Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-12-24
NEW AGITATION IN SAN FRAN
CISCO.

= GE0 AG11244ON In DAN tG6E-
CISCO
There is very lively agitation in pro-
gress in one of the residence sections San
Francisco. The city has grown out to and
around a cemetery. Burials continue to
be made in the place, and the people have
discovered that the health of the locality
is seriously affected as result. Public
meetings have been held and a demand
made upon the authorities that further
burials shall be prohibited in that quarter
These meetings embraced some of the best
thinking men Of San Francisco. They
presented facts at these councils that in
disputably show that the graveyard is
inimical TO the public health. The proofs
adduced establish it as fact that the soil
drainage carries with it to the houses as
far distant as four or FIVE blocks poisonous
matter that charges the earth with the
seeds of disease and contaminates the at
mosphere by soil exhalations, producing
all the usual types of filth disease. The
meetings have resolved with remarkable
unanimity that cremation is the proper
method for disposal of the dead. Yet these
thoughtful men were not cremationists a
year ago. They became such when neces-
sity forced investigation upon them. They
have been convinced by the logic of facts
and without particle of missionary effort
on the part of the Cremation Society of San
Francisco. They have now gone before
the Board of Health of San Francisco with
their proofs and their demand. This same
Board of Health only eighteen months ago
refused to permit of disposal Of the dead in
San Francisco by incineration. 1t then de-
clared that burial was the only lawful
method. At the same time it was granting
permits daily tor the placing of bodies in
open tombs above ground, to decay and in
feet the atmosphere. By its own act it was
violating the law behind which it shielded
itself from the cremationists. 1t remains
to be seen what the Board of Health will
reply to the new petitioners. 1t cannot
controyert their facts, for they have forti-
fed themselves not only with proofs, but
the opinions of medical men and scientists,
whom the Board of Health cannot treat
with contempt. If it replies there shall be
no more burials in the cemetery indicated,
it confesses all the cremationists have
asked to be conceded, that burial of the
dead is detrimental to the living that re-
moteness removes the evil only in degree
and does not negative the fact If it re-
fuses to indorse the petition, and declines
to advise the.SuperviSors to put an end to
the nuisance, it will be exposed to the
charge of prejudice, stupidity or
bull-headedness,' and it will stand
confronted by the great burden
of medical testimony in San Francisco. In
whatever position these doctors place
themselves now they will be embarrassed,
and whatever they do in the premises will
aid the cremationists they scorned a year
and half ago-for it is not unlawful to
cremate, and the fact will very soon be
judicially determined in San Francisco.
When the law speaks of burial it means
decent disposal of the dead, customary
usage in disposing, and it does not mean to
inhibit any other decent methods. Inhu-
nation is not areligious tenet with the law;
the law is bound to no faith " in this
matter 1t speaks of permits being issued
to bury" because when framed no other
system of disposal was in vogue. 1t does
not authorize, affirmatively, entombment,
yet that is constantly preached. It does
not expressly authorize vaultage, yet hun
dreds of bodies lie rotting i'll vaults in San
Francisco, both public and private When
it refers to burial it does not mean to de-
fine the condition of the body at burial,
and hence the Inflammation of. the human
ashes would answer the demands of the
law. But one thing is certain, and that is
that San Francisco has at last come face to
face with the great fact that in the midst
of her residence sections there are plats of
ground which have been sequestered to
the great injury of the public. There re-
main but two things to do-to cease doing
i'll and to remove the bodies already in
humed, as was done in the case of Yerba
Buena Park, in that city, in the case of
Washington Square, New York, and of
West Side Shore, in Chicago.