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" percentage of deaths occur in proportion) the progress of cremation
" must of necessity be slow.
" It would undoubtedly be difficult to comply with the Home Office
" regulations in their present form to any extent among the lower classes,
" as the particular medical information necessary could seldom be given
" or the statutory requirements fulfilled. The question of expense may
" in a good many cases militate against the adoption of cremation by the
" industrial class, but it does not entirely account for their absence from
" the above figures, as it is a notorious fact that the poor spend com"
paratively more upon their funerals than the wealthier classes, and the
" cost of cremation already compares favourably with burial carried out
" with any degree of decency. Also it is alleged that the funeral trade
" are opposed to cremation. But it must be borne in mind that under"
takers as a body are just ordinary business men, and will supply what
" the public demand. If the public insist on cremation there is no
" reason to suppose that undertakers would not carry it out as readily as
" any other method of disposing of the dead.
" The true explanation of the slow progress of cremation seems to lie,
" as suggested in the following extract from the ' British Medical
" Journal,' in the fact that—
" ' Cremation in this country is almost wholly confined to persons of
" ' some intellectual distinction. The average citizen is still held in the
" ' bondage of custom, in which sentiment has taken root so deeply as to
" ' make it hard to eradicate.'
" It is constantly brought to our notice that the expressed wishes of
" persons for cremation are ignored upon their decease, in some cases by
" the deliberate intention of the survivors, but a far greater proportion
" from the fact that no adequate means are taken during lifetime to place
" the desire for cremation upon record. It must be obvious that in cases
" of doubt preference is given to that which is, at present, most
" customary, i.e., Burial. In order to insure cremation at death the
" party desiring it should communicate his wishes to his executors and
" friends. It is not sufficient merely to insert a direction in a will,
" because the will is rarely looked at until after the funeral.
" Unfortunately, the law gives a free hand to unwilling executors, and
" the only way of making instructions binding is to make any gift or
" bequest subject to the wish being complied with."
The Manager of the Liverpool Crematorium states : —
" My experience is that the Declaration Form A. acts very inimically
" to the progress of cremation, that the persons take alarm at anything
" regarding a visit to a Justice of the Peace, or a solicitor, also that the
" necessity of appearing before a Magistrate conveys the idea that there
" must be something wrong in a process that requires such an appearance,
" and that they are safer in resorting to burial—in fact, that, has barred
" the way in several cases."