CREMATION IN ENGLAND.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 2 August 1880, Page 2

CREMATION IN ENGLAND.

Theye lias been, as moat people know, an active and zealous cremation society in England, for some years, and this society has just issued its first "transactions." These contain a conspectus of the movement in favor of the substitution of burn-, ing for burial in the different European countries. In England, the objection raised to the Woking Crematorium has somewhat checked the action of the society, though its council anticipates a speedy use for that building. Abroad cremation is frequent enough. Italy

has been particularly forward in adoption of the practice, and morn than one municipal body has f or mally approved of it, while a regular crematory exists at Milan. In Germany Gotha has for some time boon a resort of those who wish to dispose of their relatives in this fashion, and elsewhere in the Empire the practice appears to bo allowed if not very widely adopted. The Zurich Society, consists of 400 " enthuaiastis" members. In Holland the advocatos ot cremation have not yet obtained legal sanction, but are eagerly seeking it, and the same is the case in Belgium. , America already cremates, while France, almost \ alone of important countries, seems to 1 have hitherto proved somewhat insensible S to the efforts of the innovators. A crema- / tion society was projected there, butinsonio mysterious way it was made political, and fell through. The report is, of course like all such reports, a Banguine one. \ good deal, however, has yet to be dono before cremation is anything but a crochet and an exception. Generally speaking, we believe public opinion in England is somewhat against it. The. legal difficulties are obvious and considerable; the sentimental objections,, where they exist at all, are strong, and the same may be said of the religious objections, though these are by no means universal. Enthusiasm, however, seems, to be the note of cremationist in England as well as in Zurich, and enthusiasm doo& much in this world.—London Standard.