The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1879-05-01
TAOTg CONoERNINe OEMETERIBs.

FACTS CONCERNING CEMETERIES.
A sacred tenderness regarding the |
disposal of the bodies Of the dead has
existed from remotest antiquity. I
Whether these were carefully embalmed |
aud deposited in the eatacombs which
required decades for their construction, /
decked in gaudy trappings and placed
erect upon contiguous hill SUBMITS aud
the earth heaped about them by the alb |
origines, or reverently dressed Ia snowy
robes and laid peacefully IN the green
bosom of mother earth by civilized peo-
pie, places of sepulture have always
been held sacred, lovingly decorated
and jealOusly guarded from intrusion.
Irving's words, "SorrOw for the dead Is
the only sorrow from which We refuse
to be divorced" find exemplitication
alike in the costly monument that
wealth erects over the last resting place
of the departed in The great cities
crowded cemeteries, and IN the sweet
flowers and clinging vines, that tenderly
guard the lowly mounds in obscure
cnurch-yards. Ia these feelings, self
ishness, the great motive power that
directs human action, finds a check, and
with them no stranger may intermeddle.
Yet the necessity Of affording adequate
protection to the living is invading the
atmospheres Of great cities, and before
other cemeteries are laid out and peo-
pied by silent host in close proximity
TO our own city, it would perhaps be
well to consider the lessons Of the past
as taught to US by the experience Of
others.
About twenty years ago, when the
present sewerage system Of London was
inaugurated, one of the branch tunnels
passed through a street in Soho In
digging, the work men turned up large
number Of human bones, and upon con-
sulting the records IL was found that the
sewer was following the trench dug to
receive the bodies Of those who perished
by the great plague two centuries before.
Even after the lapse Of two hundred
years the soil was saturated with cor
ruption and the siekening odors arising
therefrom filed theair for blocks around.
The next week the dreaded Asiatic chul-
era broke out on that street, and out of
eleven hundred persons more than one
half died within month. The pesti-
lence spread and before its check nearly
twenty thousand Inhabitants Of London
perished. This was a terrible warming,
and the authorities Immediately for
bade the interment OF the dead within
/ five miles Of the city. Even this pre-
caution, together with strict regulations
as TO the depth of graves, etc, has, how
ever, been found insufficient; the great
city is again encroaching upon the
charnel houses that surround her; 1t is
found that the burial of fifteen hundred
bodies per week for a score Of years can
not be made wholly innoxious to the
/ living. In view Of these things, it is
seriously suggested that cremation may
become necessary to British civilization,
despite the shudder of horror that its
mention causes. II these undeniable
E results come from the system Of dispos-
ing Of the dead where all the precau-
tions that science can invent and au-
thority enforce prevail, what, is asked
may we expect in the future from cities
like New Orleans and Memphis, where
the victims Of the plague were but lately
laid in shallow trenches in such vast
numbers? Who can doubt that should
pestilence visit such localities II would
find power ul allies in these cemeteries
where no sanitary precautions have
been observed. 1t is probable, however,
that the proper authorities will overlook
the matter aud people will go on inter
ring their dead almost at their very
doors, as Will in comparatively short
space Of time be the case with those who
ale inferred in any of the cemeteries
that are adjacent to this city, until
pestilence in some form, battening upon
the feast prepared by earelessness, fright
fully decimates the population and ap-
pals the nation. There are those whose
business it is to discuss this matter and
act upon It from scientific premises
I Of t1s see whether they will do IL