Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-07-22
Lay her i the earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
Nav yiClets spring


And onward to Gray's immortal elegy
nearly every post had some sweet and
reverential word to say of the spot where
with heart break, yet with a divine hope,
the long procession of the bereaved laid
all that was left of their dear ones in the
safe keeping of mother earth.
But poetry is one thing and a sanitary
science is another. In densely popu-
lated cities the overcrowded graveyar(ls
began to be q serious source of danger.
In many of the cities of England the pre-
cincts of the burial places became so
full that it was difficult to find
room for another inhab1tant. The
evidence which was taken before the
royal commission on the subject previous
to the passing of the intramural burials
act was of gruesOme nature. It re-
suited in burials within the crowded linn
its of cities being forbidden, and in burial
places being established in open spaces,
where, to a large extent, the existing
evils might be neutralIzed. Cremation
is, of course, a question for crowded
cities, where burials are frequent In
rural districts, sparsely popuIarized, and
swept by the free winds of heaven, SUCH
a method of getting rid of decaying orr
ganic matter need not so much occupy
the people s attention, although even
in cases like these, reverence
for the human body, and q horror of the
slow process of decomposition, resulting
from earth burial, might sometimes de-
ter imaginative persons from adopting
it. But where the population is thIckly
crowded together and is daily spreading;
where the march of the census is gradu-
ally lnclosing places that were once ru-
raj, it is imperative that all necessary
steps should be taken for the immediate
destruction of all sources of disease We
plead for cremation, therefore, not only
of the mortal remains OF human beings,
but of all garbage and decaying rub
bish, such as is now dumped
in waste places to become
fertile source OF deathly microbes
and death germs. Only the other
day we read in the public prints that
large quantity of meat, fruit and vegeta-
bles had been seized as unfit for food,
and that this had just been carried out
and laid on waste land and perhaps COW
cred with little soil In filling up by !.
the side of the slips at the foot of Church
street recently garbage was buried in like
manner, to evolve in it's gradual decay
pestilential gases and germs of disease.
It is highly necessary that all this decay
ing matter should be subjected to the
purifying agency of fire, and not day
should be lost by the authorities in pro-
Yiding the proper arrangements.
With regard to cremation, as the term
is usually understood, it is a strange
thing that while nearly everybody is in
favor of it, while sanitary scientists to a
man approve of it, and while churches
and governments have Withdrawn their
veto from it, so little is done to bring it
into general use. But this, like other
reforms. requires time and patience.
That it will ultimately come about in the
course of our progress toward that physi-
cal, mental and moral local which should
be the aim of cities, We have no doubt.
Meanwhile let those who have that ideal
at heart endeay0T, each in his own
sphere, to influence public opinion in its
favor