BURIAL OR CREMATION?

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2805, 5 July 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

BURIAL OR CREMATION?

PRECAUTIONS AGAINST PREMATURE BURIAL. (prom our own correspondent.) Paris, April 2. Two singular customs are in course of development in Paris; the first, precaution against being buried alive, and tho second, to be incinerated as a protest against the Church. In France, burials must take place not later than the third day following the decease; that is to say, tho body must then bo removed from among the living. Tho feeling against the possibility of being entombed alive seems to be rather generally entertained. Many persons in their wills direct that they be examined by one or more eminent doctors, to pronounce that they are really dead before being coffined. The celebrated Dr. Trelat, who has just died, made his fortune by those pout mortem examinations, thus illustrating tho saw— " after death, the doctor." Now this mortuary consultation—and consolation — was made, apart from the official inspections, as no licence to inter will be granted unless a modical certificate is issued from snch functionary, attesting the death. And if the application to bury be not made within twenty-four hours after death, the friends of the departed can be fined and imprisoned. The attending physician is not bound to state the malady from which his patient succumbed; it is enough were he to merely certify decease from natural causes. Like clergymen, notaries and mid wives, the doctor can protsot himself before tho courts by the privilege of professional secrecy. Dr. Bronardel, the celebrated medico-legal practitioner, will inherit tho clientele of the "dead," which was a speciality with Dr. Tr3lat. But a certificate even from him is apparently not considered as definitely reassuring by many graduates for the tomb ; since to calm their fears and remove their last anxieties the Municipal Council has erected a mortuary chamber and commenced a second or anteroom to tho grave, where, ns in many parts of Germany, the dead, till decomposition shows itself, will Ho in their unclosed coffins, a bell rope, communicating with tho cemetery porter's lodge, placed across tbeir breast, while the room will bo maintained permanently, illuminated by a dim religious light. A very respectable volume could bo written on tho cases of premature interments, the majority of these being harrowingly tragical. The Academy of Medicines prize is still tinwon, that for a ready and crucial test to ascertain the presence of death. In the region of Dahomey, when a native dies naturally, his parents and friends lament him for "a long time, and cross examine him on the incidents of his life. Iu some parts of China a corpse may be kept over, ground as long as the family desires ; iu Borneo snuff is employed as adeath-detec-tor. The Romans allowed seven clear days to elapse before incineration, andduiing this interval the corpse was serenaded, and requested to answer questions. The Scythians brought their dead for a drive over the country, which lasted forty days, after which, burial. There were tribes in the Caucasus, who merely placed the departed in a sitting posture, in a niche, in rocks. Squeamish Parisians ought henceforward to feel at ease, that they will be beyond all surgery, when the official sanitary inspector certifies the death, which is corroborated by Dr. Bronardel, pins the further precaution of lying in an ante-Chamber to the tomb for a fortnight, without being able to address a liunjour, to the watchman, after tolling at their alarm bell. Since the Church has proscribed incineration, by ordering that no prayers shall be celebrated over those whose last request is to be calcined, many, to show tho ruling passion strong in death of opposition to the clergy, have joined the Cremation Clubs. The decision of the Church bears specially hard on ladies, who aro exemplary Catholics, yet have a horror to be "in a narrow cell for ever laid." The Cremation Clubs of Paris, allowed to exist on condition that they " will not meddle with politics," now, I am informed, include 2,42U members. The Club o! ro.it Mortons, founded by the late Paul Bert, and to which Gambetta belonged, seems to combine

the ends of the anti-premature Burialists, and the Incinerationists. This Society is rather for the rich middle classes; every member wills in advance his body to be dissected in presence of the members ; his brain is bequeathed to the museum, and is bottled up in spirits of wine. These operations terminated, no mistakes ought to be possible about suspended animation. The Society has been endeavouring to carry the resolution, that all members should adopt incineration, instead of burial, and that their ashes ought to be deposited in cinerary urns, in a specially erected Biological colombarium, in one of the Metropolitan cemetries.