COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE HEALTH SCIENCES STANDARD HX64080587 RA635 C63 Earth-burial and ere RECAP ^^^^^M ^^>\ ^" \ \ \ \ W \ \ -^^ .\ ^\.N.^V ^ v\ \ ^'^ \^ ^ Kv ^ \ ^^1 A w \^ v't \ w V \ \ .v.^ ^ v-\\,vv^ ^^"^ ^^ '^^'^ \\x^ Mi ^^^53^ O^^ Cuhmtbia ^ntbmttp W^tfnmtt ffitbrarg CINERARY URN FROM THE MUSEUM OF THE VATICAN. Protitispiece. "We believe that the horrid practice of earth-burial does more to propagate the germs of disease and death, and to spread desolation and pestilence over the human race, than do all man's ingenuity and ignorance in every other custom or habit." From the report made to the American Medical Asso- ciation, when in session in St. Louis on May 6th, 1886, by a special committee of physicians appointed the pre- ceding year to consider the necessity for cremation. " In the same sense in which the ' Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,' I hold that the earth Tvas made not for the dead, but for the living. • " No intelligent faith can suppose that any Christian doctrine is affected by the manner in which, or the time in which, tliis mortal body of ours crumbles into dust and sees corruption. . . . Cemeteries are becoming not only a difficulty, an expense, and an inconvenience, but an actual danger." From an address by the late Bishop of Manchester, at the opening of the Social Science Congress at Manchester, Fngland, October 1st, 1879. Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Open Knowledge Commons http://www.archive.org/details/earthburialcremaOOcobb PREFACE. This little volume is written at tlie request of the Directors of tlie United States Cremation Co., wlio state that in- quiries for a work of the kind are fre- quently made at the Company's office. That cremation is steadily winning pub- lic favor is shown by the fact that in the United States seventeen crematories have already been erected, and the remains of over twenty-three hundred persons incin- erated. Most of this work has been accomplished during the last six years ; and the friends of the reform, as they recall the perplex- ities and discouragements that attended it at the outset, may well congratulate them- selves on the result. " Difficulties have been surmounted — a Aa Preface. good beginning lias been made ; and to doubt of the ultimate trimupli of crema- tion would be a disparagement of the intelligence of the age. AVe do not believe that a repulsive custom like earth-burial, though deep-rooted in prejudice and shielded by conservatism, can forever bid defiance to the laws of decency and health. In the time that is coming men will marvel at the anomaly we present in scru- 23ulously disinfecting the homes of the plague-stricken, while their bodies are placed in the ground to contaminate the earth, the air, and the springs. As our subject appeals with especial force to the residents of cities, whose an- nual armies of the dead must of necessity be disposed of in the immediate neighbor- hood, we have considered at length the cemeteries of New York and Brooklyn,- and the dangers that threaten therefrom. If we succeed in directins: on the evil but a modicum of the attention that it merits, we shall not have written in vain. In the North American Hevieio of Sep- tember, 1882, was published an article by Preface. vii tlie writer ia favor of cremation. The arguments then used have been strength- ened, not weakened, by the intervening years : the conchisions of science have lost none of their force, and the grave none of its loathsome features. For this reason we have retained many of the arguments and examples there employed, express permission to do so having been cour- teously granted us by the editor and pub- lisher of the Hevieiv. Augustus G-. Cobb. Tarrytown, New York, April 26, 1892. CO^^TENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE The reinstatement of earth-burial tlirough prejudice and superstition — Faith in the j)ower of reUcs of the dead — Miracles "WTought at the graves of saints — The reign of Ignorance, Cruelty, and Fanaticism 1-18 CHAPTER n. The conditions surrounding graveyards — Physicians favoring cremation — The suburban cemeteries on Long Island, N. Y. — Increase in the population of New York and Brooklyn, and the annual number of deaths — Rapid and proportionate growth of the cities of the Hving and the dead — The injuries in- flicted by cemeteries on Newtown, L. I. — The danger that threatens the springs — The Plymouth epidemic — The contamination of the drinking- water of Philadelpliia — Views of physicians on these and kindred subjects — Epidemics of typhoid fever and diphtheria occasioned by the pollution of water by cemeteries 19-62 CHAPTER III. The transitory nature of cemeteries, and their ulti- mate fate — Plagues occasioned by disinterments — The overcrowded condition of cemeteries — Diseases X Contents. PAGE resulting from their local influence — The investi- gations of M. Pasteur and Dr. Domingo Freire — Bacteria working from the buried bodies to the surface — Splenic fever and yellow-fever directly traced to this cause — The warning of Dr. Freire — Emphatic condemnation of cemeteries by a com- mittee of the American Medical Association . 