CREMATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2915, 26 January 1910, Page 14

CREMATION.

PROGRESS OF THE MOVEMENT. We understand that a letter has been addressed to tho City Council ungmg bbndesirability of the establishment of crematorium in Dunedim. At a meeting recentir held In Edinburgh, at which the formation of a Cremation Society was decided upon, Br Atchisou Robertson, F.R.C.F.E., delivered a lecture on tho subject, showing 1 iordblv the a-i vantages of cremation. He said febat -<■ ■• mation was advantageous both '■: economic, sentimental, and hygicn.se s '- ; of view. Tho practice of barnhwr •• bodies was no new idea, but had hr.practised by the Persians, the Greeks Romans, and other countries of the r - He asserted that sentiment was emir;;, by the present form of earth burial, n: that $ sentiment conJ ' S« attached the disposal of the dead at all. then could onlv ba «> bv a method such as cremation. The aggregation of dead bed; in churchyards was a weat danger to ' ; living- not onlv- from + bc pollution of ■ air, but the greater risk of conianainati-c-!-of water sntmlies. t"-- '.octiwer tmstarc■■.. caws in which emdesnics bad arisen country districts fi-om water contain i> tion in thi-s way. The ob : eotion tba*: if matron crot rid of the evicteaces rsf -;• •• was hardly tenable, aa the method of <■ ■■ tification of death was so thorough ':-• carried out that hardlv any case of crirr.< could nass undetected. before a body be examined bv two- medical men, and unlew their oertifjcatea nroved satiafactorv. the medical referee could v£\ve an order for cremation. Tt was well known that at present many thousands o' bodies Kuried in Britain had ha' 1 no certificate r<> to the cauee of d<-»nth. Th™ practice ot cremation had grown olowly in Cfrftfi! Britain, but the r>i ,rv, HI crema-Kons hm"i exactJv doubled within and altogether un to the end of IWB +.N--nutn,ber had K<>en 7264. This, however, fell far short of increaeinigr with r«t>id nf-rid** In ""on? + 1 n r, number of ore-«nation«! +.bore totalled 'PT? whereas in iflOfl tb.<vv i~ ac [ increased to lhf>o. Rewarding the cost of cremation, Dr AtcJr»son Robertson no'nted out that a body could ha cremated. +*i« ?='-« nlaood in a handsome urn. which could b© mit i*i i nermanent niche, or hni- ; >d in tv P o-tcivb - cost of v*>ry mme-h h'=« tban i-ho '--4 form of earth burial f>s »t ----- sen;: carried out. at a certain ere-" torium in P-t-;, s _ K-.-li.-s v&r*< <Vsr-o=- P ,r! ct at the nominal oharipo of 2* M.' beca-uw of the great rwj.-rrKo.r <-.f wopV» d'osir'ma to cremate then- d-apd.