No. LXXIV.

“An immense quantity of fuel was always of necessity used, when dead bodies were burned, instead of buried; and a friend, learned in such lore, as well as in much that is far more valuable, informs us that the burning of a martyr was always an expensive process.”

This passage was transferred, from the New York Courier and Enquirer, to the Boston Atlas, December 29, 1849, and is part of an article having reference to the partial cremation of Dr. Parkman’s remains.

I must presume, as a sexton of the old school, to doubt the accuracy of this statement, in the very face of the averment, that the editor’s authority is “a friend, learned in such lore.”

To enable my readers to judge of the comparative expense of burial, in the ordinary mode, by interment or entombment, and by cremation, I refer, in the first place, to Mr. Chadwick’s Report, made by request of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State, for the Home Department, Lond. 1843, in which it is stated, that a Master in Chancery, when dealing with insolvent estates, will pass, “as a matter of course,” such claims as these—from £60 to £100 for burying an upper tradesman—£250 for burying a gentleman—£500 to £1500 for burying a nobleman.

But let us confine our remarks to the particular allegation. The “friend, learned in such lore,” has greatly diminished the labor of refutation, by confining his statement to the burning of martyrs—“the burning of a martyr was always an expensive process,” requiring, says the Courier and Enquirer, “an immense quantity of fuel.”

I well remember to have read, though I cannot recall the authority, that aromatic woods and spices were occasionally used in the East, during the suttees, to correct the offensive odor. In addition to the reason, assigned by Cicero, De Legibus, ii. 23, for the law against intramural burning, that conflagration might be avoided—Servius, in a note, on the Æneis, vi. 150, states another, that the air might not be infected with the stench. To prevent this, we know that costly perfumes were cast upon the pile; and the respect and affection for the defunct came to be measured, at last, by this species of extravagance; just as the funereal sorrow of the Irish is supposed to be graduated, by the number of coaches, and the quantity of whiskey.

But our business is with the martyrs. What was the cost of burning John Rogers I really do not know. I doubt if the process was very expensive; for good old John Strype has told us, almost to a fagot, how much fuel it took, to burn Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. The fuel, employed to burn Latimer and Ridley, cost fifteen shillings and four pence sterling for both; and the fuel for burning Cranmer, nine shillings and four pence only. Then there were chains, stakes, laborers, and cartage; and the whole cost for burning all three, was one pound, sixteen shillings, and six pence! Not a very expensive process truly. The authority is not at every one’s command: I therefore give it entire, from Strype’s Memorials of Cranmer, Oxford ed., 1840, vol. i. p. 563:—

s.d.
“For three loads of wood fagots to burn Ridley and Latimer,120
Item, one load of furs fagots,34
For the carriage of these four loads,20
Item, a post,14
Item, two chains,34
Item, two staples,06
Item, four laborers,28
“For Burning Cranmer.
For an 100 of wood fagots,60
For an 100 and half of furs fagots,34
For the carriage of them,08
To two laborers,14.”

£1500 to bury a nobleman, and £1 16 6, to burn three martyrs! Leaving the Courier and Enquirer, and the “friend, learned in such lore,” to bury or to burn this record, as they please, I turn to another subject, referred to, on the very same page of Strype’s Memorials, and which is not without some little interest, at the present moment.

A prisoner, charged with any terrible offence, innocent or guilty, lies under the surveillance of all eyes and ears. The slightest act, the shortest word, the very breath of his nostrils are carefully reported. The public resolves itself into a committee of anxious inquirers, to ascertain precisely how he eats, and drinks, and sleeps. There are persons of lively fancies, whose imaginations fire up, at the mere sight of his prison walls, and start off, under high pressure, filling the air with rumors, too horribly delightful, to be doubted for an instant.

If the topic were not the terrible thing that it is, it would be difficult to preserve one’s gravity, while listening to some portion of the testimony, upon which, it may be our fortune, one of these days, to be convicted of murder, by the charitable public.

Of the guilt or innocence of John White Webster I know nothing, and I believe nothing. But it has been currently reported, that, since his confinement, he has been detected, in the crime of eating oysters. I doubt, if this ordeal would have been considered entirely satisfactory, even by Dr. Mather, in 1692. Man is a marvellous monster, when sitting, self-placed, in judgment, on his fellow! The very thing, which is a sin, in the commission or observance, is no less a sin, in the omission and the breach—for who will doubt the blood-guiltiness of a man, that, while confined, on a charge of murder, can partake of an oyster pie! And if he cannot do this, who will doubt, that a consciousness of guilt has deprived him of his appetite!

I have heard of a drunken husband, who, while staggering home, after midnight, communed with himself, as follows—“If my wife has gone to bed, before I get home to supper, I’ll beat her,—and if she is sitting up, so late as this, burning my wood and candles, I’ll beat her.”