63-88 CHAPTER IV. The revolting features of earth-burial concealed under a mass of false sentiment — Instances of burial ahve — Condition of the overcrowded Lon- don cemeteries — Some surprising statements by Bishop Coxe — Description of the process of crema- tion — Objection to cremation on the ground of its destroying evidence of crime — Inconsistencies presented by monuments in cemeteries — Extrava- gance connected with funerals, and the need of reform in the manner of conducting them — The obUgation imposed upon the Hving to respect the last wishes of the dead 89-124 CHAPTER V. The progress of cremation — Revival of interest in the subject in Italy and other countries of Europe — Distinguished men advocating its introduction — Petition to the German Reichstag — Cremation in Japan — Advance of the movement in the United States — Crematories and Societies in exist- ence in the different cities of the Union — Friendly aid of Medical Associations — Legislative action favoring the reform — The crematory at Quaran- tine Station, New York — Other estabhshments — Work of Dr. Davis and Dr. Erichsen — Prejudice Contents, xi. against cremation dispelled by witnessing the pro- cess — The professions represented by those who have been incinerated — Bright i^rospects for the future 125-151 APPENDIX. View&. of well-known persons on the subject of cremation — Regulations of the United States Cre- mation Co. (Limited) governing incineration 153-173^ EARTH-BURIAL AND CREMATION. CHAPTER I. The Reinstatement of Earth-Burial through Prejudice and Superstition. — Faith in the Power of Rehcs of the Dead. — Miracles Wrought at the Graves of Saints. — The Reign of Ignorance, Cruelty, and Fanaticism. Time and experience test the works of man, and the highway of progress is covered with the wreckage of countless inventions. The creeds, the dogmas, the social regulations of one age, may become bywords or mere curiosities for the next : but whether they stand or fall they mark the civilization of the era that fostered them ; they result from conditions preced- ing them, while the stream of tendencies in which they are inextricably involved ultimately determines their fate. 2 Earth-Burial and Cremation. Men do what tliey can, and the after generations pardon their errors, but judge their works on the merits. What is good {i. €., fit), lives ; what is bad (i. e.^ unfit), dies — this is the general law. When,, therefore, a custom like that of earth-burial has existed for many centuries, a strong pre- sumption arises in its favor. Its antiquity is offered as an argument for its wisdom, and the case passes for an instance of '^ survival of the fittest." Let us not forget,, however, that if we are to respect a custom for its antiquity, no factitious causes must have tended to prolong its life. Resting solely upon its intrinsic merits, it should challenge and survive the scrutiny of unbi- ased minds. Thus judged, the antiquity of earth- burial avails it nothing, while our resjDect for the custom itself will lessen in propor- tion as we learn how it was established. A prejudice and a superstition — these were the causes, as we will hereafter show, that revived the obsolete practice of earth-buri- al in the earliest centuries of the Christian era. The voice of wisdom or science never Earth- Burial and Cremation. 