Part 6

Burning the dead has fallen into disuse in many countries where it once prevailed, partly because of the expense—fuel diminishing as population and agriculture increased—and partly, perhaps, because the early Christians may have thought it less congruous than interment with the doctrine of the Resurrection. ‘Christians,’ says Sir Thomas Browne, in his usual quaint style, ‘abhorred this way of obsequies, and, though they sticked not to give their bodies to be burned in their lives, detested that mode after death; affecting rather a depositure than absumption, and properly submitting unto the sentence of God, to return not unto ashes but unto dust again, conformably unto the practice of the Patriarchs; the interment of our Saviour, of Peter, Paul, and the ancient Martyrs.’ In every age, and in every country where Christianity has prevailed, the burial of the dead has been the unvarying usage.

Evidence, however, of a desire for another remarkable revival of the practices of antiquity now lies before us. It is no less than the prospectus of an association—bearing the recent date of January, 1850—“for Promoting the Practice of Decomposing the Dead by Fire.” Among other advantages, cheapness is promised. We may mention as some criterion on this point, that Mr. Ward, the Indian missionary, who had many opportunities of ascertaining the fact, computed that the smallest quantity of wood necessary to consume a human body, is about three hundred weight.

However averse public feeling may be to this mode of disposing of the remains of deceased relatives; yet anything is better than crowded city churchyards and poisoned air. To these a favourable contrast is offered by even the curious expedients of savage life—of which we now proceed to take a glance.

The Parsees or Gabres—the race of fire-worshippers who still exist in India,—abhor the burning of the dead as a pollution of the Deity whom they adore. This feeling they appear to have inherited from the ancient worshippers of fire, the Chaldeans, and the Magi of Persia; from whom, also, they seem to have derived the custom of exposing the bodies of the dead to be devoured by dogs, and beasts and birds of prey. A similar usage exists at this day in the kingdom of Tibet. ‘According to the custom of Tibet,’ says Mr. Turner (Narrative of an Embassy to Tibet), ‘instead of that pious attention which is paid to the remains of the dead, in the preservation of their bodies from pollution, by depositing them in the ground, they are here exposed after their decease, like the Parsees of India, in the open air, and left to be devoured by ravens, kites, and other carnivorous birds. In the more populous parts, dogs also come in for their share of the prey, and regularly attend the consummation of the last obsequies.’ The same practice anciently existed among the Colchians, and has been remarked by modern travellers among the Illinois of North America, and the savage inhabitants of the Aleutian islands. Even in this revolting custom we trace a desire—savagely indulged, it is true—to ward off the bad effects of putrefaction by a speedy disposal of the air-polluting remains of the dead.

Among the Caffres, Hottentots, and other savage tribes of Southern Africa, adjoining the European settlements, it seems to have been customary to expose aged and helpless people in desert places, and leave them to die, because of a superstition against any one expiring in a hut. Intercourse with civilisation is mitigating this and other barbarities.

Of the means used to avert the evils of decay by preservation, none are more singular than those mentioned by Captain Tuckey, as in force upon the river Congo. The people envelope their corpses in cloth; the smell of putrefaction being only kept in by the quantity of wrappers. These are successively multiplied as they can be procured, or according to the rank of the deceased. The bulk thus attained is only limited by the power of conveyance to the grave; so that the first hut in which the body is deposited becoming too small, a second, a third—even to a sixth—each larger than the former, is placed over it.

