6 
graves and vaults, in the churchyards of which they are trustees. 
I propose now to state more in detail the reasons for and against 
the mode of burial known as cremation. I do so because the 
subject is just now being much talked about, and there ig a vast 
amount of ignorance which should be dispelled. Now, I take it, 
that the reason why the above form of burial is causing a good 
deal of interest, is that the present mode of burial is becoming 
rapidly a question of health to the community at large, and 
secondly that the present funeral expense is a most un- 
necessary item to incur. Had there been plenty of spare land, 
and had our population kept within moderate bounds, cremation 
possibly never would have been heard of in this country. To show 
you the evils that may happen when bodies are carelessly and im- 
perfectly buried, I quote the following incident: In 1849 the burial 
pits were opened in vacant ground some distance behind the Glas- — 
gow Royal Infirmary. In these pits were interred in masses the 
bodies of those who died of the cholera epidemic of that year. In 
1861 the new surgical department of the Royal Infirmary was built 
on the edge of these old cholera pits. The site was praised at the 
time as a fine, open, healthy site. The persons who chose had 
evidently forgotten about the mass of putrefying matter that lay 
beneath its surface. The result might have been predicted with 
certainty from the well authenticated case of a Parisian Hospital, 
which had suffered from being built in a similar proximity to a 
graveyard. Hospital gangrene and pyxmia broke out among the 
patients. These diseases became so common that one of the sur- 
geons protested against being compelled to treat his patients under 
these conditions, and threatened to resign unless something was 
done to purify the soil beneath his wards. The managers were 
compelled in 1867 to dig into this cholera pit, and destroy, and 
deodorise the undecomposed remains with quicklime and other 
chemical agents.” Im 18438, when the parish church of Minchin- 
hampton was rebuilding, the soil of the burying ground, or what 
was superfluous, was disposed of for manure, and deposited in 
many of the neighbouring gardens. The result was that the town 
was nearly decimated, The two foregoing calamities will suffice 
for our purpose. Knowing then, as we do, that a body left to itself 
returns to dust, is it not strange that for centuries we have been 
trying to retain, in fact, to shut up substances which belong to the 
soil. Sir Henry Thompson says, in speaking of the disintegration 
of the body, ‘‘ Do that which is done in all good work of every 
kind—follow nature’s indications, and do the work she does, but do 
it better and more rapidly. The problem to be worked for is— 
given a dead body, to resolve it into carbonic acid, water, and 
ammonia, and the mineral elements rapidly, safely, and not un- 
