ASHES TO ASHES

Hokitika Guardian, 13 October 1928, Page 2

ASHES TO ASHES

CIMuMATIUXS L\ SYDNEY. SYDNEY, Oct. 4. Although there is, ami probably always will he, a prejudice against n ..ntmg sections ul the coniiniinity, cre..ation is becoming inoi-e popular, if nat term is permissible, in Sydney.

Cremations are now averaging mole than d() a month. In fact, I lie (pie«uoii of extending the Crematorium is seriously being considered. The < I is* posal of the ashes of those creliiii .Led .ake.s some extraordinary forms, although, in the great majority t uses, they are retained in unis by re Ia ti VOS) or are scattered over Lie -..se gardens surrounding the ( reinaorium. The case is on record of one /oiing and attractive-looking Hydi.ey men who, although she knew sh Mil not long to live because of ah in.'iirable illness, was not without ,im sense of humour in the face of leach. She put in writing a rc-ques. imt, when she died and was cremat-

'd, her ashes should he compound!" with cement and made into a little cceptacle for her husband’s cigarette :i ■ expiai ned that he was an untidy nan, and had a habit of throwing I ut everywhere the butts of his cigarettes. Twelve months later the woiiiin slipped into the insoluble mystery of death. Her request was fulfilled.

A man r with big country interests, lot long before his death and crema:ion, asked that his ashes should be conveyed to his property, placed on top of the hood of his car, and scatered to the four winds of Heaven. He jocularly explained that as the Iriver of his,car invariably drove “like lie very devil,” his ashes would thus be quickly scattered. Only last month the ashes of a woman who had been very fond of the ea were slink in Sydney Harbour. In the office of the Cremation Society is a neat, cut-g!as« jar, almost 'bill of white, flaky ashes. They are he mortal remains of the wife of a sydney tradesman, and have Hen jell , 'miporarily, in the Socieiy s safeKicping.

Not a few people, especially those vho have read Edgar Allen Toe, view itli dread the possibility of premature burial. That it is possible, even in the present year of grace and of nodeni medical developments, is one )f the many arguments advanced by hose who favour cremation. , The fundamental argument, of course, is hat relating to hygiene. Another uguinent is that it is cheaper to be •remated than to be buried. Figures wove this to be a fact, and may, incidentally, be one of . the reasons for nearly a thousand people having already joined the Cremation Society. Each one of them is entitled to cremation, and all the paraphernalia oi he last rites, for aJbout 15 guineas. What undertaker can decently bury one for that, to say nothing of the ost of the headstone, and the maintenance of one’s last resting place?