The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1878-03-02
CREMATION.

Mr.. Ben Pitman Lectures ON His Recent
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES and HypOcrit1cal
Observation-Disclosures Cheap and -.
thetic.
From the Cincinnati Gazette.l
Mr.. Pitman introduced his lecture at
the School of Design last Tuesday as
follows:
1--WE have on hundreds of occasions
during the past four years discussed
matters relating to the arts necessary
for the comfort, convenience, and de-
light of the living; let us, for once, turn
our thoughts, with like impartiality, to
matters that concern the dead. If the
principles we have taught are worth
any thing they will help us to q reason
able conclusion now, as heretofore.
Art, in its practical phase, is the doing
of any necessary or desirable thing in
the best or most fitting way. The rea-
son, L suppose, why the disposal Of our
departed friends has been SO unreasOn-
able, expensive, dolorous, and often
q procedure, is that we are
called upon to act when we are least
for action, and the last and
tenderest services are left to undertake
ers, who do what is customary and
most profitable, or to friends, who ac-
cede to what is least troublesome, and
that is, of course, to tread in the beaten
track. The convictions of Mrs. Pitman
were to me too sacred to permit this,
and it was very easy for me simply to
avoid number of silly and expensive
6sages. could not bear the thought
of any save loving hands ministering
to the necessities of the occasion, and
this was religiously carried out, save in
the case of the skillful embalmer. The
wish or the idea of symbolizing my love
by any thing SO offensive to sight and
touch as black Grape or any thing go
ghastly as an ordinary coffin, or any
thing so absurd as black plumes, never
entered my head. A useful and beauti-
full life should not be terminated by dis
NAL obsequies that would only be fitting
were l interring an enemy or tyrant.
Here was life, ended all too soon, full
of brightness, intelligence and charity !;
self-sacrifcing without being conscious
of it, and untiringly useful from sheer
delight in helping others. Her sickness
and departure were in keeping with her
life, wholly free from selfishness, repin-
ing or gloom. When it came to be our
turn to act, would have carried out
her wish at any sacrifice, but there was
nothing left for US but simply to avoid
stupidities that would have marred, as
far as they could have any effect, a fit
ting tribute to an uncommon life. Never
did Mrs. Pitman, during her sixteen
months sickness, breathe word as to
any thing to be said or done after her
departure. Only within the past month
or SO did the severe weather drive her
within doors, and previous to that al
most all her walking hours We're spent,
when able, in the garden, and when I'M
able to walk on the porch even till the
stars came to keep her company. When
driven within doors and deprived of the
vitalizing air, her life visibly declined.
On one occasion, about ten days before
her departure, and when her dear friend
and physician, Mrs. DIR. Howard, was
present, she said to me: 8 l think you
ought to write to DR.. LIE Moyne.' Her
leaving the trivial matters of ceremony
to me was in keeping with her general
thought. She regarded her leaving this
earth life-save only the one regret of
being useless Cher own words) and una
BILE longer to help us-as utterly unim-
portant a matter as the falling of an au-
tumn leaf. She cordially but quietly
despised the business, trouble-making
and vain disguietiDg appeals.so often an
incident in quitting this life. l feel l
am putting her unObtrusive convictions
into very bold and perhaps Obtrusive
words, but it is only in my desire not to
understate her deepest convictions that
we need not be selfish when we are sick,
nor rcpining when we are rightly pun
ished, nor egotistical in assuming that
it is of any importance when one life in
a thousand millions is transferred from
one-sphere to another"
Mr.. Pitman then mentioned the argu-
ments against burials, the contamina-
ton of air, earth and water by which
the decay of the dead becomes harmful
to the living. The arguments against
burials are so strong that laws have been
made enjoining burials within city linn
its. "We all know and desire," said
he, s'that our bodies must sooner OF
later be resolved into their constituent
elements; in fact, there is no rest till
this is the case, and, other things being
equal, the sooner this is done the better.
Surprising, then, that cremation can be,
as indeed it has already been rendered,
entirely free from even suggestion OF
any thing not satisfactory and beautiful,
it is to my mind in every respect to be
preferred to interment."
Then speaking of the economical ar
gument he said: "For whose sake are
all these expenses incurred of any ordi-
nary funeral display? Is it for the quick
or the dead? Is it not mainly for the
qualification of our own vanity and con-
ceit? Is it due to the egotism of the
living or to devotion to the dead? Is it
for eyes that are open or for those closed
in unconscious sleep? The amount of
money spent on cemeteries and marble
and granite monuments in this country
during the last fifty years has been COM
puted to be at least $1,000, OOO, OOO-
enough at least to pay our gigantic ma
tional debt. To buy cemetery lots, to
keep them in order, to bury our dear
ones, to commemorate virtues which, as
q rule we failed to observe in them when
living, by imposing monoliths, is all, to
my mind, useless, inconsistent and ex-
pensive.
s. The whole cost of cremation is less
than the expense of an ordinary coffin.
My entire expenses at Washington were
Sl5, and this paid for fuel, services, po-
liceman and hearse. l think you will
believe me when say that if it cost
more to be consistent than foolish l
would willingly earn the money to pay
it, but in the mere absence of all funeral
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