The South American savages run no risks from the putrefying remains of their dead. The Orinoco tribes fasten them by a rope to the trunk of a tree on the shore and sink the body in the river. In the course of four and twenty hours the skeleton is picked perfectly clean by the fish. Bones alone are reverenced in this part of the world. The inhabitants of the Pampas and other South American tribes bury only the bones of the dead, the flesh having been first removed from them: an operation performed by the women. While the work of dissection is going on, the men walk round the tent, covered with long mantles, singing a mournful tune, and striking the ground with their spears, to drive away the evil spirits. The bones, being prepared, are packed up in a hide, and conveyed on a favourite horse of the deceased to the family burial-place, sometimes hundreds of miles distant. Being disposed in their natural order and tied together so as to form a skeleton, they are clothed in the deceased’s best attire, and ornamented with beads and feathers. The skeleton is placed in a sitting posture, with the carcases of horses, killed—in order that their master may ride them in the next world—in a pit or grave, which is then covered over. Among all the customs of unenlightened mankind, there are few more remarkable than this provision for the material wants of the dead in another state of existence. In all ages, and in most parts of the world, the dead man has been sent to his long home, furnished with servants, horses, dogs, domestic utensils—every article of physical comfort and enjoyment he is supposed to require. Money has been supplied for his journey, and even (as among the Jukati of Siberia) food has been put into his coffin, ‘that he may not hunger on his road to the dwelling of souls.’ ‘As if,’ quaintly remarks an ancient Spanish traveller, ‘the infernal regions were a long way off.’ But in every instance the corpse has been so dealt with as to prevent injury to those who still exist.

It is now time to allude to our own burial customs, and to the great reform which happily has at length begun. It appears extraordinary, that amidst the advance which has been made in social and sanitary science, Great Britain should be the last to give up the unwholesome custom of continuing the dead as near neighbours to the quick. The long conservation of this evil has mainly arisen from a sentiment of the superior sanctity of burial-places in and near to sacred edifices. That this is, however, an unqualified superstition, it is not difficult to prove, by tracing it to its root. Joseph Bingham states in his _Origines Ecclesiasticæ_, that churchyards owe their origin to respect paid to the remains of saints and martyrs, which was shown first by building churches and chapels over them, and then by a general desire of people to be interred as near to their sacred dust as possible. This privilege was only for a time accorded to Emperors and Kings, but so early as the sixth century the commonalty were allowed places, not only under the church wall, but in the consecrated space of ground surrounding it. Bodies were not deposited within the church till after a long struggle on the part of the heads of the Church.[F]

So far from burying in churches, corpses were not admitted into parish churches, even for the funeral service to be read over them, except under special circumstances. An interesting canon—the 15th of the Council of Tribur—runs thus, ‘The funeral service must only be performed in the church where the bishop resides: that is to say in the cathedral of the diocese. If that church be too distant, it may be celebrated in some other, where there is a community of canons, monks, or religious orders; in order that the deceased may have the benefit of their prayers. Should again that be impossible, the service may be performed where the defunct during life paid tythes: this is in his parish church.’ By a previous canon (one of the Council of Meaux) no burial fees could be exacted by the clergy, although the relations were allowed to give alms to the poor. This injunction was but little observed either at or after the time it was laid, in 845.

[F] Several canons were issued against this now universal abuse. Among others, the 18th of the Council of Brague (Portugal) in 563. The 72nd of the Council of Meaux (845), the 17th of the Council of Tribur, 895, &c.

The unwholesome practice of intra-ecclesiastical interment became general after the 10th century, when the clergy succumbed to the power of money, and the sale of the indulgence proved too profitable to be abandoned. To show by what frauds the unhealthy custom was kept up, we may cite a legend relating to St. Dunstan. An unbaptised son of Earl Harold having been deposited within the church where the deceased saint rested, St. Dunstan—so the fable runs—appeared twice to the chaplain to complain that he could not rest in his grave for the stench of the young Pagan. Other underground saints were, however, consulted on the matter, and they silenced St. Dunstan by acquiescing in the abuse. It therefore not only continued but gave rise to another evil. Tombs came to be erected, and these became convenient as lurking-places and rendezvous for various immoral and improper purposes. The Council of Winchester, in 1240, forbade the holding of markets, gaming and other iniquities performed among the tombs in churches and cemeteries. But this injunction was of little avail, as we learn from the History of St. Paul’s. Duke Humphrey’s Tomb in ‘Paul’s walk’ (the middle aisle of the Cathedral), was the occasional resort for ages of the idleness and infamy of London. It was a regular mart and meeting place for huxters, gossips, gamblers, and thieves. In 1554 the Lord Mayor prohibited the church to be used for such ‘irreverent’ purposes, under pain of fine. Still it was not till the great fire that Duke Humphrey’s tomb was utterly deserted.

