§ 90. The delay of interment, it has been shown, is greatly increased by the expense of the funerals; but in a considerable proportion of cases, where the expense is provided for, the delay still occurs, chiefly from feelings which require to be consulted,—the fear of interment before life is extinct.
§ 91. It has been proposed by an arbitrary enactment, without qualification or provision of securities, to forbid all delay of interments beyond a certain number of hours. Such a provision would, in the shape proposed, and without other securities, run counter to the feelings of the population, and standing as a self-executing law it would have but little operation.
The proposed compulsory clause stood thus in the bill of the session of 1842 without any qualification:—
“And be it enacted, That from and after the First day of October, One thousand eight hundred and forty, if any dead body shall continue unburied between the First day of May and the Thirty-first day of October, both days inclusive, more than hours, or between the First day of November and the Thirtieth day of April, both days inclusive, more than hours, the executors or administrators to the estate and effects of such deceased person, or the friends or relatives of the same, or any one of such friends or relatives present at the burial, or the occupier of the house from which such dead body shall be removed to be buried, shall forfeit the sum of Twenty shillings for every Twenty-four hours after the expiration of such respective periods.”
From the closeness of the rooms in which the poorer classes die, and from large fires being on such occasions lighted in them, decomposition often proceeds with as much rapidity in winter as in summer. The mental sufferings from the prolonged retention of the body amidst the living, §§ 26, 3, 39, and the moral objections to it also, § 42, would be as intense in the winter as in the summer, or more so.
§ 92. In several of the continental states, about half a century ago, similar enactments were passed; but it was found necessary to accompany them with various securities; and where these securities, such as the medical inspection and certificate before interment, have been loose, events have occurred which have convinced the public of the necessity of strengthening them. In a recent report on the subject at Paris, by M. Orfila, he adduces an instance.
“In October, 1837, M. Deschamps, an inhabitant of la Guillotière, at Lyons, died at the end of a short indisposition. His obsequies were ordered for the next day. On the next day the priests and the vergers, the corpse-bearers and conductors of funerals, attended. At the moment when they were about to nail down the lid of the coffin, the corpse rose in its shroud, sat upright, and asked for something to eat. The persons present were about to run away in terror, as from a phantom, but they were re-assured by M. Deschamps himself, who happily recovered from a lethargic sleep, which had been mistaken for death. Due cares were bestowed upon him, and he lived. After his recovery he stated that in his state of lethargy he had heard all that had passed around him, without being able to make any movement, or to give any expression to his sensations. * * * It is fortunate for M. Deschamps that the funeral, which was to have taken place in the evening, was deferred until the morning, when the lethargic access terminated, otherwise he would have been interred alive.” * *
In the last number of the Annales d’Hygiene, the following recent instances are cited, as proving the necessity of a regular verification throughout the kingdom of the fact of death:—
A midwife of the commune of Paulhan (Hérault) was believed to be dead and was put in a coffin. At the expiration of twenty-four hours she was carried to the church and from thence to the cemetery. But during its progress the bearers felt some movement in the coffin, and were surprised and frightened. They stopped and opened the coffin, when they found the unfortunate woman alive! she had merely fallen into a lethargy. She was carried back to her home, but in consequence of the shock she received she only survived a few days the horrible accident.
It is stated from Bergerac (Dordogne), of the date of the 27th of December, 1842, that—