Year: 1874

Nothing is more curious to notice than the
manner in which an idea becomes epi-
demic. This matter of cremation, for instance.
Men have died and worms have eaten them
for generations without protest on either
side until a month or two ago, when in Ger
many. Italy, England, and this country sud-


den crusade sets out simultaneously against
cotfins, winding sheets, and moist, unpleasant
bodies and crowds of scientific and sentimental
gentlemen cry aloud in the market places, de-
mandlng of postenty furnace Of fre-proof
"bricks with ten holes below and one
"hundred and fifty pounds of wood" by
means of which they may promptly be con-
yerted into lime, or, as otherwise stated, ga
"pure and holy fame" The number moving
practically IN the matter in Europe is esti-
mated at three or four thousand; in New
York they may be counted by the score, but
their yigor and almost wrathful zeal will per-
baps atone for want of numbers. The matter
is. after all, one which science will argue, but
which feeling will decide ; and in the meeting
a few nights ago there was not any appreciable
show of either the one or the other. In order to
make converts it would have been wise either
to prove that the new mode Of dealing with
the bodies of the departed was more healthful
for the living, or to have surrounded it with
n semblance of greater care and tenderness
for the dead. Our friends, however, all ap


peared to have undertaken the work III
white heat of antagonism to all who differed
with them, (which the subject hardly calls for.


The "dead body" being what might be
called the piece de resistance of the de-
bate, was attacked by each speaker and
handled roughly enough Now most of us
weaker mortals are apt to remember but one
"dead bOdyn when we hear the words; one
which we do not name we think OF dear
hands that never will open to grasp ours
again; of a still, white face which means ali
that was worth caring for in life to us. For
these vehement gentlemen to denounce it as a
dead animal, loathsome carcass, q putrid
carrion, is hardly the way to invite popular
nreiudices to their side of the question. After
haling the hypothetical dead man to hight
who has been passing solemnly under the sod
for SO many generations as into the valley of
the shadow of death, followed only by tears
and reverent silence, and having shown him
to be only most unpleasant nuisance and
fraud, our reformers brought on their argu-
ments in favor of burning and making O
prompt and speedy end of him. These argu-
ments reduced to their real meaning simply
were that he was needed as manure. We
were bidden to estimate the wastage of
1.9OO,OOO,OO0 people every third of century.
Counties of James River where neither mari
nor any other fructifer is used were held up
to us as frightful examples of bad soil in case
this sort of thing was persevered in. The man
who refused to give his body as manure was
thief. One gentleman appealed to " those fine
"fat fellows, the gourmands," and assured
them his ashes should go to nOurish the early


vegetables and the OK from which comes sir


loip steaks. Whether this inducement brought
in the gourmands to anyl extent we are not
informed. We were adjured to burn our
selves, and not only to burn, but to refuse
"to urn our ashes" to insist that they be
Immediately scattered over the earth for farm