Good John Strype, ibid. 562, says of Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, while in the prison of Bocardo—“They ate constantly suppers as well as dinners. Their meals amounted to about three or four shillings; seldom exceeding four. Their bread and ale commonly came to two pence or three pence; they had constantly cheese and pears for their last dish, both at dinner and supper; and always wine.” It is not uninteresting to note the prices, paid for certain articles of their diet, in those days, 1555. While describing the provant of these martyrs, Strype annexes the prices, “it being an extraordinary dear time.—A goose, 14d. A pig, 12 oz. 13d. A cony, 6d. A woodcock, 3d. and sometimes 5d. A couple of chickens, 6d. Three plovers, 10d. Half a dozen larks, 3d. A dozen of larks and 2 plovers, 10d. A breast of veal, 11d. A shoulder of mutton, 10d. Roast beef, 12d.” He presents one of Cranmer’s bills of fare:—

“Bread and ale,2.d.
Item oisters,1.d.
Item butter,2.d.
Item eggs,2.d.
Item lyng,8.d.
Item a piece of fresh salmon,10.d.
Wine,3.d.
Cheese and pears,2.d.”

Two bailiffs, Wells and Winkle, upon their own responsibility, furnished the table of these martyrs, and appear never to have been reimbursed. Strype says, ibid. 563, that they expended £63 10s. 2d., and never received but £20, which they obtained from Sir William Petre, Secretary of State. Ten years after, a petition was presented to the successor of Cranmer, that these poor bailiffs might receive some recompense.

After the pile had burnt down, in the case of Cranmer, upon raking among the embers, his heart was found entire. Upon this incident, Strype exclaims—“Methinks it is a pity, that his heart, that remained sound in the fire, and was found unconsumed in his ashes, was not preserved in some urn; which, when the better times of Queen Elizabeth came, might, in memory of this truly good and great Thomas of Canterbury, have been placed among his predecessors, in his church there, as one of the truest glories of that See.”

In 1821, Mr. William Ward, of Serampore, published, in London, his “Farewell Letters.” Mr. Ward was a Baptist missionary; and, at the time of the publication, was preparing to return to Bengal. This work was very favorably reviewed in the Christian Observer, vol. xxi. p. 504. I have never met with a description, so exceedingly minute, of the suttee, the process of burning widows. He thus describes the funeral pile—“The funeral pile consists of a quantity of fagots, laid on the earth, rising, in height, about three feet from the ground, about four feet wide, and six feet in length.” Admitting these fagots to be closely packed, the pile contains seventy-two cubic feet of wood, or fifty-six less than a cord. “A large quantity of fagots are then laid upon the bodies,” says Mr. Ward. As the widow often leaps from the pile, and is chased back again, into the flames, by the benevolent Bramins, the fagots, which are not heaped around the pile, but “laid on the bodies,” cannot be a very oppressive load; and the quantity, thus employed in the suttee, is for the cremation of two bodies, at least, the dead husband, and the living widow.

There can be no doubt of the superior economy of cremation, over earth-burial. The notions of an “expensive process,” and the “immense quantities of fuel,” have no foundation in practice. If the ashes, as has been sometimes the case, were given to the winds, or cast upon the waters, the expense of cremation would be exceedingly small. But cremation, however inexpensive, in itself, has led to unmeasured extravagance, in the matter of urns of the most costly materials, and workmanship, of which an ample account may be found, in the Hydriotaphia of Sir Thomas Browne, London, 1835, vol. iii. p. 449.

More remarkable changes have occurred, in modern times, than a revival of the practice of cremation. It is an error, however, to suppose this practice to have been the original mode of dealing with the dead. It was very general about the year 1225, B. C., but the usage, at the present day, was, doubtless, the primitive practice of mankind. So thought Cicero, De Legibus ii. 22. “Ac mihi quidem antiquissimum sepulturæ genus id fuisse videtur, quo apud Xenophontem Cyrus utitur. Redditur enim terræ corpus, et ita locatum ac situm, quasi operimento matris obducitur.”

Nevertheless, there is a strong cremation party among us. Who would not save sixpence, if he could, even in a winding-sheet! Should the wood and lumber interest be fairly represented, in our city councils, it would not be surprising, if there should be a majority, in favor of taking the remains of our citizens to Nova Scotia, to be burnt, rather than to Malden, to be buried. My friends, Birch, Touchwood, and Deal, are of this opinion; and would be happy to receive the citizens on board their regular coasters, for this purpose, at a reasonable price, per hundred, or by the single citizen—packed in ice.

An experienced person will be always on hand, to receive the corpses. Religious services will be duly performed, during the burning, without extra charge; and, should the project find favor with the public, a regular line of funeral coasters, with appropriate emblems, and figure-heads, will, in due time, be established. Those, who prefer the more economical mode of water-burial, for their departed relatives, thereby saving the expense of fuel altogether, will be accommodated, if they will leave orders in writing, with the masters on board, who will personally superintend the dropping of the bodies, off soundings.