LADY DILKE'S CREMATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4305, 7 January 1875, Page 3

LADY DILKE'S CREMATION.

The Cologne Gazette quotes from the Dresden correspondence of the Schwdbische Mcrhwr the following account of the cremation of the body of Lady Dilke:—This evening (October 9) the first cremation of a human corpse took place in all privacy in the oven built for this purpose by Froderich Siemens. The brother-in-law of the deceased Lady Dilke, with the executor, a London attorney, had been staying in Dresden during the last fortnight, for the purpose of obtaining the permission of the authorities for fulfilling the last will of the lady, which was granted after tho relatives of the deceased had made a declaration that the cremation was to lie considered a " scientific experiment." The consort of the deceased, Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, M.P., has, as is known, seceded from the Episcopal Church, and so the English clergy here were not in a position to perform the funeral rites, while the Protestant pastors, in ignorance of the eir- 1 cumstances of the case, were unwilling to encroach on the functions of the English clergymen. The body had been embalmed in London five weeks ago, and transported here in a coffin encased in lead, so that a delay of the " burial" on account of the "funeral ceremonies seemed not advisable. After removing the outer case of lead, the coffin was opened, and the existence of the corpse was confirmed by thet city surgeon, Herr Neidner, present on behalf of the Ministry. Besides the gentlemen named, amongst others the following were present:—The President of the Police at Dresden, and Town Councillor Flath, as official witnesses; and Surgeon-General Roth; Medicinal Councillor, Dr. Kuehenmeister ; Dr. Spitzner, member of the town council; and Herr Pieper, civil engineer, attended as scientific observers. Hen- Siemens requested those present to offer up a silent prayer for the deceased, to which followed the introduction of the corpse in an oaken coffin, from which the lid had been removed, into the upper chamber of the. cremation vault. A few minutes after its introduction the brother-in-law of the deceased permitted the opening of the observation door of the vault, and through it the cremation process could be observed, in its different, stages. After six minutes the coffin burst, probably favored by the peculiar construction of the coffin (we suppose the English form is entirely different from the German). After ten minutes the muscles throughout were separated from the bones, and after scarcely twenty minutes the skeleton was laid completely bare, and began to fall to pieces. The carbonisation of the inner soft parts was considerably advanced after thirty minutes, and after an hour the amount of bone essentially reduced. After the lapse of seventy-five minutes the vault could be opened for tho purpose of removing the few parts remaining on the upper storey, as also for collecting the remains on the lower floor, weighing about 61bs., and transferring them to an urn.