[1] The original proposer of this scheme was M. Rudler, who proposed it to Dr. Caffe, of Paris, in 1857.

[2] Jamieson.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Herodotus.

[5] Cicero.

[6] Pliny.

[7] Canon Greenwell.

[8] Jamieson.

[9] Cremation is not opposed to Jewish doctrines.—'Jewish Chronicle,' April 10, 1874.

[10] Frazer.

[11] 'Iliad.'

[12] 'On the Causes of some Epidemics.' Glasgow, 1874.

[13] 'The plague-pit,' says the 'Lancet' of September 16, 1854, 'is situated within the area bounded by Argyll Place, King Street, Tyler Street, Little Marlborough Street being directly over the pit.'

[14] H. W. Hemsworth.

[15] Rolleston.

[16] Tertullian.

[17] Jamieson.

[18] 'Lancet.'

[19] St. A. St. John.

[20] Rev. J. Edkins.

[21] The Earl of Shaftesbury once remarked to an eminent promoter of the present cremation movement, with regard to this very prevalent and erroneous notion, that it was altogether unreasonable. 'What,' said he, 'would in such a case become of the blessed martyrs?'

[22] 'I presume that it has been shown beyond doubt that the material particles which make up our bodies are in a constant state of flux, the entire physical nature being changed every seven years; so that if all the particles which once entered into the structure of a man of fourscore were reassembled, they would suffice to make seven or eight bodies.'—Rev. A. K. H. B.

[23] Dean Stanley.

[24] Ibid.

[25] I. O. in 'Church Review.'

[26] Cremation has already been made the subject of verse upon the Continent. Dr. Moretti, of Cannero, in the 'Annali di Chimica,' 1872, has given to the world some excellent verses; and Professor Polizzi, in a poem published at Girgenti, 1873, and dedicated to the memory of Dr. Salsi, has also eloquently apostrophised the subject. Some two-and-twenty stanzas in the Milanese dialect were published in 1874, by Civelli of Milan. I have also seen some German verses, signed 'Dranmor,' and a short but charming poem in the same language by Justinius Kerner. It is a matter of regret that those of our own poets who have been in favour of burning the dead did not enshrine their proclivities in verse. Southey, for instance, wrote that the custom of interment 'makes the idea of a dead friend more unpleasant. We think of the grave, corruption, and worms: burning would be better.' But he left us no poetry on the subject.

[27] It forms no part of my purpose to defend cremation against those who consider that its practice might lead to the commission of crime owing to the entire destruction of the body. This and other objections have been suitably dealt with in the work of Sir Henry Thompson.

[28] Crawfurd.

[29] See Plate VI.

[30] 'Building News,' April 18, 1874.

[31] Or All Souls' day. Some most touching scenes are witnessed in continental cemeteries on this occasion, more particularly in France and North Germany.

[32] Potter.

[33] See Plate V.

[34] Jamieson.

[35] Mr. Hemsworth has suggested an apparatus for the purpose.

[36] Dr. Parkes, 'Practical Hygiene,' 4th edit. 1874.

[37] 'J. Arch. Soc.' vol. xvi.

[38] The commissioners sent to report upon the state of the English graveyards in the year 1872 found no less than 130 cemeteries occupied by our dead. Forty-five of them contained no monuments, and 65 only headstones of the commonest kind. The French had gathered together some 28,000 of their dead, and formed one large campo santo. The English commission reported that it would require 5,000l. to put the graveyards in seemly order, and an annual expenditure of some 200l. more. It appears that the graves have been frequently rifled by the Tartar peasantry in search of rings and other valuables. See 'Daily Telegraph,' Oct. 30, 1874.

[39] 'Iliad.'

[40] Dr. Parkes.

[41] Gamgee on the 'Cattle Plague.'

[42] Frazer.

[43] The last public utterance was made by Dr. Wheelhouse, of Leeds, in his address of October in the present year. He says:—

'Do we not shun, and that most wisely, the presence of those afflicted with infectious diseases so long as they remain amongst us; and yet, no sooner are they removed by death, than we are content, with tender sympathy indeed, and most loving care it is true (but with how much wisdom?), to lay them in the ground that they may slowly dissipate their terribly infectious gases through the soil, and saturating that, may thereby recharge the rains of heaven, as they filter through it, with all their virulence and terrible power of reproduction in the systems of the living. I am not the thorough and entire believer in the disinfecting and depurating power of the soil that I once was; for terrible examples of its failure have, in my judgment, come under my notice.

'Sir Henry Thompson has lately sounded a note of alarm on this subject; and though, for the present, it may fall upon ears unheeding or unsympathetic, I yet venture to think that, in time to come, his warning will be enforced by stern necessity, and that some better method of disposing of our dead will take the place of the burial so honoured and revered by us.'

[44] Frazer.

[45] Spondanus.

[46] Frazer.

[47] 'Iron.'

[48] Veritz.

[49] Welch and Davis.

[50] Dr. Parkes, in the chapter upon the Disposal of the Dead, in 'Practical Hygiene,' evidently leans to the opinion that burial in the sea might suit maritime nations.

[51] Dr. von Steinbeis.

[52] Mr. H. J. Hutchinson.

[53] Buckland.

[54] Frazer.

[55] Lieut. Oliver.

[56] Howarth.

[57] This word conveys the meaning of burial in the actual earth better perhaps than any other.

[58] Wylie.

[59] Dr. Eatwell.

[60] Lockhart.

[61] By Mr. McCullum in 1873.

[62] Rossellini.

[63] By Professor Gennarelli.

[64] See the body of Mrs. Van Butchell, embalmed by Dr. Hunter and Mr. Carpenter in 1775.

[65] Walker.

[66] What a majority this must be, if the human skeleton from the Florida Reef is rightly estimated by Agassiz at 10,000 years old, the Egyptian relics from the Limant Bay borings by Rosière at 30,000, the remains from the New Orleans forest by Dowler at 50,000 years, and if the human bones found at the Illinois river, at Natchez, at Calaveras, at Anguilla Island, and in the Ashley river, are correctly stated by Schmidt, Dickeson, Whitney, Rijgersma, Holmes, Lubbock, and others, as contemporaneous with the mammoth and mastodon!

[67] Hutchinson.

[68] Bradley.

[69] Hutchinson.

[70] St. John.

[71] Dr. A. Campbell.

[72] Tacitus.

[73] Bogouschefsky.

[74] Crawfurd, &c.

[75] Feudge.

[76] Elliot.

[77] Major Godwin-Austen.

[78] St. A. St. John.

[79] Professor Le Conte.

[80] Chapman.

[81] Griffiths.