Burning the Dead. 27 



iron shutters. The body to be incinerated is laid on a 

 metallic shelf of moderate thickness hung up by chains, 

 horizontally, in the inside of the furnace. A pile of wood 

 beneath the shelf being ignited, the operation commences. 

 A quantity of gas is soon evolved, and let off through the 

 opening of the shutters. After the escape of the gases, the 

 body catches fire spontaneously, and is completely reduced 

 to a cinder in the course of two hours. When the furnace 

 has cooled, the ashes on the shelf are collected and put into 

 a funereal urn. In one case, a body weighing 104 lbs. was 

 reduced to a weight of 3| lbs." 



Whatever the plan adopted, however, I am quite sure 

 that it would be possible to surround the act itself with all 

 the ceremonial and solemnity, considered necessary in 

 performing the last offices for the dead. The practice of 

 necessity involves a change in the law of the land, which at 

 present forbids the final disposal of bodies except by burial, 

 and it also presupposes a very considerable social change as 

 regards the sentimental aspect of the proposition. The 

 difficulties of making the practice acceptable, are, moreover, 

 increased by the religious complications involved ; for I 

 have been told that it is " positively wicked to burn bodies." 

 These difficulties, however, are only such as time and a more 

 intelligent consideration of the subject will remove. I do 

 not, as I have already said, expect to see the practice of 

 cremation made general in my own day ; but I think it will 

 eventually commend itself for adoption, and only waits its 

 recognition, just as many other social reforms have had to 

 await theirs. 



