Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1895-08-22
ASHES OF THE CREMATED.
What to Do with the Urns Becoming
Question of the Day.

Question of the Day.
The a%ncients settled this question
by placing the cinerary urn either in
its own receptacle dedicated to the
gods or in a 'colunbarium," which was
a kind OF stone cupboard with many
partitions. Such modern nations as
the Hindoos and Japanese, who largely
follow the practice of cremation, place
the few relics left by the flames in a
vessel of pottery and deposit it either
j temporarily or for good in their tenn
/ pies. Sometimes the selected ashes,
after reposing in the solemn spot, are
thrown into a holy river, such as the
Jumna or the Gauges, and in this way
no embarrassment arises. The custom
seems universal Of desiring to preserve
some little portion Of the scanty frag
ments LETT by the fire. With the Him
docs a whitened bone or two s~utfices,
but the Greeks gathered up all and
placed it in somewhat larger vessels
than the vases or boxes used in India
and Japan.
Every scholar ~recollects the touching
passage in Sophoclcs, where Orestes.
disguised, brings back to his royal sis
ter b funeral urn supposed to contain
his own remains. 1t may be doubted,
in spite of the reverence paid to the
classic morals, whether what Sophocles
writes was high dramatic art. He
makes Orestes relate a long-winded
and utterly false story of how he him
self was smashed to pieces in a chariot
race, and then he lets the lady &c into
passionate and eloquent grief through
q hundred lovely iambic lines, shedding
tears as much wasted as the water
from a ra~inspout. Still, the Greeks evil
IDENTITY found much that was graceful
and tender in the two handouts of
white dust shut in a little urn,'' and
they lavished art upon the receptacles
and knew where to put them.
With US, however, if the fashion
spreads there really must be some ar
ranGement. In a large fanily-through
a long lapse of years, visited, perhaps,
by recurrent infuenza-the collection
OF departed relatives committed to all
sorts Of urns, vases and jars might be
come a real Inconvenience. Even if a
special cabinet We're neviSed, with sep
arate shelves for aunts, uncles, moth
e~rs-ln-lavv, and SO on, the difficulty at
times of letting the house or leaving it
for another would be likely to prove
extreme. Besides, there would always
be this danger, which has Just befallen
France. of losing an ancestor or kins-
mar in transit; nor do we know bv
what rule parliament itself could de-
eide how to conciliatc the value which
alover might put upon the remnants of
his mistress, or a reslduary legatee up
on the ashes of the millionaire who had
enriched him, with the comparative in
difference that railway companies and
common carriers would be inclined to
show toward such goods. Clearly there
would have to be a tariff, but in dray W.
ing up that tariff what pulling ques-
tions might arise. How could we esti-
mate the respective prices of aunts
cousins and second cousins. or draw a
pecuniary distinction between the re-
mains of n second, third or fourth hus-
ban of a widow?
If, as has been said, the ministers Of
various denominations have declined to
find a place of deposit for tnese interest
ing memorials, the difficulty will really
press for solution as the practice IF ere
nation extends, and it must be borno
in mind, although new grief might find
a certain mournful pleasure in having
its lost ones o~rnanaenting the residence
in exquisite porcelain of Sevres or Sat
suma, still this feeling wears off, and
many people might be glad to have a
better place for all that wv mortal of
an uncle or a grandfather than the
parlor mantelpiece or the Chippendale
whatnot.