The Savannah morning news., 1901-11-30

land and Nonconformist clergymen and
ministers generally hold funeral SER
vice al the crematorium chapel.
One of the commonest popular OBJ
jections to cremation is that it destroys
the evidence of poison and so facili-
tates crime. The reply to this is two
fold First, only a very limited number
of cases of poisoning, those in which
one or two metallic poisons have
heen used, could be detected for more
than short time after burial. Second
ly, in every case of cremation rigid
system of certitlcation both to the fact
of death and of its cause is required.
Thus any doubt is settled at once for
all, while under the present slipshod
system of registration there is no
guarantee that the cause of death has
been accurately stated in the first i'm
stance. The doctors certificate being
given to the family of the patient often
glosses over unfortunate facts, such
for instance as ill-usage or death from
alcohol. Proper certification such as
is required for cremation would also
prevent the dread possibility of the
burial of the living.
On sanitary grounds the old system
of burial has few defenders. The advo-
Gates of earth TO earth burial point
out that interring the body in light
cause
be resolved into it's clemens much more
quickly than if it were encased in a
heavy coffin. But a quickening of the
process of putrefaction does not di-
minish the total amount of contamina-
ton of earth and air and water.
70 make burial a healthy and sani-
tary process is impossible where any
large number of interments have to be
provided for. Whether body is to be
consumed by fire or by slow under
ground decay the end is the same. BY
the agency of oxygen it has to be con-
verified into its elements of mineral ash,
gases, and water. In an ideal burial a
body should be placed in a light, por-
Gus soil sufficiently deep above to
render innocuous gases which escape
to the air, and sufficiently deep below
thoroughly to filter all escaping water
before 1t reaches any underground
channel. Then every shower of rain
which saturates the soil will sink grad
ually down, carrying dissolved oxygen
and drawing after it. as it drains away,
new air from above, Oxidation will go
on steadily and no harm will be done
How different the conditions in the
great cemeteries which encircle Lon
/ den, and around which populous su-
burbs are springing up! In the first
place, most of these cemeteries are in
clay soil Nothing more utterly in
sanitary than a clay grave could well
be devised 1t is a watertight pit. dug
In an impermeable soil, filled with
! broken and permeable material. and
with a corpse at the bottom Some
nfteen feet deep, and contain as many
as half-a- dozen super-imposed collins
The first fall of rain fills the bottom
of the pit, the liquid has no escape,
and as all dissolved oxygen is at once
l,
the most offensive type sets up in
the body lying in the liquid. No fresh
atmospheric oxygen can reach the
collins. When there is heavy rain the
grave nils up, and the often ive LIQUID
flows off on the surface to do unknown
injury while a hot, dry period gradu-
ally dries out the grave and causes a
continual ascent of communicating va
pcrs into the air. If the grave is
drained either at or near the bottom
things are little better. for there is no
porous soil to render harmless the
escaping water, which flows into some
channel from which it may do enor-
nous harm
This is true of a single clay grave
but what of the thousands of name
less dead herded together in the
common" graves of our London ceme-
tef1es, often with only a few inches of
N'4i Aoi NSNFlitS ; sake between coffin
ana coffin? Not a pretense of any pro-
lection by the soil can exist in such
cases; the whole ground is saturated
with corruption. London has now 100
QUO ourlals per annum, enough TO cover
twelve acres of ground with graves
without a footpath between. Practical
~ all these interments take place in
suburbs where the population is grow
ing by leaps and bounds. Just as the
oh n Iet -
TO be cleared of their dead. SO in q
generation or so. unless cremation is
soon adopted we shall be faced with
the tremendous problem of clearing
Finchley and Highgate, Norwood
footing, and Nunhead