The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1883-04-21
FUNERAL REFORMS ADVOCATED.

One consequence of our national, or
racial, and unasthetic pratice of be.
slowing our dead in large open spaces,
called cemeteries, is receiving deserved
public attention. In connection with
this practice, and probably now in.
separable from it, are certain perfume.
tory accessories, costly to the poor.
The professional incidentals, tho long
lines of hacks and coaches, the dress
parade before all the world, the public
Haunting, as it were, of the private
grief, are minor evils, costly and value
less but they have in their train a
major evil. They are the originating
cause of a vast amount of disease and
death. Ifthe ground is damp, wet feet
result, perhaps worse that that, wet
and chilled persons return home from
the graveyard and go to bed sick. Ger.
tain special dangers of contamination
are inseparable from certain special
cases, such as arise from pneumonia,
smallpox, scarlet fever, and the like.
The Chicago Tribune, speaking forcibly
on this subject, says !: "Respect for the
dead does not properly involve danger
to the living"
exist, such as Chicago is exempt from.
Illumination is possible there, and after
it is fairly finished it is tolerably safe.
But with us Ithe dangers not only re-
main, but increase. The corpse pigeon
holed to day eXudes disease and death
more pitilessly next month. The tomb
built up to-day cracks next year and
yawns. The odor of the cemetery is
not the odor of sweet flowers. The at
mosphere of the streets adjacent is not
the atmosphere of salubrity. The visit
to the burial place of the loved dead is
a renewal of the danger of the vista
tion Of the burial. Whereas, in the
more dry regions the mourning living
can 60 daily with comparative impun-
ity to offer an evening prayer IN peace,
the dagger of so doing here is ignored
at personal peril, and only the Angel
of Death counts the lives lost in conse-
quence Of pious memories and regrets.
Such a remedial measure, therefore,
as tho Chicago Tribune advises, will do
for more Northern lands, but not for
US. 1t Is to radically reform the burial
usages. 1t Swould have the Illinois
Legislature pass law requiring the
erection of at least one large chapel in
every cemetery. 1t would have the
people cease to stand with uncovered
heads in the open air, or to collect at
the grave during the ceremony, 1t
would have the procession pass into
the chapel, the ceremony to take place
within, and the corpse to besurrender-
ed into the hands of keepers, to be
afterward bestowed in a vault, to be
finally with greater privacy placed in
the grave. Or it would have the entire
ceremony at the residence or church
and the family and pallbearers alone to
go to the cemetery. The last PROPOSE
ton is not practical. The people will
not abandon the formal procession,
which seems TO say to the deceased
friend, "we do not give you up till we
can go no further with you" For our
climate the first part is equally not
practical, because our dangers are in
the cemeteries, and arc perennial and
hopeless, and cannot be buried, and are
reawakened at every new outburst of
grief, and accompany every testimo-
nial of fidelity.
Our only hope lies in more radical
treatment of the evil. We should stop
saving our dead for a terror. And the
time will come when we shall burn
them. Their ashes are memory
more fragrant and less diseased. Their
urns would have no ghosts and ghouls
to fright the souls of the people, no
oozings of corruption to punish the
living with new death. 1t is true that
habit is obstinate, that burial usages
are deep rooted and hard to correct,
f,of Inn tod
effect change. But it is also true tnat
the cause OF public health is urgent;
that sanitation is a public and private
concern, and that neither religion nor
morality requires us to sacrifice our
lives at the behest of q practice which,
If it ever was rational anywhere, is GER
tainly and unquestionably irrational
with us.