“In regard to the quality of men, it hath been judged fit to commend them unto the world at their death amongst the heathen in funeral orations; amongst the Jews in sacred poems; and why not in funeral sermons amongst Christians? Us it sufficeth that the known benefit hereof doth countervail millions of such inconveniences as are therein surmised, although they were not surmised only, but found therein.” * * * “The care no doubt of the living, both to live and die well, must needs be somewhat increased when they know that their departure shall not be folded up in silence, but the ears of many be made acquainted with it. The sound of these things do not so pass the ears of them that are most loose and dissolute in life, but it causeth them one time or other to wish, ‘Oh that I might die the death of the righteous, and that my end might be like his.’ Thus much peculiar good there doth grow at those times by speech concerning the dead; besides the benefit of public instruction common unto funeral with other sermons.”—Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, b. v. ch. lxxv.
“When thou hast wept awhile,” says Jeremy Taylor, in his Holy Dying, “compose the body to burial; which, that it be done gravely, decently, and charitably, we have the example of all nations to engage us, and of all ages of the world to warrant; so that it is against common honesty and public fame and reputation not to do this office.”—“The church, in her funerals of the dead, used to sing psalms and to give thanks for the redemption and delivery of the soul from the evil and dangers of mortality.”—“Solemn and appointed mournings are good expressions of our dearness to the departed soul, and of his worth and our value of him, and it hath its praise in nature, and in manners, and in public customs; but the praise of it is not in the gospel, that is, it hath no direct and proper uses in religion; for if the dead did die in the Lord, then there is joy to him, and it is an ill expression of our affection and our charity to weep uncomfortably at a change that hath carried my friend to the state of a huge felicity.”—“Something is to be given to custom, something to fame, to nature and to civilities, and to the honour of deceased friends; for that man is esteemed to die miserable for whom no friend or relation sheds a tear, or pays a solemn sigh. I desire to die a dry death, but am not very desirous to have a dry funeral; some flowers sprinkled on my grave would do well and comely; and a soft shower, to turn those flowers into a springing memory or a fair rehearsal, that I may not go forth of my doors, as my servants carry the entrails of beasts.” * * * *
“Concerning doing honour to the dead the consideration is not long. Anciently the friends of the dead used to make their funeral oration, and what they spake of greater commendation was pardoned on the accounts of friendship; but when Christianity seized on the possession of the world, this charge was devolved on priests and bishops, and they first kept the custom of the world and adorned it with the piety of truth and of religion; but they also ordered it that it should not be cheap; for they made funeral sermons only at the death of princes, or of such holy persons ‘who shall judge the angels.’ The custom descended, and in the channels mingled with the veins of earth, through which it passed; and now-a-days, men that die are commended at a price, and the measure of their legacy is the degree of their virtue. But these things ought not so to be; the reward of the greatest virtue ought not to be prostitute to the doles of common persons, but preserved like laurels and coronets to remark and encourage the noblest things. Persons of an ordinary life should neither be praised publicly, nor reproached in private; for it is an offence and charge of humanity to speak no evil of the dead, which I suppose, is meant concerning things not public and evident; but then neither should our charity to them teach us to tell a lie, or to make a great flame from a heap of rushes and mushrooms, and make orations crammed with the narrative of little observances, and acts of civil, necessary, and eternal religion. But that which is most considerable is, that we should do something for the dead, something that is real and of proper advantage. That we perform their will, the laws oblige us, and will see to it; but that we do all those parts of personal duty which our dead left unperformed, and to which the laws do not oblige us, is an act of great charity and perfect kindness.”—“Besides this, let us right their causes and assert their honour:” * * “and certainly it is the noblest thing in the world to do an act of kindness to him whom we shall never see, but yet hath deserved it of us, and to whom we would do it if he were present; and unless we do so, our charity is mercenary, and our friendships are direct merchandise, and our gifts are brocage: but what we do to the dead, or to the living for their sakes, is gratitude, and virtue for virtue’s sake, and the noblest portion of humanity.”
Necessity and nature of the superior agency requisite for private and public protection in respect to interments.
§ 183. Having given a view of the evils arising from the existing practice in respect to interments in towns, and an outline of what appears to be justly desired as necessary objects to supply the wants of the population, I now beg leave to submit for consideration the information collected as to the practical means of obtaining them.
§ 184. The most pressing of the evils being physical or sanitary evils, the first means of amendment required is the appointment and arrangement of the qualifications, powers, and duties and responsibilities of an officer of health, to whom the requisite changes of practice may be most safely confided.
The functions of such an officer, as marked out by the evidence of existing necessities, may be divided into the ordinary and the extraordinary. The immediate necessities are those which arise from the want of a trustworthy person who maybe looked up to for counsel and direction to survivors in the event of a death, §§ 121, 122, 123, 124, and guide a change of the practice of interment. It is only by an arrangement that will carry a man of education, a responsible officer, to the house of even the poorest person in the community, just at the time when a competent and trustworthy person is most needed to give advice, that the effect of ignorant or interested suggestions may be prevented, and the beneficent intentions of the legislature, or the salutary nature of any public arrangement for the general advantage can be made known with certainty.
§ 185. The ordinary service of such an officer would consist of the verification of the fact and cause of death, and its due civic registration. From the exercise of these duties would follow the extraordinary duties of directing measures of immediate precaution and prevention, which it is to be feared whatsoever general sanitary measures might be adopted would, at the outset, and for too long a period, constitute ordinary and every-day duties. Out of the ordinary duties of the officer of health, would arise extraordinary jurisprudential duties of protecting the interests of the community in cases of deaths which have occurred under circumstances of suspicion or of manifest criminality.
§ 186. Assuming the necessity of the establishment of adequate national cemeteries at proper sites, it is proposed that a body of officers properly qualified by service, as in the example § 185, should have charge of the material arrangements, and take the place of the churchwardens and overseers in respect to all places of burial, and be responsible for the control of the servants of the establishment, and shall, moreover, be enabled to regulate and contract for supplies, at reduced prices, of materials and service of the nature of those now supplied by the undertaker. §§ 150, 153, 154, 155.
§ 187. In order that the officer of public health may be brought to the spot, it is proposed that the last medical attendant on the deceased should, on a small payment, be required to give immediate notice of the death, in a form to be specified, or in case there happened to be no medical attendant, it should then be incumbent on the occupier of the house, or the person having charge of the body, to give the required notice.