Arthur Searle

“ What, in fact, are the causes which have brought coffins for the dead, with all their disagreeable and dangerous consequences, into such general use? Undoubtedly, our natural wishes that the bodies of our friends should be protected, and not left exposed to accident or violence of any kind. Interments without coffins in open cemeteries will hardly be acceptable to civilized people, however much from a sanitary-point of view they may be preferable to the customary method. ”

“ The niches being also always full, they are obliged to make room here, too, for the new-comer by breaking up and scraping the skeleton which has stood there longest, and adding his bones to the different arches and festoons which are gracefully distributed on all sides. The convent is not very full just now, so that the poor fellows rest on the average seven or eight years in their graves ”

“ A water-tight tomb may be constructed without very great expense in any ordinary cemetery, and, if the ground around it is suitably drained, may be used for a long while without fear that it is a menace to the health of the community, as all ordinary graves and tombs undoubtedly are. ”

“ Crowds are a necessity of progress, it seems; at all events, the art of getting on well in solitude has not yet been discovered, and we are required by nature to find ways of helping our neighbors where they are, rather than of sending them away. ”

“ After reviewing the various substitutes for burial which have been tried or suggested, it happens with most minds that none of them seem on the whole to be improvements. It remains, then, to find a form of burial which will accomplish its purpose effectively and without offense or danger to the living. ”

“ It is not desirable, either from a legal and medical or from a sentimental point of view, that a body should be destroyed soon after it has ceased to live. To effect this destruction in a thorough and decorous manner by burning is expensive, if attempted without complicated apparatus, the original cost of which must, in any case, be considerable. ”

“ But in this remark there is no more truth than in the commonplace answer to Malthusian arguments, that there are plenty of thinly settled districts still to be occupied. Space there is, no doubt, both for the living and for the dead, if they could be conveniently carried to it; but there is often too little space where people find themselves obliged to live and die. ”

“ This form must, accordingly, be such that the earth employed for the purpose of burial shall be free from moisture or any other hindrance to rapid and inoffensive decomposition, and entirely separated from the ground through which the rainfall which feeds our springs and lakes is to pass. The corpses must be buried without coffins, and still be protected from disturbance or defacement by animals of any kind. The only means of securing these ends is apparently to have all interments made in dry earth contained in secure and properly ventilated buildings. ”

“ We may neglect more remote and perhaps fanciful objections, such as, for example, that the world's natural stock of ammonia might be seriously reduced in the course of centuries, if the process of decay were extensively replaced by that of complete combustion. ”

“ Provision must be made in the neighborhood of large towns for numerous interments. The land available for the purpose is limited by the wants of the living, who can not afford to leave large tracts unoccupied. ”

“ It is possible that such buildings might stand at no great distance from others without harm, under suitable regulations for the interments to be made in them. If constant attendance were provided for, the fear of premature interment which distresses some people might be to a great extent removed; and in any case the protection of the corpses might thus be efficiently secured. ”

“ The most economical way of providing sheltered graves, however, would probably be to erect for the purpose buildings of considerable size, within which space might be hired in perpetuity or for limited terms of years. ”