3 approved the use, nor was the rule of ex- pediency allowed to test it ; and thus it is that while in legislation, science, social and political customs and inventions mankind has made prodigious advances, the practice of earth-burial remains to-day with all its hideous features, as at the dawn of a new civilization. The cause of this anomalous coexistence of progress with stagnation, if sought, is easily found. With intellect untrammelled, the children discover the er- rors of the fathers, and so the follies of one century may be corrected by the wisdom of the next ; but nurtured by superstition, an error seems capable of enduring forever. Before eyes blinded by prejudice, the lamp of reason burns in vain through every age ; and folly remains folly still though centu- ries roll by. At the commencement of the Christian era, cremation was the prevailing custom of the civilized world, with the exception of Egypt, where bodies were embalmed, Judea, where they were buried in sepul- chres, and China, where they were buried in the earth. The Greeks, fifteen centu- 4 Earth- Burial and Creination, ries before Christ, invariably buried their dead : but in time they learned the ad- vantages of cremation, and the latter prac- tice became universal ; suicides, unteethed children, and persons struck by lightning alone being denied the right. The Ro- mans, wh(j had orioinallv inhumed, bor- rowed, in turn, the sanatory practice from the Greeks, and from the close of the Re- public until the end of the fourth century of our era. burning on the pyre was the usage regarded as most honorable and ap- propriate. At first, it is not probable that the funeral customs of the Christians dif- fered in any marked respect from the cus- toms of those who clung to the ancient religions. The Christians interred in the same places, and they afford us at this pe- riod a curious illustration of the blendins^ of the ne^A' faith with the old, by painting and engraving upon their sepulchres in the catacombs of Rome representations of the heathen o-ods and o^oddesses, and even the customary invocations of the deities of the nether world. In time the difference be- came o^reater, and no sooner had the Chris- Earth- Burial and Cremation. 5 tian I'eligion become a power in the state, than its followers, always inimical to cre- mation, made haste to abolish the practice. They were influenced in this, not by the Scriptures, for both the Old and New Tes- taments are silent on the subject. The causes, as already intimated, are found in a prejudice and a superstition. Cordially hatins^ the old mythology, it was easy for the Christians to dislike its fol- lowers and their customs. The pagans burned their dead ; and therefore the Christians stigmatized burning as a pagan custom. Being prejudiced they refused to adopt a good usage that was in vogue among their enemies ; being illogical, they totally disregarded the fact that, while some heathen nations had used the torch, others had plied the spade, and therefore cremation, any more than inhumation, should not be taken for a pagan custom. Another reason contributing to the res- toration of earth-burial was the belief in the body's resurrection. That the trumpet would sound and the dead come forth was a doctrine literally accepted in a physical 6 Earth- Burial and Cre^nation. as well as in a spiritual sense. Again, it was part of the Christian's faith that his body was in some peculiar sense sanctified and purified : it was '' a temple of the Holy Ghost." Though language like this may baffle our comprehension, yet the 23hrase sounded well and had due effect. The old precept of one of the Roman Twelve Tables, " Hominem mortuum in urbe ne se- pelito, neve urito," was set at naught: inanimate "temples of the Holy Ghost," by the score, were encased in the niches and corners of churches, and many a moul- dering monk unintentionally counter-bal- anced the good deeds of his life by the disease that he generated after his death. The superstitious reverence in which the tombs of saints and their mortal remains were held enhanced likewise the predilec- tion of the faithful for inhumation. The pious Mussulman turns not to the tomb of the Prophet at Medina with greater rever- ence than did the early Christians to the grave of saint or martyr. '' In the age," says Gibbon, '' which followed the conver- sion of Constantine, the emperors, the con- Earth-Burial and Cremation. y suls, and the generals of armies devoutly visited the sepulchres of a tent-maker and a fisherman. The bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy, after reposing for three centuries in obscure graves, were transported in solemn pomp to the Church of the Apostles, which Constantine had founded on the banks of the Bosphorus. When the relics of the prophet Samuel were carried to Constantinople, an uninter- rupted procession of devotees filled the highways from Palestine to the gates of the city. By a heavenly vision the resting-place of the martyr Stephen was revealed to Lu- cien, a presbyter of Jerusalem. In the presence