DR. J. W. POUCHER. 295 



phere and soil are saturated with dampness, the land is 

 such that it readily absorbs and retains all sorts of 

 poisonous and offensive matter. On this account the 

 city of New Orleans has adopted a method of disposing 

 of the dead quite peculiar to that locality. Instead of 

 being buried in the ground they are placed in tombs or 

 ovens above ground. These cemeteries are mostly in an 

 overcrowded state and situated in the heart of the city 

 and no care is taken to disinfect them. 



There is no place in the world, or especially in our 

 country, where cremation is so sadly needed as in New 

 Orleans. We all know something of the fate of grave- 

 yards. Take our own fair city for example. Many of 

 you here know much more than I what has become of the 

 graves where our ancestors rest. Prior to the establish- 

 ment of Greenwood and other suburban cemeteries, 

 hundreds of thousands were buried on Manhattan Island, 

 where the most populous portions of New York City 

 now stand, and their remains, as well as the tombstones 

 on which their quaint epitaphs were written, have been 

 scattered in every direction. 



Dr. Holmes, in speaking of one of Boston's graveyards, 

 says, "The stones have been shuffled about like chess- 

 men, and nothing short of the Day of Judgment will 

 tell whose dust lies beneath. Epitaphs," he adds, "were 

 never famous for truth, but the old reproach of ' Here 

 lies' never had such a wholesome illustration as in these 

 outraged burial-places, where the stone does lie above 

 and the bones do not lie beneath." Prof. Tyndall and 

 others have proven that some disease germs are very 

 tenacious of life, and will survive and propagate after 

 being boiled for hours. Grain entombed with Egyptian 

 mummies for 4,000 years has been planted and sprouted 

 into life. We scrupulously disinfect and quarantine the 

 houses of the plague-stricken, while their bodies we 

 place in the ground, to contaminate the earth, the air, 



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