CREMATION OF THE BODY OF A LADY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 185, 2 August 1878, Page 4

CREMATION OF THE BODY OF A LADY.

A Washington correspondent gives a detailed account of the cremation of Mrs. Jane Pitman, of Cincinnati, wife of Pitman, the noted phonographic author. Mrs Pitman's body reached Washington on the morning of the 15th Hit., accompanied only by Mr Pitman and one of his newspaper friends from Cincinnati. It was enclosed in an Oiied chestnut casket, shaped somewhat like a dry goo;lg case> the same width from bend to foot. When the corpse of the woman reached the little brick house, several of the curiosity hunters who were sitting on the fence helped to carry it in and lay it on the table. Mr Pitmao, meanwhile, was seated in Dr Le Moyne's parlor, talking with the old gentleman, Mr Pitman ond Le Moyne's two sous and daughters started for the top of the hill. They and the newspaper friends of Mr Pi Iman, from Cincinnati, were the only mourners. The furnace was then at a white heat. There wera no religious ceremonies of auy kind. Several of Mrs Pitman's lady, friends in Cincinnati had read poems and delivered addresses over ber while her body lay in that city, and Mr Pitman himself hid delivered a short address, but neither time was there a prayer, or a tear, or even a sigh. "All ready," replied young Le Moyne. The big iron door of the retort was taken off, filling both rooms with an almost unbearable glare and heat, The young Le Moynes picked up the body, which had been laid in the same iron cradle in which Da Palm was oremated, and, resting the head on the edge of the furnace] Shoved the body in, like an oysterknife going into a claou The body wag encased iv a white sheer, soaked in alum water, but this did not entirely cover the head, and, as sooo as the head of the corpse was within a foot or two of the furnace door, the dry clothes in which the head was encased caught fiae, and in an instant the entire building was filled with a dense black smoke with a s'fkening smell. The door wos quickly closed, but the overpowering odour of burning hair and flesh lasted for fifteen minutes or more, although the windows were opened to get rid of it. Dense clouds of this black smoke also poured from the chimney of the retort filling the air about the building with the disagreeable smell. After the body had been roasted for about fifteen minutes, a slight bluish flame came from it, and thus continued throughout the erematiou. After threequarters of an hour, a skeleton of fire could be seen through the peepholes, the head burned off and rolled to one side, and in a few minutes more the bones had all separated and lay loose upon the floor of the retort. The hip bones were the last to give way, and when they were in an hour and fifty-one minutes after the body was put in, cremation was pronounced complete, and the building was cleared and locked up. Mr Pitman tookfrquent looks through the peepholes to Bee how his wife was cooking. At the end he expressed much admiration of what he termed "the beautiful sight." It was decided that the asheß must remain in the retort till next Monday, so that it may cool beyond any possibility of cracking when the air is admitted, as it is badly cracked already. Mr Pitman is to return to Cincinnati to-morrow morning, and bis wife's ashes are to be sent on to Mm by express. Experts say that Mrs Pitman burned so much quicker than De Palm because she was a fresh corpse and he was stale and dry.