New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 1874.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4143, 1 July 1874, Page 2

New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 1874.

Craze of one sort or other affects masses of people periodically. Sometimes it takes a religious form, and we have “revivals” and camp meetings, in which the spirit of folly reigns supreme. Sometimes it appears in an unhealthy desire to break the bounds that divide the quick from the dead ; and a belief that because we have it on authority supposed to be more than mortal that an elderly woman, in her time commonly known as the Witch of Endor, was able to recall from the land of shadows tho spirits of certain persons to answer the questions of some credulous inquirers, therefore it is possible, by the help of certain agencies, to bring back to earth the long-since dead to satisfy the diseased curiosity of those who would fain draw back the curtain which has been let down between the living and the dead. Occasionally it takes tho form of pious pilgrimages to scenes rendered notorious by tbe dreams of epileptic shepherdesses ; only that in these modern pilgrimages tho bearer of the staff and scrip takes particularly .good care to boil tho peas before he or she puts them in his or her shoes. Now and then it assumes the shape of a “ women’s crusade against rum”—a craze that broke out violently recently in America, and of which some premonitory symptoms were lately observed even nearer at hand. Still more lately it has appeared in Victoria, where the Government —and the Commissioner of Customs in particular seem to have became possessed of a most decided craze on tho subject of infectious diseases, affecting men and women as well as cattle, which it is possible that Melbourne might import from Lyttelton. Among tho latest of these new-old ideas, which, based upon a little authority of truth, lead to all sorts of extravagance, is, that the only rational mode of disposing of poor human nature when earth must return to earth lies in tho formula, “ ashes to ashes,” being literally observed. “ Cremation” is the name given to this roasting-down process. It has been discussed in Victoria, at the instance of a clever but very sanguine social reformer; but even there, where strange ideas, in-politiosat least, seem naturally to take root and thrive, tho cremation reformers have not been able to say that when they have finally turned their faces to tho wall, they would prefer to bo at once reduced to powder rather than to be housed in that domicile which the grave-digger fashions “strongest of all,” and to run tho risk of being utterly forgotten even by the earth itself long before tho nine years are over which your wholesome tanner “ will last ye.” In Canterbury it has been solemnly discussed by the Provincial Council, but fortunately without result ; and therefore nervous people, in a delicate state of health, may still resort to the plains of Canterbury with- •: out being haunted by the fear that, when dead, they will not be placed in some quiet churchyard, under a weeping willow —where a tender hand may from time to time give expression to the thoughts of an affectionate heart, by placing a little bunch of “ rue, for remembrance,” or of violets for innocence, or of immortelles to express that the love of her or him who lies below will be cherished through life by her or him who places it there. Science is wonderful in her achievements, no doubt, and it may bo perfectly true that the interment of tho dead near the habitations of the living is injurious to health. Statists carry matters so extremely close that it is scarcely possible to tell whore wo should live, or what wo should eat, drink, or avoid, so as to postpone tho visit of the last messenger—tho pale angel of death—to tho latest possible moment. Old and crowded cemeteries in populous neighborhoods aro undoubtedly objectionable. They frighten tho children, who see ghosts in every tombstone. There are few nursemaids who have the courage of “Mary, tho Maid of tho Inn.” There aro men as well as women —“ old women” both, of course —who cannot bear tho neighborhood of a graveyard any more than they can tho insuring of their lives, which they secretly regard as a defiance of tho Creator. But it would bo very difficult indeed to prove that the neighborhood of a suburban necropolis, wellmanaged, is injurious to public health ; though tho end of many nervous people may have been greatly hastened by tho constant dread that there is an hour “when churchyards yawn, and graves give up their dead.” All things die, and aro buried, and rot; and from their decay fresh forms of life arise. It may bo a scientific process of hastening this transmutation to consign tho body of a relative or friend to a public furnace, to be reduced, as one scientist reports, to a beautiful “fine white powder,” which may bo enclosed in a glass-covered box only a few inches square. It would be a remarkable ornament, no doubt—and a constant solaco to tho wounded affections of a disconsolate widower, if there stood on his drawing-room table such a glass-covered box, and ho should bo able to say to his friends, at -their coffee after dinner, see tho remains of the poor dear departed 1 How comforting, still further, would it havo been to tho latest Blue Beard of our acquaintance if ho had been able to say to Boulotto, his sixth—“ There, my love, see how I havo preserved and cherished your five immediate predecessors and how I will proservo you, should you unfortunately die before mo.” Tho idea involved in this cremation project is distasteful in tho extreme to plain common people, who havo some human sympathies left, although it may bo in tho highest

degree utilitarian and acientilic. Better the Chinese practice when they are in a far land. They let the poor clay of a deadfriend mix with its kindred earth ; then reverently gather the bones, and place them away, in the most sacred place, as something almost divine. If _we dealt with the argument that burning would cost less than a crown while a funeral costs not less than a ten pound note, and that so much might be saved by the process of cremation, how far might not the argument be carried, and how ridiculous might not the advocates of the change on the ground of economy he made to appear ? There are people in some communities, however, who would bo glad indeed if, by cremation, all terrors were removed from the grave. Palmer, of Bngoley, and a host of lesser Palmers, would not have been punished ignominiously as they were, if it had been impossible to obtain from the grave evidence of their crimes. “Murder will out.” But it would be difficult for a jury to obtain from a pound or two of “ fine white dust the evidence which might have been obtained had the body been less scientifically treated after death, to prove the commission of a dastardly deed. We can well afford, both in populous England and sparsely peopled New Zealand, to hold fast by old custom, and look with reverence to the modern cemetery or “ the auld kirk-yaird.”