CREMATIONS

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1235, 29 December 1882, Page 2

CREMATIONS

Mh.W. Robinson, of Mansion Home J near Blandford, sends to the papers aifl account of two cremations in thial country. Last Bunday evening thel body of Mrs Hanham, wife of Captain! Hanham, was reduced to its elements! by fire at this place. The following! evening the body of Lady Hanham,! wife of the late Rev. Sir James HanJ hsm, Bart., of Dean’s Court, DorsetS and mother of Captain Hanham, wail also decomposed by fire. Mrs Han-1 ham died in July, 1876, of cancer,! Lady Hanham, in June, 1877, in her! ninetieth year. Mrs Hanham expressed! to her husband and to various friends! her wish that her body should not be! buried, but be reduced to ashes in thill manner; and Lady Hanham desired! that hers should be same way. With a view tAH], some of the preliminary the bodies were not buried in any cemetery, but kept in a strongly built mausoleum of good design tn the grounds. The cremations were carried out in a simple, inexpensive furnace, not only without any nuisance to the neighborhood, but without the slightest unpleasantness to those who stood within two feet of two white flame, which promptly resolved the bodies to their harmless elements. Though done under many difficulties, the act was quickly accomplished in each instance, nothing being left but perfectly calcined bones, The fragments of larger ones looked like frosted silvel when broken, and they fell apart at a slight touch. The ashes of each body were collected with the greatest care, and placed in a largo china bowl, in which they will remain until urns of an approved form are ready. Then they will be moved to the mausoleum among the trees on the lawn. Each body since decease—six and five years ago respectively—was; encased in a strong elm coffin, and that in a lead one. The coffins, lead and all, were placed in the furnace resting on fire brick and iron plates, placed so as t< allow the flames to play freely up, but( prevent the ashes from falling *to the fire below. The lead soon ran through the furnace into the ash pits, and tho white flames played round the strong elm shell till that fell at white heat over the body, of which an hour a&er, wards only tne ashes remained,