Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-12-22
CREMATION GROWING IN FAVOR.
Many Prominent Bostonians Con verted to
the System.


the System.
Correspondence q The Evening st.-
BcsToS. December ~, 1884
When the late United States Commissioners
Hallets, who died last week, consigned his body
not to the grave but to the cremstory. he did
what scores Of prominent Bostonisns are likely
to do II all signs do not fail There has been q
quiet yet steady growth in the sentiment favor
Ing cremation during the past few years.
Scores Of distinguished people have now de-
clared themselves in support Of incarceration
the best method of disposing of the body when
life has ended. The Massachusetts, Cremation
Society has just accepted the plans for an i'm
posing crematory TO be erected here in Boston.
Among the officers OF the society are Right Rev.
Phillips Brooks, bishop of Massachusetts; Presi-
dent Charles ". Eliot of Harvard University,
Miss Alice NJ. Longfellow, daughter of the poet;
Martin Brimmer. DR.. Henry p. Bouditeh.
Francis Parkman, Augustus Hemenway and
others of almost equal note. James r Chad
wick is president.
These eminent advocates Of cremation prefer
"ashes to ashes" instead of ''earth to earth"
because they regard that method the moro
scientific. They hold also that there Is less in
1t to offend educated sensibiiities than in the
accepted forms Of burial. In maintaining this
view they have to meet all the prejudices that
the customs of generations have established.
Men have learned to look forward to dropping
their weary heads at last on the lap of mother
earth to sleeping their last long sleep beside their
kith and kin beneath the willows They have
been taught TO wish. like Little Nell to have
the bright sky above them always. In Dur-
suance of this idea they have surrounded the
city with beautiful cemeteries adorned with
the highest art of the landscape gardener For
these the retort, the urn and the colonibarium
seem like harsh and unpoetic substitutes.
But the strongest argument of the Boston
crematonisss is that their process offers an easy
solution of a problem that grows more serious
as the population of the city increases. Boston
VIII soon be confronted with the question Of
crowded graveyards. Many of the older ones
have already been filled; and there are thus
thirty-three public and private cemeteries
within the corporate limits Of Boston. In
these and in Noun. Auburn during the past ten
years !5.1l6 persons have been inferred. Alta
distance OF five miles from the state house and
lying within a radius of 1000 feet there are
three cemeteries Forest Hills, with 237 acres;
MI. Hope with l05 acres, and Calvary with l42
acres. In these three cemeteries 49.4l9
bodies have been buried in ten years. These
cemeteries have been looked upon as suburban
but on three sides Of these are wards %. "a and
20, that have increased from a population Of
81 $50 in 1850 to &c 6G7 in 1890, and on the
fourth'side is Hyde Park with about $4,000
people, nearly twice what it had in 1850. The
burials at Mount Hope average LOGO inter-
ments a year and Calvary 1000.
AT this rate. which Is only sample of wha.
Is seen In other cemeteries it does not require
a great mathematician to figure out con-
tingency which will excuse the timely efforts of
these eminent citizens 10 press the claims of
cremation.
THE BOSTON CREMAroRY.
The building which is to be erected in Bos-
ton comprises chapel to be used for funeral
services. furnace with retort for incarceration
and sepulchral chamber for the preservation
of the ashes Of the dead in urns or inches The
building will fulfill the ends of incarceration in
the most scientific manner and will also be an
architectural ornament to the neichhorhood
where it is built. The crematory will be at
the service of all applicants the same terms
and no limitation OF its Use will be based on re-
Ggious belief.
Miss Mary b. Comvns saws of the ceremony
as it will be exemplifed in Boston: ''The body,
simply clad and placed in a coffin, is not to be
put into the hre Us many suppose, but into q
called chamber of clay n little larger than it.
self, which is wholly closed except for few
small perforations in the top for the escape
OF gases, which are conducted through the Are
and consumed. This chamber is to be heated
to a temperature of about 1000 degrees. Moth
ing but heated air touches the body. 1t lies
absolutely undisturbed maintaining its perfect
shape until the last moment. when the beauti-
full rosy color it has gradually assumed changes
to white, and it instantly falls together in the
form Of pure ashes"
COMMISSIONER RALLErT's CREMATION.
The remains Of Commissioner Hnllett, the
first of the well-known believers in cremation
to carry his faith into practice. were inciner-
ated at the Earl crematory, lakewood cemetery,
Troy. n. Y. The ceremony occurred last
Friday. two days after his death. He did not
designate the place. but left it 10 his relatives.
who chose the handsomest and costliest Gre
matory in the world. A hint of the growth of
this idea is seen from the fact tina. ten years
ago there were but five crematoriss in England
and America, now there are twenty. With the
prestige which the Endorsement of these emf
nent Boston names has given the cremation
movement here III Massachusetts remarkable
Developments along this line may be expected
during the present decade.