"EARTH TO EARTH."

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 447, 30 March 1875, Page 2

"EARTH TO EARTH."

The following letter appears in the London Times of the Ist January :—: — " Sir, —An agitation, attributable possibly to an imperfect appreciation of the merits of the case, has been cuisfed by tho proposal of certain German and Italian writers.ins their own countny, and of an eminent surgeon in this, to substitute the burning of the de^d for their interment. Interment, the apostles of Cremation- tell us, in substance if not in terms and' speaking of its most comprehensive sense, is repulsive in idea, costly and ineffectual in f.ict, horrible in practice, a vilification of the dead; and a danger to the living. In a variety of publications which have received much attention, they denounce not any particular mode of interment, or any palpable abuses which have crept into tho practice to discredit it, but the practice itself. They take no notice of the fact that the dead are little more than nominally buried and that, by the interposition between them and the earth that should resolve them of such media as wood, I<m<J, brick, stone, and the like, interment as a principle is rendered all but nugatory, and as a practice deprived of its raison d- etrg. Finally they leave it to bo inferred, since they give us no hint to the contrary, that the evils thus created are- inherent in the principle of interment, and upon this inference, and-uppn no other ground, recommend Cremation. It is the object of this letter, sir, not so much to join issue, with the Cremationists, which I must venture to think untenable, as to invite attention to the important fact which underlies and, to some extent, excuses it — viz, the fact that the dead are ' improperly buried ; and*in*reference to the serious and pressing evils which ftav*e arisen out of this fact to suggest a consideration of the, following propositi : 1. That the natural distinction of all organised bodies that have lived,\and, that die, on the earth's surface, is the earth, fc 2. That the evils which they (tho Cremationists would have us believe to be inseparable from the principle of informant are independent of that principle, and wholly of ouv own creation. 3. .That the source of these evils is to be found not in the burial of the dead, but in the unreasoning sentiment, n'hich prompts us to keep them unburied for a* long as possible, and then to bury them in Siich a way that .the earth can have no , access to them. . j 4. Xhat the burial of the- body supposes its lution by the direct agency of the earth to which' we commit it, and again, that tjie earth is fully compp+ent to e-flf'ect that resolution. 5. That, to S2ek to prevent this beneficent agency by enclosing the dead in hermetically scaW coffiis, i

brick graves, and vaults is in the highest degree unphilosophical, since it does bat engage us in a vain resistance I^an jasvlta^le^spensation, and since it has left n^tojaficu^iilate in.our midst a vast store of human' remains in*every stage and condition ol deday. ' ' . ! J}, That the remedies for such evils is not in CreBMition, but -in a sensible 'recognition of a timely submission to a well-defiued law of natyire, and a legislative action to enforce t\s provisions of that law. .' N - -/-- The claim that the earth has upon its dead, no less than that which the dead have upon the dearth, is a proposition, one would have thought, too obvious to merit discussion. To understand it we need only consider tho properties (I had almost written attributes) with which the soil at our feet, and everywhere at our disposal, has been endowed : that it is the most potent antiseptic known, and the readiest of application, and that by a combination of forces inherent in it, which might well appear contradictory' but for the wonderful purposes they are_ destined to effect, it is resolvent and re&rma- | tive us well ; that what under the inflaence of. the I air was purification, in the earth is resolution ; that which was offensive, becomes inoffensive; that" which was decay, a process of transmutation. To doubt that one of the purposeLfor which the. earth was thus endowed is the resokmon*and conversion ■ of its dead, or its perfect conißßMtcyy to effect that purpose, 1 would pass comprehehwfh p.h.tbit fiad not taught us^fihut our eyes to it, and if the advocates |of Cremation Baa* Up* stepped in to tell us that we may improve upc\i it. - % \*\ The main conditions of effective 'and* of noneffctive burial are shortly these/ When thp body dies, purification sets in at once, and, for & long as it is allowed tor remain exposed to the air, . continues. The air excluded the process is arrested. The air readmitted" the process goes on. If^ the body have been dead some days and putrefaction be well advanced before the adoption of to protect it from the influence of the air, the process will be arrested at the point it has then attained, and, for as long as the physical, conditions are permitted to last, will remain at that point. Two methods of excluding the airfrom a dead body present themselves m practice, the direct natural method of placing it in the earth, and what may be called the evasive and unnatural method of enclosing it in an air-tight case or coifin. By adopting the first method, in as much as we both exclude the air and invoke the resolvent action of the earth, we fulfil all the conditions of effective burial. By adopting, the second method we fulfil only one of those conditions and, for the sake of keeping the body by us for a few days, prevent the other. In the- first cause resolution at once takes the place of j decay ; in the last the state of decay is perpetuated. ; In the first place if we look for that body at the end of five or six years we shall not find it, or, rather, we shall be unable to -distinguish its issue from the earth- with which by that tiufe iiWill have become assimilated. In the last, if weJabk for it after 50" years; wshall find it as we lefliSLto the action upon, it of the air and of the \s&s of the body which we have inclucjfcl'with it in the coffin— that is to say, in a state at atf vanned but unprogressive decay. ■ \\ \