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used by the general public than it is. No doubt great prejudices
have to be overcome in the matter, but we may hope in time that
they will be overcome. With Dr. Hardwicke I fully agree that the
removal of the Coroner's Court from the atmosphere of gin and
smoke, will tend to a furtherance of justice, and to the dignity of a
court which too often is sadly found to need dignity.
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR DEAD?
This question has of late been agitating society, and I venture
to say a few words on it in this report, inasmuch as it is a subject
of enormous interest to us as sanitarians. A few noisy and shortsighted
advocates have been urging on cremation or burning, in
place of burial. Let me say, that I have no sympathy whatsoever
with a small religionist section who seem to imagine that the belief
in a body resurrection, (the very belief in which presupposes the
belief in a miracle) can be dependent on the disposal of the
body after death, be it by rotting or burning. I mention this because
I should be the first to allow that such feelings ought in any great
reform to be consulted, but in this matter I cannot allow that such
a necessity exists. There is no need for any religious arguments
in the case, and it is to be regretted that such arguments have been
allowed for a single moment to be introduced into the discussion,
and especially that they have been adduced by one whose learning
commands the highest respect for every word he says. Nor is there
any need, moreover, for those pages of arguments of a sentimental
nature, against the practice of cremation, that we read in the
various daily papers, although I am disposed to think that they are
even more entitled to attention than the former. It is not an absurd
sentimentalism, although it may be sentimentalism, which renders
us indisposed to commit to the flames the bodies of friends we loved.
But is there really any need for all this upstir? One thing, I think,
is clear, that there will be no want of earth room for the burial of our
own bodies and of those of our children and our children's children.
And let that suffice. In the matter of burial no doubt great reforms
are needed, and, without question, the suggestion of wicker coffins
is not unworthy of attention. Perhaps their greatest enemies have
been their friends. Still the absurdity of leaden coffins and of brick
vaults, as though our object was to cheat death as long as possible