A year later, on the 7th of December, 1883, the captain, Thomas C. Hanham, was reduced to ashes in the same apparatus at his residence in Manstone, Dorsetshire. The incineration was public, and in conformity with the last testamentary dispositions of the deceased. The cremation was accomplished in 9 hours and 40 minutes. The ashes were deposited in the family mausoleum.
The Danish Cremation Society at Copenhagen was founded in 1881, and is in a flourishing condition. It has several branch societies in the provinces. Soon after its organization it numbered 1500 members; it now counts 1800 members, among them 120 physicians. Several attempts were made in Denmark to legalize incineration, but in vain: as there is, however, no law prohibiting the act, the society is determined to imitate the example of England, to execute incineration at their own risk, and await further legislation.
Mr. Per Lindell, a civil engineer, did much to popularize cremation in Sweden. For many years he treated of the subject in the columns of the Norden, a journal edited by him. It was through his influence that the Swedish Cremation Society was established on the 31st of May, 1882, at Stockholm, under the presidency of Colonel E. Klingenstierna. At present the society numbers from 700 to 800 members. There is no law forbidding incineration; the prospects are therefore very good. As soon as sufficient money is on hand a crematory will be erected and put in use. A society, affiliated with the central one, was recently organized at Gothenburg.
In the neighborhood of the new cemetery, St. Francisco Xavier, at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a large space of ground has been assigned for the erection of a crematory temple. Incineration will be practiced there in order to lessen, if possible, the alarming rate of mortality in that unhealthy place. Dr. A. Vinelli deserves great credit for his admirable articles in support of cremation in the Revista Medica de Rio de Janeiro of 1878.
In the Argentine Republic, Mexico, and Uruguay, a steady movement is on foot in favor of the reform. The authorities in Mexico have already granted permission for the construction of a crematorium on the Gorini pattern.
It is said that the government of Venezuela has also decided to erect a crematory, wherein to reduce to innocuous ashes the bodies of persons deceased of yellow fever.
The idea to propagate cremation at Valparaiso, Chili, originated with the Lessing Lodge of Free Masons, which, on the 6th of August, 1881, directed a circular to the other Masonic lodges of the city, requesting them to send representatives to a preliminary meeting. This meeting came off on the 3d of December of the same year. Cremation was freely discussed from every standpoint, but on the whole the meeting was not followed by any practical result.
On the last of December, 1881, a proclamation to organize a cremation society was published in the journal Il Mercurio by the committee having the matter in charge. On the 20th of May, 1882, the Cremation Society of Chili was formed under the presidency of Señor O. Malvini. This society is in a flourishing condition, and now numbers over 200 members.
Towards the end of 1883 a committee to organize a cremation society at Alexandria, Egypt, was formed by M. Lumel, who, unfortunately, died in the same year. The committee, however, is still in existence, and is at present occupied in realizing the ideas of M. Lumel. At Cairo Messrs. Titus Figari and Cesare Praga labor to found a cremation society.