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 is 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 ot 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." In 1843, 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, ia 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- 



