On Jan. 13, 1884, an incident occurred that speedily wrought a metamorphosis of the whole question regarding the legality of cineration in the United Kingdoms. There is an eccentric physician of South Wales, who is known as Dr. Price. He claims to be the nineteenth century representative of the ancient Druids. His costume is green trousers, white smock coat, and fox-skin head-covering. He is an educated physician and a member of the British Medical Association. The Druids of old burned their dead, and the child of Dr. Price having died, he determined to dispose of her remains by cremation. He retired at nightfall to a hill-top, where, placing the corpse in a cask of petroleum, he applied the torch. The burning aroused the populace, who, on nearing the spot, discovered its purpose. Amid much excitement the charred remains were rescued, and the Druid doctor placed under arrest. He was tried at the Glamorganshire Assizes, Cardiff, and acquitted. Sir James Stephen, the learned judge, when charging the grand jury at the trial, stated that Lord Justice Fry agreed in the views about to be expressed by him. He reviewed elaborately all the authorities bearing on the case, and, after discussing the methods of disposing of the dead in ancient Europe, failed to discover any law, ancient or modern, which forbids cremation, providing it be done in such a manner as to cause no nuisance.
This decision, of course, rendered the society free to act as it pleased. Advertisements were immediately put in the newspapers, to say that anybody could be cremated who would adhere to the rules formulated by the society. Under these circumstances the cremation society felt it a duty to indicate, without delay, those safeguards which they deemed it essential to associate with the proceeding in order to prevent the destruction of a body which might have met death by unfair means. They were aware that the chief practical objection which can be urged against the employment of cremation consists in the opportunity which it offers, apart from such precautions, for removing the traces of poison or other injury which are retained by an undestroyed body, and therefore framed the sequent rules, which still hold good:—
“1. An application in writing must be made by the friends or executors of the deceased,—unless it has been made by the deceased person himself during life,—stating that it was the wish of the deceased to be cremated after death. 2. A certificate must be sent in by one qualified medical man at least, who attended the deceased until the time of death, unhesitatingly stating that the cause of death was natural, and what the cause was. 3. If no medical man attended during the illness, autopsy must be made by a medical officer appointed by the society, or no cremation can take place. These conditions being complied with, the council of the society reserve the right in all cases of refusing permission for the performance of the cremation, and, in the event of permitting it, will offer every facility for its accomplishment in the best manner.”
The Cremation Society of England owes much to its indefatigable honorary secretary, Mr. William Eassie, C.E., whose propaganda for incineration is not confined to the British Isles, but extends all over the world. I am sure that his name will always head the list of those who have promoted cremation in the country of Shakespeare, and in this respect even place him over and above that illustrious surgeon and physicist, Sir Henry Thompson. I would not, I am certain, experience the least astonishment should I hear that Mr. Eassie sent some of his valuable essays on cineration to some savage in Africa, for instance the king of Dahomey, and that the royal negro, pleased with the idea, instantly had several hundred of his subjects cremated before him, which, being a complete success in every respect, led his dusky majesty to swear by all the holy idols with which he is familiar that he too should be reduced to ashes after death.
Public sentiment reflected in the press of the United Kingdoms has been almost unanimously in favor of cremation. Journals of all classes, religious, fashionable, popular, Whig, Radical, or Tory, from the Court Circular to the Rock, from the Times to Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, have by a vast majority pronounced in its favor.
The Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers have appointed a committee with the view of considering the propriety of erecting a crematorium at Ilford.
The oldest case of cremation on record in Great Britain was that of a widow, Mrs. Pratt, of George Street, Hanover Square, London. The lady was burned, in obedience to directions given in her testament, in the new graveyard adjoining Tyburn turnpike, on the 26th of September, 1769.
THE CREMATORIUM AT MILAN.
(From Dr. Pini’s work.)
On the 8th and 9th of October, 1882, the wife of Captain Hanham, and his mother, Lady Hanham, wife of the late Sir James Hanham, Bart., of Dean’s Court, Dorset, were cremated in a cheap temporary crematory, devised by Mr. Richards of Wincanton. The furnace had been built under the supervision of Captain Hanham himself. The coffins were placed on iron plates, and fire bricks above the furnace, a chimney 22 feet high furnishing the draught. The process lasted two hours, and was successful in every respect.