of an innumerable multitude the ground was opened by the bishop, and when the cofifin was brought to light the earth trembled, and an odor as of Paradise arose, which instantly cured the various diseases of seventy-three in the vicinity. In solemn procession the remains of Stephen were transported to a church constructed in their honor on Mount Sion ; '^ and the minute particles of those relics — a drop of 8 Earth-Burial and Cremation, blood, or the scrapings of a bone — were acknowledged in almost every province of the Roman w^orld to possess a divine and miraculous virtue." The grave and learned Augustine, the most profound theologian of his day, in attesting the innumerable prodigies which were performed by the relics of St. Ste- phen, enumerates above seventy miracles, of which three were resurrections from the dead, occurring in the space of two years. Yet he solemnly declares that he has selected only those miracles which were publicly certified by the persons who were either the objects or the spectators of the power of the martyr. Two books were published by the Bishop of Uzalis contain- ing accounts of St. Stephen's miracles, and a Spanish or Gallic proverb has been pre- served which says that " whoever pretends to have read all the miracles of St. Stephen, he lies." Stupidity and credulity were finally carried so far that the Emperor Theodosius the First, in the year 386, issued an edict forbidding the transportation of buried Earth-Burial and Cremation. 9. corpses from one place to another, and tlie separating of the relics of any martyr, or the sale of the same. The delusion, however, was universal, and not easily controllable by laws. It soou became customary to place the bones of martyrs under altars, and St. Am- brose would not consecrate a church that possessed none. Three hundred years after the enactment of the edict just cited, a council of Constantinople ordered the destruction of all altars under which were found no relics of saints. A widespi'ead demand for the remains of holy men en- sued, and " there is reason," adds the his- torian, ''to suspect that Tours might not be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were adored, instead of those of a saint." When Constantine, the daughter of the Emperor Tiberius Constantine, begged of St. Grregory the head of St. Paul, to place in a church which she had built in honor of the apostle, the Pope (St. Grregory) sent word to the princess that the bodies of saints shone with so many miracles that I o Ea rth - Burial a nd Crem ation, even the faithful could not approach their tombs to pray without being seized with fear. In suppoi't of this statement he informed her that once when it became necessary to repair the sepulchre of St. Paul, the custodian of the place on attempt- ing to remove some bones which were adjacent to, but did not touch the tomb of the saint, was instantly struck dead by the Ghost of the apostle, which appeared Ibefore him with terrible aspect. The catechism of the Council of Trent approves of the custom of swearing by relics, and kings were wont to enter into compacts and to bind themselves by oath over them. These exhibitions of unques- tionino; and childlike faith illustrate the intellectual trend of the believing ages, and help largely to explain the preference of the Christians for earth-burial. The phantoms of the grave revealed the consti- tution of the invisible world, and convinced them that their reliction was founded on the firm basis of fact and experience ; while the mouldering bones of saints, gathered with reverent care, shielded them from Earth- Bitrial aiid Crematio7i. 1 1 accident, cured their diseases, and restored their dead to life. Well mio^bt the hearts of the faithful be drawn toward the tomb, when it yielded such precious treasures. That was the age of miracles ; an age com- mon to every race in an early stage of its intellectual development. The skeletons of saints became of priceless value, for the manifestations that were accepted as proof of their marvelous power drew, even from remote countries, riches to the churches. A "universal belief in delusions like these continued unabated, through the long, pro- found, intellectual anaesthesia of the Middle Ages. " In the shadows of this universal igno- rance," says Mr. Hall am, '' a thousand su- perstitions like foul animals of night were propagated and nourished. ... It must not be supposed that these absurdi- ties were produced as well as nourished by ignorance. In most cases they were the work