BE FAIR TO THE LIVING.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXIII, Issue 3251, 20 February 1933, Page 2

BE FAIR TO THE LIVING.

Cremation is Sane and Healthy.

By a Well-known Lady Writer.

Cremation is gradually becoming more popular. In time it must, of course, become the more usual procedure, for already we are over-buried, and large portions of ground will not be at our disposal. Economy of space will be required. Burial is unhealthy; it is also morbid. Relations still love to linger beside a grave, believing that, in some obscure manner, it shows a respect to the departed. They want some tangible memorial, where they may lay their withering wreaths and shed their tears. The effort harrows them, but for all that they take a certain delight in being harrowed.

I am no better than other people in this respect, for I, too, have lingered beside a grave, and have spent money that I could ill afford on flowers for it. I have only upset myself very much, and can have done no good. 1 also have cherished the general dislike of cremation.

But now I have come to a wiser attitude with regard to it. I have realised the foolishness of dwelling on the morbid aspect of death, as we have been used to doing. Cremation is cleaner, it is far better for all concerned, and as neither cremation nor burial affects the dead, it seems to me that one should consider the needs and problems of the living. I would make cremation compulsory, when people have died from malignant complaints. In particular, I would name smallpox, typhus, pneumonia, cancer and consumption. Burial may be considered to be a safe method of disposal, but it has not been proved such. In this type of complaint death does not (apparently) destroy the germs. Burial may not destroy the germs either—that has yet to be proved —but it is exceedingly doubtful whether anything can survive fire.

The dead have gone. Nobody wishes them disrespect; all love and happy memories still surround them, but, for all that, where there is the slightest chance of danger the living should be protected. The fact of a family vault does not help. It is merely a convention, a pandering to sentimentality. It does not get anybody very far, and there remains the fact—not to be ignored—that it may be exceedingly dangerous. Some people argue that destruction by cremation is so horrible. But is not destruction by burial even more so? Because it takes longer it is even more loathsome.

Spiritualists argue that it is wrong to destroy a body at once in that manner, for the reason that the spirit may not be wholly disconnected, and until the silver cord is finally detached a sudden destruction is dangerous to them in the next world. But even the spiritualists agree that when the body starts decomposing then it is proof that the cord is finally severed, and the spirit is free to wander where it will.

I admit a certain cleaving to the body which has been our friend for so long, a certain treasuring of what is only husk, even though we know it is but that. But undue sentimentality does not help bear the loss. The real friend has passed on. A grave Is only a spot over which we can shed a few more tears. It is a meaningless square of earth, for the beloved is not there, and never has been there. We would not wish that they should be. To my mind, the ashes cast to the four winds of heaven are altogether sweeter. They do not ask for their toll of tears, for their harrowing memories. They ask only to be remembered with smiles—the better way.

And, what is more, they are safe. The germs are dead, the destroying is utter, any chance of handing on a dread legacy is purged by fire. It is far fairer to the living.