CREMATION IN ENGLAND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1051, 6 January 1883, Page 3

CREMATION IN ENGLAND.

Tho London correspondent of the Otago Daily Times says :— ‘ Two cases of cremation have lately taken place in Dorsetshire, The bodies were those of two ladies who Inid desired that their remains should be treated in that manner, There were many difficulties in the way, as cremation is not practised here, and everytlung.had to bo planned from the beginning. The bodies were consumed in a simple furnace made of fire-brick and' iron plates. The healthofficer of the district was present during the operation, which left nothing to be desired on the score of decency and completeness. In an hour all that remained was a quantity of calcined bones, which ‘ looked like frosted silver when broken.’ It is much to be wished that this simple, beautiful, and harmless mode of disposing of the dead were substituted for the hideous and un-

wholesome practice of interment, In a thiniy-populated country like yours, where the living and the dead have \oom to co-exist in comfort, the question is perhaps not one of practical moment. But here it is otherwise. Our interests and theirs conflict, They are s majority and elbow us out. We lire among tombs, and walk over Mouldering corpses. Wo inhale our

ancestors at every math ; they sparkle in the water we drink ; they are baked into our bread. Not by chemical transmutation—we should not mind that—but in gobs and nuggets. This is not fancy, hut sober, disgusting fact. It is the inertia of custom, the influence of the clergy, and the general ignorance of the conditions of sepulchre in our great towns, and especially in London, which explain the continuance of the present objectionable practice. There is nothing unchristian oi irreverent in cremation. The prospect of it is not terrible or repulsive. And though in a few cases it might hide the evidence of murder by poison, it would on the other hand relieve the mind of the dread of premature burial.”