National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-03-04
FAvoRING CREMATION.
An Interesting Communication on AN Ina
porfnnf Subject.


| FAVORING CREMATION,
| An Interesting Communication on AN Ina
portnnt Subject.
| To the Editor Of The Republican:
A special dispatch to tIrs Philadelphia
Press from Lancaster February ., says: "Catha.
rine Gibersen is the name Of maiden lady of this
city, aged seventy three years, who boards in q
fashionable quarter of the city, and is possessed Of
considerable means. She has lived here for ten
years. and previously lived for many years In
Mount Joy, this county She Is a lady of more
and beloved for her Christian virtues. Recently
she WINS taken ill, and within couple of weeks he,
physicians have informed her that she could not
recover AS soon as she learned this fact she re-
quested her friends to have her remains taken to
the Washington (Pa) crematory, there to be ere
! mated. Her friends tried to dissuade her. but she
persstently requests that this shall be done Her
only living relatives are nieces and Hephews In
the West, and they have been acquainted with her
desire, but abher the thought of granting her re-
quest her death is mOmentarily expected, but
whether her dying wish will be regarded or not
remains to be seen.
Undeniably, this is dreadful state of affairs II
Is enough to ELL the stoutest heart with dsmay. If
deprived of the privilege of having our wishes
strictly carried out to final disposal what is
the use of living at all? Nobody has any sort of
chance to say what shall be done with him here
so beset are we by beggars on the street, beggars
ereryoehere. If man has bit of money his life Is
burden. He is besieged, he is bounded, he is
hunted with NANCY ours; he is BATTERED and fos-
tered and fred" into his six-by three Of brown
earth, and all that is left or remembered of him is
his kindness by some old servant who did for him
those humane Offices that parasites ignore If a
woman is so unfortunate as to come into posses
sion of the siller" she Immediately becomes q
fool or selfish feminine hatefulness She either
wastes her substance on young Solomons, or in
great empty charities, or on dres smakeFs and
jewellers, or she saves it
FOR HER RELATIONS.
Madre de DioS Had she not better buy fig leaves
of diamonds and braid her hair with black pearls
than live and leave to relations? Maybe these
Gibersons will cremate the old lady-perhaps they
will have done so before this article greets the
public; but all the same it opens up a grandly
serious subject. Are not to be the ar6rs Of our
Olea fates Here is woman of means" eonsid-
cradle means" and yet she obiects-obects strenu-
ously to being chucked under the ground, as these
barbarians insist all flesh must so. She is lady
of more than ordinary intelligence" the account
goes ON, "and is much beloved and respected for
her Christian virtues" The fact of her living
in Mount Joy appears to have had no special
bearing upon her present depravity; but the name
of the village may in some occult way have had
q metaphysical effect upon her. Two weeks,
illness but aggravated the old damsers fantasy; but
the "nephews and nieces in the IVES" have, upon
eOgnizance of the ancients claims to be gotten rid
of in her own sweet way, made holy kick"
use the words advisedly. for upon so grave a sub
iect any sort of stiff rejoinder would be holy And
up to this present writing that old lady has no
idea what is to become of her. She does not want
to 90 o,t and rot In her darkened chamber what
horrible visions of the Close foul earth haunt her.
She puts her worn, old body in its white mantle
thrust into its narrow, satin-lined bed by rough
untender hands, feels the jostle and lurch of the
hearse, hears the jest and jeer of the driver the
straps as they are drawn, as into its damp bed
THE COFFIN SWINGS;
hears the dull monotone of the cods as one by one
they fall on the upurned face-sees darkness visible
From out the closed eyes, the thin lips, the slender
throat the old but pretty fingers lightly folded
over violet-from the tresses of snow white hair
where once loving touch smoothed the brown
braids, crawl unclean, noXious things, writhing,
struggling, multiplying, till all that was of woman
born is foul maggot and putrefaction. In horror
she shuts out this damnable sight, and sees the
tired hands forever folded the weary heart forever
still-yiolets On her sreast and lilies round her pill
low; a glow, a white, white heat, handful of
ashes, an urn at the foot of rose tree. a memory
beautiful always to living and dead. This wish of
Miss Giberson brings to my mind the first cremation
Of teonan in the United States-that of Mrs. Pitt
man, of Cincinnati, Ohio. Ben. Pittman is known
all over this country as an advanced thinker, an
artist genius, and the father of stenography. His
wife was as a remarkable woman as he is man.
She. too, was writer, an artist, and genius.
These
TWO GRAND SOULS
gave birth to a daughter, who is a modest embodi
ment of both father and mother. A blue eyed,
red haired, petite maidie, with voice as sweet as
a thrush and hand as def as her fathers,
soul as white as her mothers and an individuality
that is her o,Cn. For years Mrs. Pittman had been
martyr to bodily ills, and the disposition of her
frame after she vacated 1t was discussed and de-
cided. Under her own fayorite rosetree in their
cottage lawn rests the urn that holds her handful
of ashes. Father and daughter sit in the warm
sunset and their thoughts of the dead are mingled
with no horrors of the church yard. They look
from the freight out into the winter night of
snow and sleet with no signs for the lonely grave
in which loved form is rotting. In their beauti-
full home her handiwork is seen on Intel and
hearth stone in exquisite carving but under the
rosetree her ashes lie in tiny urn which neither
moth nor rust doth corrupt nor thieves break
through and steal. o. J. E.