Burning the Dead. 25 



standing the revival of the good old Eoman practice of 

 ablution. I do not find, however, that even Christian 

 sanitarians object to the more frequent use of the bath 

 because it was a Pagan practice. 



In any case it would appear that the advantages of 

 cremation far exceed the objections, and that, practically, 

 the objections might be obviated without material difficulty. 

 I am particularly desirous of not being thought incon- 

 siderate towards the feelings of those to whom this 

 proposition ma}' present itself as a horrible outrage upon 

 the sanctity of the dead. In several cases of murder which 

 have occurred, the atrocity of the crime was considered to 

 be aggravated in consequence of the murderers having got 

 rid of the bodies by burning them. Apart from the crime 

 of having taken the lives of their victims, however, there 

 is not, to my thinking, any augmentation of the offence, in 

 the adoption of this mode of disposing of the body. The 

 first impulse of most murderers, after the commission of the 

 deed, is to allay suspicion against themselves, and the 

 difficulty of getting rid of the body is frequently so great, 

 that they are driven to all sorts of expedients to do this. 

 There is really, however, no more of the horrible in burning 

 than in burying a body. Some years ago, there was a great 

 outcry in London, when it was discovered that the church- 

 wardens who had the control of one of those hideous 

 paddocks for the dead, which, in some instances, rise several 

 feet above the roadway, had resorted to burning, as the only 

 sufficient mode of getting rid of the accumulated contents 

 of the " bone-house." There was a howl of indignation 

 all through the land, at the terrible sacrilege assumed 

 to be thus committed. The truth was, though nobody had 

 the courage to say so, that the churchwardens were some- 

 what in advance of the time. I am afraid, indeed, that in 

 this, as in some other social questions, we are disposed to 

 judge according to our prejudices, and not in obedience to 

 the suggestions of our reason. For all this, I do not forget 

 that some prejudices are respectable, not because they are 

 reasonable, but on account of their having the sanction of 

 long usage, and in that they are held by persons of whose 

 truthfulness and honesty of purpose there is no sort of 

 question. I am prepared, indeed, for encountering both abuse 

 and ridicule for having brought this subject before the Society, 

 and through it to have drawn the attention of the com- 

 munity generally to it. I do not expect to see the practice 



