CREMATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11558, 20 April 1898, Page 4

CREMATION.

The ratepayers of Wellington will shortly be asked to vote upon the question of whether or not a sum of £2OOO authorised to be raised for the; purpose of erecting a crematorium shall bo so raised and expended. In the matter of reform in the method of disposing of the dead Wellington ia to this extent in advance of any other city in this country. We are hardly sanguine enough to expect that in the' present unsatisfactory state of the municipal franchise this moderate expenditure upon the very great benefit contemplated will be sanctioned ; but, on the other hand, cremation has such arnest and influential advocates in Wellington that it is possible the ratepayers may be induced to abandon their usual cheese paring policy in favour of one of municipal advance, in the interests of the public health and convenience. The present Mayor, Mr J. R. Blair, and the ex-Mayor, Mr H. I). Bell, are in full sympathy with the proposal, and the last-named gentleman, three years ago, when representing the city in Parliament, secured the passage of a measure to enable the trustees of cemeteries to erect crematoriums. There is an acre of land set aside for the purpose in the public cemetery at Karori, but the idea appears to be that it would be preferable to erect the crematorium on the shore of the harbour near tho “ destructor ” buildings. It is rather repellant to refined sentiment to find the latter site recommended because of cheapness. There is a shock to human sensibilities in the proposal to make the crematorium, as it were, a mere branch of the city’s appliances for dealing with street and other refuse. Mr Bell, in addressing a recent public meeting on the subject in Wellington, stated that the crematorium in the Maryhill Cemetery, Glasgow, had, apart from the mortuary chapel, cost only <£37o; and his idea was to erect a decent building on the reclaimed land, “close to the corporation machinery, where steam was always available,” That is, in a position where, in the words of the telegram, the blast from the destructor furnace and the use of the drainage machinery engines would be readily available. The cost of 'cremating a body at Milan, in Italy, is only from 16s 8d to 20s lod, or less than half the cost of interments. Owing to the distance of the public cemetery from the City of Wellington, the saving would be proportionally greater if cremation were carried out within the city. Karori is, too, growing in popularity as a suburban residence, and the fact of there being already 2800 bodies buried the cemetery there opens up. an unattractive vista of unhealthy possibilities if burials continue at the same rate as hitherto. On grounds of health, economy, sound reason and reverence for the dead there is everything to be said in favour of cremation, and we hope that the Welling, ton movement for the erection of a crematorium will be carried to a successful issue, so that the improved method may act as an object lesson to other parts of the colony.