Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-11-19
WHY ADHERE TO THE OLD CUSTOM {?

The health officials of San Francisco, |
who are evidently moving in a sphere too |
narrow for the enlightenment of this age,
have refused the "First Cremation So.
ciety 2" of that city the privilege of prac-
ticing cremation of their dead. In doing
so they pretend to say that the law JUST.
fes burial only. This we deny emphat-
ically. There can be pointed out no line
of the statute that makes it unlawful to
dispose of the dead by the rational method
of cremation. There is no law in this
State whatever declaring that grounds shall
be sequestered for the purposes of burial
They adhere to burial because our fathers
did, and there is no other reason for it
than the sentimental one. As a sanitary
matter it is wholly indefensible. Instead
of putting rotting humanity where the de- |
caying flesh will not do injury to living
beings, burial in fact endangers the public |
health it contaminates the soil, fouls the |
waters, by exhslations Of the porous earth,
poisons the superintendent atmosphere, |
and breeds In most cases the germs of
pestiferous disease. 1t is unclean and re.
voting We are taught to the contrary,
but thought will reveal that in the decay
and moldering of the loved form, in giving
it as food for loathsome worms, in permitting
it to slowly rot, or rest in the most horribly
putrid condition, we offend the ordinary
ethics of cleanliness and decency, and do
no honor to the dead. The Cemetery
of ashes" decently inurned after |
cremation, will in no wise violate |
the sentiment that now bids affection and |
respect to manifest themselves by the care |
of the graves of our kin and our friends, or |
moves US to erect the monumental marble |
to their memory. The cemetery, under |
cremation, need 20. be abolished, nor the !
burial of the remains, nor the tender re-
gard which waters with tears the flowers
that spring from the sod above the loved |
dead.
Cremation without special legislative
sanction has been held to be lawful in |
Pennsylvania Why should it not be SO |
held here? No reform in the matter Of |
funeral rites is making greater progress
than that of cremation. 1t viii, in few |
years, be the chief method employed for
disposal of the dead, because it is the most
reasonable, and that California officials
now oppose it, but exhibits them in the
light of opponents TO the established facts
Of science. For cremation has been,
beyond all dispute, shown to be more
decent and less offensive than embalming,
Theoretically sealing or burial. 1t has
been shown that it removes utterly fruit.
full source Of disease. It is demonstrated
to be less trying to the afflicted mourners
than the system that insists upon all the
agonies resulting from the dull thud of the
cold clod upon the coffin lid, and the
burial from sight of the remains to which |
the heart strings of the living are united. !
1t is beyond dispute that it is more
economical, and thus commends itself to |
the poor. 1t enables the remains of cher.
ished ones Of the family to be gathered !
together and crowned with the mementoes !
of affection, though the members died far
removed from each other. 1t prevents all
possibility of "burial alive" and removes
every doubt as to the struggles of the
buried in the prison of the tomb aud their
final horrible suffocation.
Against it is one solitary objection of
force, that it removes evidences of crime,
and may thus. at times, defeat the ends of
justice. To this it is replied that pro-
vision in all criminal cases may be made
for post mortems, and in all cases where
the cause OF death is not positively estab-
hshed and beyond doubt.
As an evidence of the inhumanity to the |
living of the burial of the dead, the tele.
graphic statement is at hand showing that
yellow fever victims at Hermosillo are by 4
the score buried with but foot of earth
above them. Let this fact be taken in con.
nection with the discoveries of DIR. Freire /
in Brazil and his governmental commission,