The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1885-08-01
HAHNVILLE LOUISIANA, SATURDAY, AUGUST l. 1885.

cases they are fabrications, without
the slightest foundation in fact. Some
times young man out of mere wick
edness invents the tale and sends it to
distant newspaper. To make a SEN
sation it is indiscreetly published and
is copied into thousand papers within
a week. When its falsehood is exposed
not one in hundred of these papers
will publish the denial And SO it
comes to pass that tens of thousands of
people never hear the story denied and
receive it as true. In some countries,
as in Germany, there are cemeteries in
which which is a house of rest and
safety, where the dead are laid until
undoubted evidences of death appear.
1 visited one of these in Halle; in one
chamber was a nice couch on which
the body was laid and kept at a proper
temperature. Thimbles were put on
the fingers, and from these a delicate
wire extended through the wall into an
adjoining room, where was watcher
night and day. The slightest move
ment of one of the fingers would set. a
bell ringing About seventy persons
every year, more than one week, are
thus tested, and the old sexton told me
that not one had ever been found to be
living. l inquired if such arrange
ments were common. He said they
were, and he had heard a rumor that
once upon time life had been saved
at Erfurt, but it was only rumor, he
had never known an instance. A
writer in one of the New York daily
papers most foolishly and inconsider-
ately speaks of the appalling fire.
quency" of premature burials. There
is no frequency at all. He says that
the writer of paper before the French
Academy estimates the number at one
in every five thousand. This is idle
talk, merely sensational, not sensible.
For years past have sought to verify
these dreadful stories, and they are
always and invariably found to be I'M
. founded. l do not say that such cases
never do occur, but they are so ex-
ceedingly improbable and rare that nc
living person need have the slightest
) apprehension. There have been two
| hundred and twenty-seven thousand
interments in Greenwood Cemetery
and not one person has been even sus
pected of being buried prematurely
The nearest that any one ever came
to it was in the case of a woman who
after being on ice four days, was laic
in the receiving tomb and watched
I week and then buried. Imade applica
ton to the comptroller of Greenwood
Cemetery, and these facts were fur
$ nished to me officially. Had i ex
4 tended the search into the records o
: all the cemeteries in and around thu
e city of New York should not find tn
e least item of evidence to prove the cor
: rectness of the Frenchman's foolisl
e estimate.
d Burial should never take place unit
a certain infallible signs of death ar
e manifest. These will be waited for b.
n all sensible people, and Apprehension
: on the subject of the living should b
; dismissed as unreasonable.
/ 1t is urged in favor of cremation tina
d it leaves no chance for prematur
S burial But the alternative is yer
! painful, and no sane person woul
j. burn the body of friend to proven
the burial before death. There ar
e sanitary considerations in favor {
e cremation, and there is. nothing to m
: repulsive in the idea of giving the dea
e body to be burned. Ashes to ashes, c
e dust to dust, it is all the same so th
d spirit is with God who gave it. BIZ
Re there is in the heart of humanity, r.
l. fined by the Christian religion, sent
l. ment that finds pleasure in cherishin
< the grave of one loved in life, and tn;
d sentiment will not be satisfied with
r vase of ashes. The graveyard whel
a our friends are sleeping is investe
IN with sacredness that no coIun1bart@
A. ever had, though the urns of TWEEN
generations were ranged along
m Walls.-IrengaS in N. Y. Observer.
is