Morning journal and courier., 1883-09-13

ner, not one case of illness occurred among his 250 workmen, who were employed on the same battlefield in this terrible task, al- though they were frequently at work under Q blazing sun. After the battles of Worth, Gravelotte, and the two sieges of Paris, the bodies of the killed were cremated, with the result that the combasants escaped the con- tagious disorders which generally accompany or follow a war. This was but resumption of an old practice. At the beginning of the present century, when war ragged all over Europe, cremation was constant practice ; in Russia after the retreat of the ''grande arnee" corpses were burned wholesale, and again 8 little later four thousand bodies were burned before Paris in @ single fortnight. If similar method of disposal of dead car casses had been adopted in Egypt, the chole- ra might never have broken out at Damietta. Cremation may be said to be established as indispensable in war :; but is 1t necessary in peace? Dr. Cameron gave notice on Satur- day that he will introduce bill legalizing cremation next season. According to wri- ter in the current number of the Nouvelle Revue, France, of all European countries, is the most difficult to persuade to turn from the old custom of inhumation to the appa.
 rently new, but in reality much older, cus- tom of destroying the human body by fire. Not that any of the other countries have
 proved particularly zealous they have, on
 the contrary, shown surprisingly little inter- terest in cause on which depend the life and death of multitudes. The ancients were
 much more alive to the inconvenience of in humation. The church set itself against the most rational mode of disposing of the dead owing to gretesquely material conception of the resurrection. When the authority of the Church deeayed, and more rational views began to prevail, the civilized world by slow degrees began to open it's eyes to the disad- vantages of this custom, which was never NoI@ ~L41 France was one of the first to occupy herself in modern times with the reform of the Eu- ropean mode of disposing of the dead. At the end of the last century, in the fifth year of the republic, this question was discussed, and cremation for time became optional The permission was afterward rescinded. Italy was the first formally to sanction in 1873 the introduction of cremation; in Aus tria the municipal council of Gratz has passed a resolution in favor of the incinera tion of the body, but nothing has been done there since 1878. It has been authorized in the duchy of Gotha, and it is adopted in parts of Switzerland. In Holland and Bel gium oremationists and numerous and enthu- siastic. New York is also building a new cremation hall France alone remains behind. But, as M. Pivion says in the Nouvelle Re- vue, France, of all countries, has most req son to think of new way of disposing of it's dead. In Paris, where the mortality amounts to ,20O deaths week, the city cemeterles are filled to overfowing; the Pere Lachaise, Mont Parnasse, and Montmartre alone have received l, ,493, ,O00 eorpses since they were first opened, and every year the need of new burial grounds grows more urgent The otherwise skeptical population of Paris ob- jects to cremation from 8 religious point of view, the culte des morts being the only faith that survives. Yet, owing to the ever increasing population of the French capital, it will before long be impossible to find room for burial grounds in the vicinity of the city, and ss it is with Paris, so it is with nearly every large town in France. But, apart from considerations of space, M. Pi7ion and the advocates of cremation maintain that the health of the public is endangered by the
 poisonous gases arising from churchyards,
 and the deflement of rivers and wells by
 drainage from the thousands of decaying
 corpses stored in every cemetery. M. Piv.
 ion makes short work of the objection which
 has been raised by M. Brouardel as to the
 impossibility of detecting murder by exhum-
 ing the body of the victim. He maintains
 that'those poisons which can be detected in
 decayihg body can, with few exceptions
 the crematory. The remaining objection
 that cremation will destroy piety iGcertainly
 the weakest of all. Religious ceremonies
 can be used by the crematory as we'll as at
 the grave. Though destruction by fire is
 more rapid than decay, there is no essential
 difereneain the pxecess, except that crema-
 tien accomplishes in four or five hours what
 burial does in as many years. It Italy, it is
 said, the priests no longer object to cremation,
 but may be seen performing religious rites at
 the doors of the crematUry