of deliberate imposture." During a period of fourteen centuries thousands of instances of miracles being wrought by the relics of saints, or at the graves of 12 Earth- Burial and Cremation. the dead, were recorded and universally believed. Those with faith in the super- natural never seek after a sign and seek in vain ; and miracles cease to appear only when people cease to expect them. A collection of all the records of these alleged events published from the time of Constantine to that of the Convulsionist miracles in France in 1727, would, with the evidence substantiating them, constitute a vast library. The student of history is dumbfounded as he reads, being even less wonder-struck at the absurdities stated as facts than at the overwhelming mass of testimony brought forward in their sup- port. In despair he naturally asks himself what reliance can be placed upon the sworn statements of men in our efforts to discover the truth '{ Scores of these fables are substantiated by more evidence than would be necessary to condemn a man to be hang^ed in a trial for murder in our criminal courts. They forcibly illustrate the unreliability of human testimony when not corroborated by extrinsic facts, and show with what qualifications evidence Earth- Burial and Cremation. 1 3 frequently must be taken regarding sub- jects concerning which it would seem easy to learn the truth. What chieily interests us, however, in this connection, is the fact, established be- yond all question, that the grave by adroit manao-ement became a connectino; link be- tween things seen and unseen, and was the most potent factor that the Church pos- sessed for retaining its hold over its pros- trate votaries. One readily understands how the practice of inhumation was in- sured a long life on receiving the stamp of priestly ap]3roval. Had superstition failed to support it, there would yet have re- mained the convincino^ aro;:ument of force. Even before the dawn of the fifth century the temporal power of the Church existed in fact as well as in name, and public opin- ion was largely influenced by the views of the clergy, — a body extremely jealous of their privileges and ready to brand with the stigma of heresy any practice or teach- ing believed to be even in the most remote degree capable of impairing their dogmas or their emoluments. As early as the year 14 Earth- Burial and Cremation, 385 A.D., at tlie time when tlie boues of St. Stephen began their ^vonderful work, Pris- cillian was condemned to death and exe- cuted as a heretic by order of the Emperor Maximus, whose action Avas ap]3roved by a Synod of Bishops held the same year at Treves. For fourteen hundred years after- wards the faggot, scaffold, ax, and rack were in constant use, and in order to en- force belief in dogmas and creeds which nobody understood, and to uphold doc- trines abhorrent to common sense or mathe- matically impossible, hundreds of thou- sands of human victims suffered horrible torture and death. The history of these atrocities is written in letters of blood, and they constitute foul blots on the history of man. These evils were rife during the period of Church ascendency, — " on the whole," says Mr. Lecky, " one of the most deplorable in the history of the human mind. . . . The church had crushed or silenced every opponent in Christendom. It had absolute control over education in all its branches and in all its stages. . . . Every doubt Earth- Burial and Cremation. 15 was branded as a sin, and a long course of doubt must necessarily have preceded the rejection of its tenets." Mental develop- ment was arrested, and philosophy and rea- son, twin antidotes against superstitious credulity, for centuries were almost mute. We are reminded of the words of Vol- taire : '' When once fanaticism has gan- grened a brain, the malady is almost incurable." The Reformation which fol- lowed worked little change for the better as regards toleration. Neither Catholic nor Protestant had the slightest regard for religious liberty, and the eternal right of the individual to perfect freedom of thought and speech was a truth not even dreamt of. The equality of the two great faiths in this respect may be shown by the fol- lowing examples : When the noble Bruno was burned at Rome, the special charge against him was that he had taught the plurality of worlds, a doctrine repugnant to the whole tenor of the Scriptures. When John Calvin caused Servetus to be roasted to death over a slow fire at Geneva, the offence of the philoso- 1 6 Earth- Burial