PREMATURE BURIALS. 395 



dead of that particular pestilence ; and the excuse for it, if excuse it 

 be, is the desire to remove from the living all possibility of conta- 

 gion from the bodies of the dead, dispensing with experiments with 

 a view to reducing risk ; and making sure, so to speak, of the corpse 

 without giving it the benefit of a doubt. 



The fact is, that the modern inhabitants of Italy — i. e., modern 

 Italian legislators — are extremely intolerant of what may be called the 

 romance of the death-chamber. Reverence for the deceased, a craving 

 for the companionship of the unburied corpse, is not encouraged in Italy. 

 As soon as life is extinct, or is believed to be extinct, the human being 

 ceases to be sacred. It is earth or clay and nothing more, and the 

 glamour of a beloved face which no longer smiles does not, to an Italian 

 mind, speak of a soul hovering near the body, a soul asleep, not dead, 

 which haunts the chamber of woe, and makes itself felt, as it were in- 

 stinctively, in the presence of the mourners. Theology teaches Italians 

 that the soul of the deceased is in purgatory, and that the altar and 

 not the death-bed is the place to kneel at ; so that, by kneeling and 

 praying and doing penance(by fees and masses), mourners may be able 

 to comfort the souls of the departed in the limbo they inhabit. Corpses 

 belong in the first instance to the priests (who, after the unction by 

 sacred oil, light tapers by the bedside) ; and in the second instance to 

 the legal or sanitary authorities who employ the grave-diggers. The 

 death-chamber is abandoned by the mourners, who flock to the church ; 

 and the room, and sometimes the whole house, is furbished up, and 

 even whitewashed, as if the death of a near and dear relative had 

 brought contamination upon it. 



Now, it would be interesting to discover at what period of history 

 the Italians began to be so severe in their treatment of the dead. The 

 ancient inhabitants of Italy were by no means so rigorous. They were 

 tender in the death-chamber, and careful at the funeral-pyre ; though 

 pagans, they were merciful in matters of life and death. Their burial 

 laws were to a great extent similar to those of England — similar as 

 regards the interval between death and funeral, and only different as 

 regards the funeral itself. 



The Romans had indeed many experiences of official and medical 

 blundering, and that is perhaps the reason why they were, at certain 

 periods, so careful in their funeral rites. Pliny tells the story of the 

 Consul Acilius, who, being reputed dead, was placed on the pyre, and 

 started up to shriek for assistance while the flames were gathering 

 round him ; but too late to be saved. Lucius was burned alive ; and 

 Tuberus, waking from the trance of death while preparations were 

 being made to burn him, was removed by his friends and others from 

 the stake. The interval between death and funeral was fixed at eight 

 days. It was seldom less, and it was sometimes more ; for Licurgus, 

 in his anxiety to prevent accidents — i. e., medical and judicial murders 

 — fixed the interval at eleven days. Why do the modern Romans, 



