Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-08-27
A MENACE TO OUR HEALTH.

The expose by the RECORD UNION of the
manner in which inserments have been made
in the cemeteries of this city has not bsen
without its fruits. a cautious, careful and
truthful statement Of facts has lead the read.
ers of this journal to investigate for than.
selves. Thousands Of people Rave visited the
abode of the dead, during the past three days,
to see whether or not the horrible charges
made by the RECORD. UNION were true. Not
one who have taken the pains to prove the
truthfulness of the statements of this paper
can say that they are not true il
every particular. The Police Judge has
taken hold of the matter, the mat
ter having been laid properly
before him, and to-day there viii be ca in
vestigasion into the sffair. The reporters
who have msd5 the charges and all tbs sex
tons Of the city have been subpsnsed. a
great many persons seem TO srsat this matter
lightly and accuse news-gatherers Of trying to
create sensation,
DR.. F. Julius Ls Moyne, after fifty years.
of medical practice, wrote: " tbs inbumR.
ton Of human bodies, dead from infectious
disease, results in constantly loading the at
mcsphere with not only the germs that rise
from simply putrsfaction, but also with the
specific germs Of the disease from which
destn resulted. The gases from buried
corpses will rise to the surface through eight
or fen feet of gravel, just as coal gas will do,
and thers is practically no limit to their
power of escape"
During the epidemic in New Orleans, in
1853, Dr. Z. IL. Barton reported that 10 the
Fourth District the mortality was ASP per
1.OOO-Inore than double that OF any other.
r =. 81 lbs
in which, during the previous year, more
than 600 bodies had been buried. In other
districts the proximity of cemeteries seemed
to aggravate the disease.
Iu 1928 Professor Branch demonstrated
how the fearful reappearence OF the plague at
Mo1ena was caused by excavations ia ground
where, three hundred gears previously tue vic
TINS Of the pestience had been burisd. Mr..
Cooper, 10 explaining the causes of the
plsgus said the excavations at the burial
grounds st EYam resulted il an immediate
outbreak Of disease.
There perhaps is not city Ia the Unitsd
States that pays mora fer tie interment of its
dead thsn does Sacramento, snd there Ger
tainly can be none that have such shallow
ipterments. If the intermentS are to
continue OF the same depth as they
have II the past, cremation will not
only become popular but necessity.
In On address before the Chicago Medical
Society in advocacy Of cremation DR.. Charles
W. Pugdy made some stirling comparisons
70 show what burden Is laid upon society by
the burial of the dead. He said one and one
fourth times mora money is expended annu.
ally in funerals in the United States than the
expends for public school pur-
poses. Funerals cost this country in 1882
enough money to psy the liabilities of all the
commercial failures in the United States dur
ing the year, and give each bankrupt IS. $50
with which to resume business. Funerals
cost, he ssys, annually more than the value
of the combined gold aud silver yield Of the
United States in the year 1882. These figures
do rot include the sums invested in burial
grounds and expended in tombs and mouu-
merts, nor the loss from depreciation of prop
erty in the vicinity of cemeteries. Sscrs-
mento has spaat millions in funeral ceremonies
and cemeteries, yet her dssd are scarcely hid
from sight, and their moldering remains are
menace TO the health of our city,