The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-01-02


 ground and a possible source of dis ease, had been transformed in an hour and half to an !nnocuous mass, al- most beautiful in the purity of its Whiteness. As soon as the remains were withdrawn, the attendants pro- duced plain earthenware jar and gathered up the ashes and deposited them in the receptacle. They were ar | terwards found to weigh something un- der three pounds-about two pounds nine ounces. This having been deter mined, the jar and contents were placed in q small box, the lid of which was sealed down and conveyed to town to await the burial ceremony"
 At meeting of the British Medical association held in Cambridge, England some years ago, they drew up doc | ument addressed to the home secretary of England in which they strongly dis approved the custom Of burying the dead, and indorsed cremation.
 l Aside from the sanitary reasons for | cremation, which are certainly unan- l swerable, there are occult reasons for | burning the dead. Cremation destroys at once the astral, or etheric double | which hovers about the place of burial | till the body Is disintegrated. It is l this that is the cause of graveyard 1 "spooks," or ghosts. As Franz Hart man says: The visible body of a man | is but a small part of the real being of man, which is invisible to the outer | senses, and may be compared to neb- ula in the heavens which extends over millions Of miles, but of which only | the innermost shining spot Is clearly discernable. Opposed to this spiritual soul of man is an animal consciousness. or Kama -rupa, the form produced by the desire for earthly ex- istence, in which the passions and sens ual inclination reside. and which every man feels himself although the dissect- ing knife has not as yet demonstrated this scientifically. The l Hindu teaches that when man dies, that is, when the higher principles de- part from the body, he leaves behind two corpses, viz, the quite dead phys ical body, and the astral body, which l can be, according to circumstances, l quite unconscious, semi i-conscious or even fully self conscious. have known persons (continues MT. Hartmann) who l were clailvoyant, and who maintained | that they saw in cemeteries floating 1 forms of corpses buried there, and that this sight was so loathsome that if ev- cry one had the gift of the inner sight cremation would soon become univer- sal and cemeteries would be endured no longer To liberate this astral body from the corpse and lead it to it's dis I A1. 4,,ke II xkr ,A II, ,ta1. it is composed Is one of the aims of the | Hindus in cremation.
 l I think I have given sufficient from various authorities in favor of crenla- tion, though could hardly exhaust the subject if I continued on this line all night. Five years ago, In India, wit messed native cremation. It was at the Burning Chat in Calcutta. I had to go in the early morning, for all these ceremonies are performed by o'clock, or earlier. hired a guide, who sat on the outside of the carriage with the driver. We drove for long distance, it seemed miles, through the city, till we reached the banks of the Hugli, which being branch of the holy Gan ges, Is also considered holy and the l ashes of burned bodies are scattered l in it. as in the Ganges. Hundreds of men women and children were taking 1 their morning bath in the Hugli, and most interesting sight 1t was to watch them, which I had plenty of time to do while my guide went to see if matters were ready for cremation. It was large, circular brick building, open to :, the sky overhead. When I went in there were four bodies in various stages of preparation for the funeral pile A fifth one was brought in on stretch CT while I was there. It was a. most crude and unpleasant method. A body was lying on a pile of sticks right be- fore me, and upon this body the sticks were piled for several layers. Some of the sticks were sandal wood, and on some of them, a man, probably priest, rubbed ghee (holy butter). The body, my guide informed me, was that of an aged woman. I could see her bald head
 through the sticks, and thought 1t was that of a man. When all was ready, the priest, if priest he was, walked sew eral times around the pile throwing his head back and hands up, uttering in a monotone what appeared to be an invocation. Then another set fire to
 the pile. This is always done by son or other relative of the dead person.
 The wood began to crackle and the flames to roll up over the body. Mean time, little child's body, not far away, was about ready for similar ceremonies; and three others, still farther away,
 were about ready. I stood till I had seen enough and told my guide I would
 go. The contrast between this crude performance and the scientific crema-
 ton now practiced in this country and
 Europe Is very great. But crude as it
 is, so great is my horror of burial I
 think I should prefer it to that If there
 were no better process available.
 There Is another mode of disposing
 of the dead in India which also saw.
 At least, I did not witness the actual
 disposal of a body by that process, for
 no one, not even followers of Zoroaster
 himself, save the two appointed to take
 charge of the body, is allowed to as-
 cend the ToWers of Silence, nor even to
 go within twenty feet of them So we