The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-10-17
.ASHES TO ASHES.
Church of England Views. TFrOm the Urn,l


 At one of the recent sessions of the
 reported by our London exchange, the attention of a large audience
 Professor A. Bostock Hill read a pa- | per on "Crema tion." He said he pre- sumed no one would go so far as to say that, if it be definitely proved that the burial of our dead was harmful to the living, it was not desirable that
 some new process of disposing of the dead should be found; and if, after a considerati ton of all methods hitherto proposed, they found that, with the ex- ception of cremation, none supplied the
 want under all conditions, and if at the same time it could be shown that ere nation was possible and legal and was not attended by any serious objections, then there would be few to raise their voices in opposition against it. Burial, unless carried out under certain condi- tions, was admitted to be dangerous to the living so much so that old burial
 vaults and crypts could no longer be
 utilized for the disposal of human re- mains. Was it too much to suppose IHdl COHulliOllS WHICH WClt DON lOitI ed might be in themselves harmful
 particularly as in a country like Great
 Britain, of limited area and constantly increasing population, year by year we
 were again tending to produce those
 conditions which legislation fifty years
 ago endeavored to obviate? Putting
 aside for a moment the sanitary ques-
 ton, it must be obvious that their pres
 ent system of burial had an important
 economic bearing. The time was com
 ing when all available land would be
 required for the purpose of our food
 supply, and the conversion, therefore,
 of thousands of acres into burial
 grounds which it was intended to utilize
 for agricultural purposes, must be look
 ed upon as a serious limitation to the
 food-growing of the country. After condemning the earth-to-earth system
 and burials in the sea, he said the ob-
 ject of cremation was to destroy the or
 ganic constituents of the body as soon
 as possible, and thus prevent the evil
 effects of putrefaction on the health of
 the living. That it was possible to carry out crena ton efficiently, reverent- ly and without nuisance had been prov
 ed by the establishment in this and other countries of crematoria, where many bodies had been burnt. One of the advantages of cremation was, that
 the body after death could, in a couple of hours, without nuisance to any one,
 be converted into three or four pounds of white ashes which was absolutely in- nocuous. The most serious objection
 that could be urged against cremation
 was, however, that which pointed out
 ,he danger of destruction of evidence
 which might, at some future time, be
 utilized for the discovery of crime. As a matter of fact, there was practically
 no danger in the loss of traces of possi-
 ble crime by the practice of cremation,
 because it had always been rule, both adopted by the Cremation Society of England and in foreign countries, that no body should be cremated unless the most clear and satisfactory evidence could be adduced that nothing in the nature of foul play had occurred. It was most important that efficient means should be taken to prevent the spread of the disease to the living, and this could only De done by the process of disinfection. He knew of no disinfec- ton that could be relied upon to satis- factorily perform that function except great heat. All thinking men deplored the great waste of money taking place in connection with funerals, and he believed that if cremation became popu- lar there would be a saving of expedf- ture, amounting annually to a very large sum. If crema ton became the custom, not only would there be a say ing of land now used for burial grounds. but vaults and crypts, long since closed by law might be reopened for the recep- tion of the innOcuous ashes of the dead He asked that the influence of the church be given on the side of sanita- ton, and that no opposition be main l tained against the esta blishment of ere matories in convenient centers.