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with more under construction. In Britain there are 15, where over
2,000 cremations took place in 1922.
A striking point in connection with Czecho-Slovakia is the rapid
growth of its popularity. Thousands of people have joined the
Cremation Society, men and women eminent in science, art and
politics. One has only to scan the list of people in England to see
that cremation appeals to lovers of beauty and art, to the enlightened
and thoughtful, to sanitarians; there are many people who, whatever
harm they may do their fellow men while living, are determined not to
do any harm when dead.
Now we must consider the arguments in favour of cremation and
against alike. The first argument in favour which I shall take is the
Hygienic argument.
About the middle of the last century, overcrowding in graveyards
had become a scandal. At the request of the Home Secretary, Sir Edwin
Chadwick enquired into and reported on the practice of interment in
towns, to both Houses of Parliament in 1843. Following upon his
criticisms a special Commission was appointed and their Report was
published in 1850. A truly shocking state of affairs was revealed.
The Metropolitan graveyards were found to have been overcrowded
for years. The graves had become black, unctuous and foul; in many
cases the ground of the churchyard had risen many feet above its
original level. The Bethnal Green burial ground, 2½ acres in size,
had, since its opening in 1746, admitted 56,000 bodies. In the Bunhill
Fields burial ground of less than four acres, 107,416 bodies had been
interred in 129 years. In the London burial grounds of 203 acres,
close to inhabited houses, 50,000 bodies were deposited annually. One
cannot give here the gruesome and revolting evidence, suffice it to say
that 4,000 old burial grounds were closed. The burial regulations now
require a minimum space for adult graves of nine feet by four feet and
only one body can be buried at a time unless members of the same
family. No unwalled grave can be reopened within fourteen years
except for another member of the same family, and then one foot of
earth must be left undisturbed above the last coffin. No coffin can be
buried less than four feet from the level of the ground. This last
regulation is scientifically wrong because it is in the top four feet of
soil that we find germ activity at its height which breaks up the body
most rapidly. But to propose to bury anyone in the top four feet would