The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-26

day had only had the courage to take advantage of it and make proper burial compulsory they might easily have done so and have thus disposed of all our difficulties. The energy necessary for such a change was not, however, as we now know, forthcoming.
 The case, therefore, as left by the failure of governmental action, was, and still is this: While the proximate and material cause of the so-called "overcrowding of cemeteries" was the strong coffin, the remote and moral cause.-the unreasoning sentiment, that is, which prompted It's use-was little by little lost sight of. The distinction between improper buriap' as a cause, and the "overcrowding of cemetefles' as the effect, was forgotten, and even cremation, the most visionary of reme- dies for it. again began to be heard or I am not, sir, on the present occasion going to waste line of your space on this, to my mind, unfortunate and Ill., advised revival, satisfied to wait for that searching and. it is to be hoped capable and disinterested inquisitlon which you have happily invoked for US settlement To continue, therefore In | 1884, at a meeting presided over by the late Earl of Shaftesbury, tried again to disarm the prejudice which shrinks from exposing the bodies of the dead | to an actual contact with the earth py | describing in popular terms what that | friendly contact meant. Some curious | ly mistaken notions, explained, ex- isted as to that which happens to dead body when, in the words of the old ritual it was "laid into the ground' the poular notion being that it be- came a part of the clay to which we committed 1t. Nothing of the kind, Of course, is the case.
 A body properly buried-buried, that is to say, in such way that the earth may have access to it-does not even remain in the earth. but returns to the 1 atmosphere. The earth, as earth, af- l fects it in no really appreciable way. The part played by the earth in its resolution is that of a mere porous me- dium between it and the air which is above it. Through this medium the air filters, and, when it reaches the body, in chemical language oxidizes it-that is to say, resolves it into new and harmless products; and then these new l products, passing upward again through the same sieve-like medium, re-enter the atmosphere and become the elements of its renewal and of the nourishment and growth of plants.
 And, yet again, so recently as the 23d of August last, after eleven years ex- perience of the fact, made, with your permission, a final statement as to the | oh of a quantities of earth to resolve many times it's own bulk of animal matter without either loss or increase either of it's substance or of it's inherent sweetness and purity-a statement | which I would fain hope has contrtbut- ed to the modified form of the crema- tionist contention observable in your | article.
 Properly, also, I ought, in order to render this summary complete, to put on record a respectful expression of my surprise that the local government board is even now so behind the times as to prescribe depth for the burial of the body which unnecessarily retards it's resolution and even issues instruc- tions for the continued use of brick graves and vaults
 I forbear, patiently waiting for that millennium which yous sir, have fore shadowed, but which, by the way will never find it's accomplishment in a committee of the house of commons The case, in fact, is eminently one not for an immovable government with a full knowledge of all the circumstances of the case, but for some such inde- pendent body as the London city coun- cil. I am, sir, your obedient servant,
 F. SEYMOUR HADEN.