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What are the advantages ?— (1) Sanitary reform. (2) Economic 

 undertaking. (3) Prevention of premature burial. (4) Beautifying 

 our church yards, etc. 



Objections.— (1) Religious feeling and sentiment. (2) Defeating 

 ends of justice and increasing crime, 



Sanitary Advantage. — Whatever objections may be urged from a 

 sentimental or religious point of view, it must be clear to all that, as 

 a sanitary measure, cremation has much to recommend it. 



It may be urged that there is no need for it in country places where 

 population is not great, and burial successions are not too frequent, as 

 the earth will assimilate her share of the remain*. In practice, how- 

 ever, we find that graveyards are generally overcrowded, and that the 

 earth is not able to assimilate all the putrid gases which are given off 

 from the putrefying organic matter. This has been demonstrated over 

 and over again. The late Dr. Parkes wrote 30 years ago : — " The air 

 over cemeteries is constantly contaminated, and water which may be 

 used for drinking is often highly impure. Hence, in the vicinity of 

 graveyards two dangers to the population arise, and, in addition, from 

 time to time the disturbance of an old graveyard has given rise to 

 disease. It is a matter of notoriety that the vicinity of graveyards is 

 unhealthy." 



These words are as true to-day as they were the?, and from scientific 

 investigations made in bacteriology we know why these places are so 

 unhealthy, and how they may become public nuisances by disseminating 

 the germs of disease, either through the air or contaminating the water- 

 courses, or by the germs being wafted about on particles of dust 

 brought to the surface by the common earth worm. 



Of late years our burial system has been much improved — that is, by 

 having our cemeteries outside the cities, but the suburbs of this gener- 

 ation will probably be the centres of business and activity in the next 

 — e.g., Sydney Town-hall stands on a former graveyard — and so we are 

 only putting off, and not getting rid of, the evil ; as Sir Henry 

 Thompson says — "Laying by poison nevertheless, it is certain, for our 

 children's children." 



That graveyards do give off noxious gases is undoubted, as was 

 pointed out by the Special Commission appointed nearly 50 years ago 

 " to inquire and report on a general scheme for extra mural sepulture." 



I will not read to you at any length the details of that report, but 

 I must quote one paragraph bearing on the pollution of the air, " We " 

 (say the Commissioners) " may safely rest the sanitary part of the case 

 on the single fact that the placing of a dead body in a grave, and 

 covering it with a few feet of earth, does not prevent the gases gene- 

 rated by decomposition with putrescent matters which they hold in 

 suspension from permeating the surrounding soil, and escaping into the 

 air above and the water beneath." 



But hear the testimony of one well qualified as a Professor of 

 Chemistry, and who has had honour after honour thrust upon him. 

 Lord Play fair, writing in 1885, stated : " In most churchyards the dead 

 are harming the living by destroying the soil, fouling the air, conta- 

 minating water springs, aud spreading the seeds of disease. I have 

 officially inspected many churchyard?, and made reports on their state, 

 which, even to re-read, makes me shudder." 



Those who believe in earth burial are themselves alive to the danger 

 of polluting the air as well as water, and the Local Government Board 

 of England in 1888 issued a memorandum on the sanitary requirements 

 of cemeteries, in which they state that " certain requirements mint be 

 observed in the establishment of a cemetery to prevent it becoming a 

 source of nuisance and danger to the living." This is certainly an 



