of as durable, es pos-
sible, a great advance will have been made in'social and
sanitary politics.—l an, Sir, your obedient servant,
W. H. FLOWER.
Royal College of Surgeons, Jan. 13.

EARTH TO EXRTII VERSUS ASHEi TO ASHES.
In connection with this subject, the Sanitary Record
writes
Very shinny we shall, no doubt, see a temporary
return to the practice of interring our dead without
the medium of a coffin, for this subject is, at the pre-
sent moment, undergoing investigation. It is not at all
unlikely that this will be chosen by many as a settle-
ment of the sanitary questions which have sprung into
notice since cremation has been once more broached
amongst us. The question is, will the abolition of
coffins always improve matters. The interment of
the body in a mere shroud is no new idea, and
under many a lych-gate in our old churchyards have
such uncoffined corpses been borne. Indeed it has
not died out yet. In County Kildare there resides
an ancient family, the deceased members of which
are always carried to the graveyard at Tully in
this manner. It is considered in the neighbour-
hood to be an eccentric practice, but, neverthe-
less the family observe this peculiarity, and have done
so from time immemoriaL There can be nodoubt that
in ancient times the practice was almost universal
amongst those who buried their dead. It is hoped that
by dispensing with the coffin the body will sooner
return to the elements, about which there can be no
question, provided that the earth in which it is interred
be a suitable one. But that is not always the case,
for under certain circumstances of humidity in the soil
the muscular fibres of the body are, for instance, con-
verted into a dipocere, and this substance has been
even sought for to use as cart-grease. Soils
which keep out the atmospheric air are" nearly
always favourable to theA generation of this
substance. Here it need hardly be stated the

earth is unsuitable for sepulturai purposes. The
ground chosen for a cemetery may not only be too
damp and clayey, and impervious to air and moisture,
but it may be of too open a character. Were we to
bury in light gravelly soil of this class without coffins,
it is not unlikely that the foul gases would levitate.
faster than they oughb to do. From graves with plural
interments the danger would be increased. We do not
know exactly why coffins were originally resorted to,
but it is just possible that our forefathers discovered
that in certain soils the earlier and fouler stages of
decomposition proceeded at too rapid a pace for the
comfort of the living. The depurative power of the
soil was not equal to the strain cast upon it. This is not
an altogether theoretical statement, for an eminent
foreigner has noticed that this is the case in graveyards
which he had visited. A coffin may, therefore, be a
desirable thing under some circumstances. It is a fit
question to consider also whether it would be safe to
bury the body of a mau who perished (for instance)
from small-pox, without protecting it by a coffin.
Mischief would be less likely to result after such a
lapse of time. as was found necessary to destroy the
coffin. Here it is where the advantages of cremation
appear, for with the body is burned up all disease
germs whatsoever. The thing to consider is, how
many persons die fi om contagious diseases the germs
of which not even the earth can destroy? It is not so
much a question of coffin or no coffin. When the
Minchinhampton churchyard was disturbed, and the
black earth carted to the gardens round about, the
population was simply decimated; and the same
would have occurred, one would imagine, even if the
coffin earth had been absent.