Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1885-08-07

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 u house of rest and
safety, where the dead are laid until
undoubted evidences of death appear
| visited one of these in Halle; in one
chamber was a nice couch on which
the body was laid and kept at proper
temperature. Thimbles We're put on
the fingers, and from thes, II delicate
wire extended through the wall into an
adjoining room, where was a 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. inquired if such arrange.
mentS were common. He said they
were, and he had heard rumor that
once upon time life had been saved
at Efurt, but it was only rumor, he
had never known an instance. A
writer in one of the New York ally
papers most foolishly and inconsidcr-
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. do not say that such eases
never do occur, but they are so cX-
ceedingly improbable and rare that no
living person need have the slightest
apprehension. There have been two
hundred and twenty-sevcn thousand
interments in Greenwood Cemetery,
and not one person has been even sns-
pected of being buried prcmaturely,
The nearest that any one ever came
to it was in the case of woman who.
after being on ice four days, was lad
in the receiving tomb and watched Il
week and then buried lmade applica-
ton to the comptroller of Greenwood
Cemetery, and these facts were fur
nished to me officially. Had | eX-
tended the search into the records OF
all the cemeteries in and around the
city of New York | should not find the
least item of evidence to prove the cor
rectness of the Frenchman's foolish
estimate.
Burial should never take place until
certain infallible signs of death are
manifest. These will be waited for by
all sensible people, and apprehension
Oh the subject of the living should b.
dismissed as unreasonable.
1t is urged in favor of cremation that
it leaves no chance for premature
burial But the alternative is yer,
painful, and no sane person would
burn the body of friend to prcyeni
the burial before death. There are
sanitary considerations in favor Of
cremation. and there is nothing to mt
repulsive in the idea of giving the dead
body to be burned. Ashes to ashes, OF
| dust to dust, it is all the same so III,
spirit is with God who gave it. But
| lilClC 10 III tnC llCitlb VI ~
fined by the Christian religion. u sent
ment that finds pleasure in chcriShing
the grave of one loved in life. and that
sentiment will not be satisfied with =,
vase of ashes. The graveyard wher,
our friends are sleeping is invested
with sacredness that no coiHmbdriin
ever had, though the urns of twenty
generations were ranged along it,
allS.-IrenRuS in ~. T. Observer.