The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-05-24
AsHEs To AsH Es.
Cremation in Its Sanitary Aspects. TBV John O Marhla Mn in the TTrn

Vlsed capable of reducing human
 body to ashes safely, quickly, and not
 unpleasantly. There Is offered to the
 people custom which will forever
 annihilate the dangers set forth in this
 essay. the contamination of earth, air
 and water, the liability to burial alive,
 the sacrilegious work of grave robbers
 and much of the unnecessary expense
 of funerals
 Reason everywhere approves the re-
 form, and sentiment alone opposes 1t.
 Sentiment is always to be regarded
 when the safety of the people is not
 Jeopardized thereby. Otherwise it is
 our duty to strive to substitute for
 exuberance of sentiment persuasive
 reason.
 Let us then boldly advocate this re-
 form, for whatever opposition we meet
 to-day, there can be no doubt of the
 favorable verdict of posterity upon our action.
 That cremation has won it's way so
 slowly until within the past ten years,
 only proves again how slow and diffi-
 cult it ever Is to stem the tide of popu-
 lar prejudice and institute measures of
 any sanitary reform. Recently, how
 ever, the recognition of it's merits has
 4mparted to its advocacy a new inn-
 petus in all civilized countries, and
 while I would not mistake the crow
 ing of the cock for the rising of the
 sun, may predict that this greatest of
 sanitary reforms is destined to prevail
 in the near future.
 Every reform in established customs, however, reasonable and necessary, has
 been gradual; but if no pioneer had with pachyderrnatous perseverance re- sisted opposition, and, suIbjecting him. self to criticism, pressed forward, the
 times would never have been ripe for any reform.
 Undeniably stupendous evil exists, which, by its hold on sentiment and firmly established custom, opposes the rapid spread of cremation; but rapidity is hardly expected, and perhaps in so delicate and serious matter, not de- sirable.
 The crowd of courtiers around the Palace of the Taileries, when Louis XIV. lay dying of loathsome disease, cried prematurely: '"rhe king is dead-long live the king" Decorum required that they await the extinction of life in the dangerous king before greeting the new one with acclaim. Not SO with us The dangerous, though cherished, cus- tom may, nay, must for the present, continue, and our hope of success is In planting the new by its side, and con vincing the people by contrast that the dangers of the old custom, hke the malady of Louis, are ineradicable, con- tagious and fatal, while the benefi- cent and humane results of the new may only be perfectly appreciated by grateful and more healthy posterity.
 A fellow of this society contributed to the report of our state board of health, for the year 1875, an able paper upon Cremation and Burial" He ar rived at the conclusion that incineration of the dead was mot then a sanitary This opinion was based largely upon the negative testimony of a large number of physicians in this state, who had not probably given much attention to the subject.
 A decade of sanitary investigation having passed, the dangers of interment having become more evident and the scientific process of cremation hay ing become perfected, I doubt if he would now arrive at the same conclu- sion after similar amount of re- search.
 The only objection to cremation, founded in reason and not sentiment, S, that the practice might destroy evil l fence of crime. Lack of time forbids | ne to answer this objection in exten- io. may say, however, Lucretia Bor- yias are extremely rare in our day, l md that, even if cases of criminal pois- | ,ning and other crimes against life and | lealth were far more common than they | ire now, instances of disease and death, lue to the evil effects of inhumation, are believed to outnumber by far, cases if unprotected crime which could pos ibly be due to the adoption of incinera- ion; and, on the principal of the great ,st good to the greatest number even, he proposed reform would still be jus- flied.
 Though the sanitary is the chief ar- sument in favor of cremation, there are ,ther important reasons for its adop- ion. The genus "Jerry Cruncher" is lot extinct. Remember that the re- mains of your dearest friend is not se- ure from the unholy rapacity of the rave robber. It seems almost pity o disturb the Elusive dream that cem- taries are sleeping places of the dead, s the name implies, yet is is pathetic act that neither the body of the pauper, 'uried without Q tear, that of the mill onaire committed to the vault with nore than royal magniflcence, nor even hat of a martyred president, placed n tomb protected by bolts and bars, 5 safe from the sacrilegious hand of he resurrectionist. Body snatching'' } shockingly common.
 Again the danger of burial alive is ot wholly chimerica1. A work recent 7 published in Italy reports sixty-f1ve cases of burial of per- ons afterward discovered to have been '. live at the time. In this country we <, ften read of persons being resuscitated | 'om what appeared to be the sleep of z cath Cremation being the practice, q 1is inexpressibly horrible calamity . ,ould be impossible, and if by any acci- z ent body not already dead were to 4 Q placed in crematory furnace, death | ould be instantaneous and painless. q Again, should cremation become gen -al the expense of the proper and de- f ent disposal of our dead could be n