and Crernatiori. pher lay in bis belief tliat the genuine doctrines of Christianity had been lost even before the time of the Council of Nic^ea. As late as the year 1748, at Orleans, France, a man was hanged for blasphemy and afterwards had his tongue torn out; and in 1780, only a hundred and eleven years ago, the Swiss Canton of Glarus fol- lowed out faithfully an injunction of the Old Testament and burned a witch to death. ^' Heresy " was a word whose elastic meaning embraced every opinion, every doctrine touching belief or conduct that could by any ingenuity be construed as opposed to the teaching and regulations of the Church : and the assertion of the Bishop of Lincoln, in 1874, that a revival of cremation would destroy belief in a final resurrection, would, if proclaimed from one to fourteen centuries ago, have received universal assent. To many it may appear that we have wandered unnecessarily into details of Church historv. but the cause is found in Earth' Burial and Cremation. 17 the oft-repeated statement of the anti-cre- mationists, that earth-burial is a Christian custom that has endured for centuries. We cheerfully concede the point, and ask what credit is the practice to the Church ? The general assertion, that burial is a Christian custom, unaccompanied by facts which qualify its value, confirms thousands in their prejudices against cremation, and reconciles others to a repulsive usage vio- lative alike of the laws of health and of the requirements of decency. Earth-burial certainly is a Christian custom, and it has endured for centuries ; but when we con- sider the prejudice that gave rise to it in Europe, the superstition that nourished, and the intolerance that ever stood ready to defend — when we consider these facts in connection with the well-authenticated cases of plague and epidemics that the custom has occasioned, — one would think that all branches of Christians would gladly welcome any innovation that should prom- ise to consign the practice to a well-deserved oblivion. The whole question of the dis- position of the dead, as the advocates of 1 8 Earth- Burial and Cremation. incineration have as^ain and ao^ain asserted, is a sanitary and not a religious one. It is a question that involves no religious doctrine, and it concerns no phase of genu- ine Christian faith. It seems strange that in an enlio'htened ao-e the cast-off emblem of mortality should be associated with a future spiritual state ; for the blending of the material with the spiritual, by merging into a heavenly body the physical attri- butes of an earthly one, betrays a gross conception of immortality and is worthy only of a savage race. Too often have Christians incurred this error, unmindful of the Apostle's warning, that, ^' Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorrup- tion." Our sanitary welfare and our natural affections are alone involved in the final disposition of the dead, and the method that is most conducive to public health and the requirements of human love is assuredly reverential and best. CHAPTER II. The Conditions Surrounding Graveyards. — Physicians Favoring Cremation. — The Suburban Cemeteries on Long Island, N. Y. — Increase in the Population of New York and Brooklyn, and the Annual Number of Deaths. — Rapid and Proportionate Growth of the Cities of the Living and the Dead. — The Injuries In- flicted by Cemeteries on Newtown, L. I. — The Danger that Threatens the Springs. — The Plymouth Epi- demic. — The Contamination of the Drinking-Water of Philadelphia. — ^Views of Physicians on these and Kindred Subjects. — Epidemics of Typhoid Fever and Diphtheria Occasioned by the Pollution of Water by Cemeteries. Oi^ investigating tlie condition of grave- yards, all the tender sentiments clustering around the tomb are quickly dispelled, and a state of things horrible in its nature and dangerous in its effects arrests our atten- tion. These form the strongest arguments in favor of incineration, — arguments indeed conclusive ; and those who believe in the practice of earth-burial would seem to be 19 20 Earth-Burial and Cremation, simply ignorant of tlie result of the cus- tom they advocate. Scores of instances, in cities and in rural districts, both in our own and in foreign lands, confirm the as- sertion of Dr. Adams, of Massachusetts, that "the Christian churchyard is often a contracted plot of ground in the midst of dwellings, literally packed with bodies until it becomes impossible to dig a grave without disturbing human bones; and the earth so saturated with foul fluids, and the emanations so noxious, as to make each churchyard a focus of disease." Of the one hundred and seventy-one answers received by Dr. Adams, in reply to circu- lars sent to the regular correspondents of the State Board of Health of Massachu- setts, both in the United States and Great Britain, more than one third (sixty-one) gave their testimony in favor of the adop- tion of cremation as a substitute for earth - burial. And this was seventeen years ago (1874), when the subject was first being agitated in this country. To-day the medical profession is practi- cally unanimous in favor of this reform, if Earth- Burial and Cremation. 