228 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



Your Committee for all these reasons confidently recom- 

 mends Cremation as incomparably the best solution of 

 every difficulty, particularly on hygienic, sentimental, and 

 economical grounds. 



Your Committee, however, also feels called upon to 

 remark here that not only in the Bill in question, but also 

 in the Cemeteries Act of 1890 (No. 1072, now in force), 

 some of the most important facts which should be kept in 

 view in disposing of the dead seem to have been entirely 

 ignored. Its framers appear to rely, with most mistaken 

 confidence, upon hermetically closed coffins and cemented 

 vaults to prevent the escape of the poisonous gases generated 

 in decomposition. This is a fallac3^ Siicli escape cannot he 

 prevented. Your Committee cannot do better than repeat 

 the decisive testimony of Sir John Simon, the eminent 

 Sanitarian (quoted in the Duke of Westminster's letter to 

 the " Times," dated December 9, 1889) : — 



" The leaden coffin soouer or later yields, and gives vent to its fatal 

 contents. The most successful attempt at hermetical enclosure does not 

 reach beyond ijostponemeut of the effusion through the atmosphere of the 

 products of decomposition. Overcrowding the dead causes the soil to be 

 saturated and supersaturated with decomposing animal matter, polluting the 

 water-springs and vitiating the air ; and it is by the air, vitiated by organic 

 matter undergoing decomposition, that epidemicsand infectious diseases most 

 readily diffuse their poison and multiply their victims." 



Your Committee has made its deliberate recommendation 

 upon the evidence before it. It is perhaps scarcely 

 necessary to say that that recommendation does not include 

 that those who prefer burial should not be as free as the 

 advocates of cremation to do what they prefer. At the same 

 time, it seems clear that both the j^^to^^c advantages of 

 cremation, and the ])ublic dangers of burial, are infinitely 

 more important and practical than any lorivate predilections 

 either way. 



(Signed) 



Llp:wellyn D. Bevan, D.D., Member. 



J. Talbot Brett, M.D., 



D. A. Gkesswell, M.D., 



William C. Kernot, M.A., 



William Lynch, 



Orme Masson, M.A., 



William L. Mullen, M.D., 



James Edward Neild, M.D., „ 



G. A. Syme, M.D., 



H. K. RusDEN, Hon. Secretary. 



