PROTEST BY CLERGY

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 7

PROTEST BY CLERGY

Manner Of Burial Of Poor People

By Telegraph-'-Press Association. Hamilton, July 8.

A strong protest at the manner in which old-age pensioners and others dependent on charity have been buried at Rotorua was received by the Waikato Hospital Board at a meeting from Archdeacon R. Hodgson and the Revs. J. L. Mitchell, E. A. McCutcheon and A. C. Randerson, of Rotorua. In the letter of protest it was alleged that the quickest and cheapest methods of burial were commonly used in such cases.

“The latest instance,” the letter stated, “is that of an old lady who died in the King George Hospital in Rotorua and whose body was rushed away to the cemetery with no attempt to observe the decencies demanded by our common humanity. The casket had no name or age inscribed for the purposes of identification, the deceased having no relatives to phy their last tributes and claim her right to a respectful burial. We urgently request sympathetic consideration for this matter and trust that your board will lay down some revised conditions under which citizens who have the misfortune to die in poverty and loneliness shall be assured of at least humane and decent obsequies.” The board referred the complaint from the ministers to the Rotorua committee for investigation and report.