21 on no other ground than that of public health. At the Medical Congress in Vien- na in 1887, attended by some of the most distinguished physicians of the world, when the question of cremation was brought forward for discussion, there was not a single dissenting voice : all who spoke approved of it. At the outset it may be well to notice a distinction commonly made by advocates of inhumation, whenever the dangers aris- ing from graveyards are mentioned: they declare that cemeteries established in coun- try districts, for the reception of the dead of cities, where each body is laid in a grave by itself, are not open to the objection of being overcrowded or dangerous. To this we can answer that all suburban cemeteries ultimately increase their area or become overcrowded, while the cities for the use of which they are intended expand in size until in time the abodes of the living and dead come into close contiguity. When in 1785 the horrible condition of the old Paris cemeteries had rendered the sections where they were located unfit for habita- 22 Earth- Burial and Cremation, tion, the government ordered them to be closed, and subsequently established four new suburban burial-grounds, viz. : Pere la Chaise, Montparnasse, Montmartre, and Vaugirard. Since these were opened they have received in the aggregate a million and a half of bodies. Not only are they to-day terribly overcrowded, but by the growth of the city they have become intra- mural, and a report of the French Academy of Medicine states that the putrid emana- tions of the first three have caused fright- ful diseases of the throat and lungs, to which very many persons fall victims every year. The conditions giving rise to these evils exist, and are working inevita- bly toward the same fatal end in the ceme- teries that to-day receive the dead of New York and Brooklyn. When we realize how these cities of the livino: and the dead are increasing in size and approaching each other, additional significance is given to facts illustratino; the evils of inhumation ; and a mere glance at the condition of tilings existing in this vicinity warrants Earth- Burial and Cremation. 23 our apprehension that the public health is threatened. At the present time, about four thousand acres of land in the immediate vicinity of New York and Brooklyn are exempt from taxation, and constitute the several ceme- teries. Within them all some sixty thousand bodies are annually interred. Most of these cemeteries are ororanized under the act of the Legislature of the State of New York of April 27, 1847, and the amend- ments thereto, for the Incorporation of Kural Cemetery Associations. The greater number of them are located on Long Island, and ■ on the land side they almost environ the city of Brooklyn. By the aid of statistics and official data, let us consider their area and rapid growth, and the marked inflaence upon them of the increas- ing population of the two cities. A glance at the following table shows the popula- tion of New York and Brooklyn in 1890, the average death-rate per one thousand inhabitants, and the total number of deaths. 24 Earth-Burial and Cremation, 1890. POPULA- TION. DEATH-RATE PER 1,000 IN- HABITANTS. TOTAL, NUM- BER OP DEATHS. New York City, Brooklyn, 1,631,232 * 853,945 * 24.58 23.22 40,103 19,827 Population of both cities, 2,485,177 Average death-rate for^both 23.90 Total deaths in dties, 59,930 On examining the above table the ques- tion at once arises as to the disposition annually made of this formidable army of the dead. Over two thirds of the number are buried in the six cemeteries mentioned in the following list. Only one of the six has been open over forty-three years, and yet within their borders are buried the * On account of the dispute that has arisen, and the uncertainty that exists regarding the jDopulation of the two cities, it may be weU to