Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-04-30
Burning the Dead.

How to dispose Of the dead is a subject
now beginning to attract public attention.
The suggestion of a return to the ancient
plan of incrematiOn, improved, Of course,
by modern science, is meeting with some
favor. 1t proceeds upon theories which
may be outlined as follows: Death is not
rest for the body, whatever it may be for
the soul. While the corpse lies pallid and
moveless, unnumbered changes are going
on within it. A marvelously coutrived
machine is falling apart, and the spectacle
of its decomposition is one which men
hide ia the earth Were the body suffered
to lie where it fell, nature would resolve
it into carboniC acid, water, ammonia,
lime, phosphorus, iron, sulphur, magnesia
and other substances. The gases mingle
with the atmosphere; the minerals with
the earth; nothing is wasted. Death
creates material for the support of life.
The gases given off by the decaying corpse
are absorbed by the thirsty pores of vege-
tation- The carbon goes to form the fiber
which hardens into wood. The express
sion :" hearts of oak" as applied to the YES
sells OF the British navy, has, when viewed
IN the light of science, a new significance.
The woody fiber beaten by the waves has
beaten in the hearts of many brave sons
Of Britain, and after the ship has persisted
and its timbers have been consigned to
the flames its elements mingle with the
atmosphere only to be again absorbed by
vegetation and assimilated by animal life.
Death then is but a dread analysis
which sets the elements of the body Tree
to pass into other organizations. Thanks
to existing customs, the process now is
| the slow and shocking one of decomposi-
uon. The idea of substituting for this
| the quicker analysis effected through the
fundamentally of fire is one that is be-
ing received with growing favor. 1t
must be admitted that such growth is
| very gradual. A thousand hallOwed
/ associations cluster round the burial
ground. The instructive feeling that the
| body is the personality is so strong that
| to resolve 1t into its elements by mechani-
| cal or chemical means would seem like
combined sacrilege and cruelty. At the
| same time, If the mOurners, even as they
! shuduur at the thought of incrematiOn,
| could have revealed to them the CHASTITY
| secrets OF the charnel-hOuse, even they
might prefer the more tender meTcies OF
the furnace or the retort Another fact
| which will gradually exert an influence in
! favor OF lncrematiOn is that the dead IN
undergoing decay, for all they seem so
| passive, become nevertheless active agents
of evil. From cOngregated graves arises
an efbuvla which spreads a subtle poison
among the living. Among the hidden
horrors of a graveyard creep the rain
drops which swell the volume of neghbOr-
ing springs and rivers. OF this we have
an instance close at h0me-an instance
| unheeded by US because it is thoroughly
familiar, but one which, upon reflective
SIn
| preston. After beholding the beauties
! of Paramount Park, the visitor, continuing
his course up the Schuylkill, sees some of
the city's sepulchres lie dead upon the
| hills" Down through these sloplng hill
| sides, over hundreds of moldering cot
| inns and decaying bodies, the rains flow
! into the river from which, at a point al
| most within sight of Laurel Hill, the
1 water is pumped up into the reservoirs,
| whence it is distributed over the city for
! bathing and drinking. The new process
has still further in its favor the consider
| alton that all danger Of being buried
| alive would be at once and forever Obvi-
ated. If death were only apparent it
| would become real and become so lnStan-
taneously and painlessly. 1t is true that
lnterment of the living must be very rare !;
| yet 1t stands in the category Of acknowl-
| edged facts, and should the one case in
million be destined to be ones own
which is far from impossible-the con-
temptation of such possibility were surely
enough to enlist the sympathies most en-
| thuslasucally in favor Of lncrematlon.
Indeed, those who would prefer it for
themselves are already many more than
those who would consent TO it in behalf
OF their friends. After all, the resolution
OF human body into its constituent ele-
ments by mechanical or chemical means
is only doing rapidly what nature does
gradually, and doing without shocking
features what nature does, for some mys-
ferrous reason, with manifold accountant
ments and associations of horror There
are, indeed, the other alternatives of
mummlhcation or petrifaction; but the
former is mere postponement of the
natural change, and the latter, aside from