state that the figures given above for New York are according to the census of July 1, 1890, made by the Health Department, and recorded in the Bureau of Vital Statistics. The Federal census of June, 1890, placed the population at 1,513,501, and the Municipal (pohce) census of October, 1890, at 1,710,715. The population as given above for Brooklyn is according to the Municipal census of November, 1890 : the Federal census of June, 1890, made the population 806,343. Since the above was written the State census of Feb- ruary 1892 has been taken, which places the population of New York City at 1,801,739, and that of Brooklyn at 930,633 inliabitants. Earth- Burial and Cremation, 25 remains of over 482,000 more persons than live in Brooklyn to-day. CEMETERIES. OPENED. ACRES. BURIALS TOTAL 1890. BURIALS. Greenwood, Calvary, Cypress Hills, Evergreens, Lutheran, Woodlawn, 1840 1848 1848 1851 1852 1865 474 214* 400 400 400 400 5,713 18,487 2,000 6,078 8,385 2,389 259,893 585,000 130,000 115,701 208,000 37,952 Total, 2,288 43,053 1,336,546 We have selected thoroughly represen- tative cemeteries, containing all classes and conditions of men, from Greenwood and * This is the number of acres in actual use for cemetery purposes, and exempt from taxation. The Calvary Cor- poration also owns about thirty-tw^o acres adjacent to the cemetery, on which it at present pays taxes. These figures, together with the total number of burials in Calvary, are obtained from Reports made to the New- toAvn Board of Health. From another source we learn that all the land now owned by this cemetery association amounts to three hundred acres, and that the burials up to January 1, 1891, amounted to 450,000. The New York Slim of December 20, 1891, in an article entitled " A Real City of the Dead," gives the estimate made six years ago by a member of the Newtown Health Board, Tvhich placed the number of interments in Calvary at that time at 485,000. The yearly number of interments since then has averaged 17,000, which would bring the total number at the present time up to 585,000, as stated^ 26 Earth- Burial and Cre^nation, Woocllawn, where the bodies of the rich rest under magnificent monumentSj to the free section of Calvary, where over four- teen hundred of the poor received free burial in 1890. The following table shows the rapid increase in the size of the two cities, and explains how it became possible for a joint population that in 1840 numbered but 350,000 souls to supply six cemeteries, in fifty years, with over 1,336,- 000 bodies. POPULATION. 1840. 1850. 1870. 1890. New York City, Brooklyn, 312,710 36,233 515,547 96,850 942,292 396,099 1,631,232 853,945 Total both cities 348,943 612,397 1,338,391 2,485,177 We see from this table that the united population of the two cities is over seven times as 2:reat as it w^as in 1840; and its effect, in twenty years, on these six ceme- teries will be to increase by a million addi- tional bodies the 1,336,000 already received. Brooklyn is over twenty-three times as large to-day as it was fifty years ago, when the first interment was made in Greenwood; Earth- Burial and Cremation. 27 and, as a natural consequence, this ceme- tery, once suburban, has become intra- mural. It need surprise no one to learn that its exhalations have been complained of in South Brooklyn, and, considering the thousands annually interred within its grounds, and the increasing density of population, we can readily believe that the evil, instead of diminishing, will increase. To support and illustrate our argument we have cited only six cemeteries ; but we could easily extend the list. The names of thirty additional cemeteries could be given, located, on an average, as near the two cities as are the six already mentioned, and ranging from one acre to one hundred and seventy acres in ex- tent. In these several cemeteries, from a few hundred to over a hundred thousand bodies have been interred. Thus, the Cemetery of the Holy Cross in Flatbush, on the outskirts of Brooklyn, contains sixty acres. It was opened in 1849, and since 1870, 109,000 interments have been made there. This is an averasre of over five thousand bodies a year ; and from ninety 2 8 Earth-Burial a7id Creination. to ninety-five permits a week for interments in this cemetery aiv issued by the Health Department of Brooklyn. St. John's Ceme- tery. Middle Village. Xewtown. Lono: Island, was laid out in 1SS2, and contains one hundred and seventy acres. Previous to being devoted to this purpose, the land was assessed at 8--.0