Meanwhile in every part of the country, families who could afford the expense, were buried inside in preference to outside the various places of worship, and, until the present year, no effective stop has been put to the evil. Our French neighbours were before us in this respect. Inhumation inside churches was forbidden except in rare cases, by a royal ordinance dated Versailles, 10th March, 1777. We perceive by the excellent report of Dr. Sutherland to the Board of Health on the practice of interments in Germany and France, that cemeteries have been since substituted by law in almost every considerable town in those countries. It has therefore been continued, almost exclusively in this empire.

At last, however, we have good reason to hope that intramural burials, with all their attendant evils, will speedily be themselves buried with the barbarous relics of the past. The comprehensive suggestions of the Board of Health appear to meet every difficulty, and as a strong stream of common sense has, we hope and believe, set in in favour of funereal reform, we trust they will pass into the statute book without much opposition; some they will inevitably encounter, in compliance with the fixed law of English obstinacy.

It may console those in whom lingers, from old association, almost a religious prejudice in favour of churchyards, to be reminded that some of the most eminent Christians, both lay and clerical, have earnestly pleaded for extramural cemeteries. Evelyn—the model of a Christian gentleman—regretted that after the Fire of London advantage had not been taken of that calamity to rid the city of its burial-places, and establish a necropolis without the walls. ‘I yet cannot but deplore,’ says he, in his ‘Silva,’ ‘that when that spacious area was so long a _rasa tabula_, the churchyards had not been banished to the north walls of the city, where a grated inclosure of competent breadth for a mile in length, might have served for an universal cemetery to all the parishes, distinguished by the like separations, and with ample walks of trees, the walks adorned with monuments, inscriptions, and titles, apt for contemplation and memory of the defunct, and that wise and excellent law of the Twelve Tables renewed.’ The pious Sir Thomas Browne says quaintly in his ‘Hydriotaphia,’ ‘To live indeed is to be again ourselves; which being not only a hope but an evidence in noble believers, ’tis all one to lie in St. Innocent’s Churchyard, as in the sands of Egypt, ready to be anything in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with six foot as the moles of Adrianus.’

Would it not then be well to reflect, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty, whether any of the best, whether the very worst custom—considering the state of society in which it has obtained—is so extraordinary and degrading as that of burying the dead in the midst of the living, to generate an amount of human destruction, compared with which the slaughter attendant on an African funeral is as a drop of water in an ocean. It should be remembered that, in the barbarous customs we have cited there is always to be traced the perversion of an idea:—as that the dead man will want food, passage money, attendants, beasts of burden, something that benighted ignorance is unable to separate from the wants incidental to this earthly state. There is no such poor excuse for the custom into which this civilised age has insensibly lapsed, until its evils have become too great to bear. The affection which endures beyond the grave is surely more fitly associated with a tomb in a beautiful solitude than amidst the clamour and clatter of a city’s streets. If, in submission to that moral law of gravitation, which renders it difficult to separate our thoughts of those who have departed from some lingering association with this earth, we desire to find a resting-place for our dead which we can visit, and where we may hope to lie when our own time shall come, reason and imagination alike suggest its being in a spot serenely sacred to that last repose of so much of us as is mortal, where natural decay may claim kindred with nature, in her beautiful succession of decay and renovation, undisturbed by the strife of the brief scene that has closed.

Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by +Bradbury & Evans+, Whitefriars, London.

Transcriber’s notes

The original text is followed as much as possible. There are however some printing errors and inconsistencies in spelling that have been corrected. These are listed below.

To represent formatting the following conventions are used: _word_ means that “word” is in italics; +word+ means that “word” is in small capitals.

Corrections

Page 26 “coal mine” in “the coal mine in which he held a share” and in “a third share he had in this coal mine” changed to “coal-mine”, as elsewhere in the text; Page 27 “Coal-fire” in “Now, then, old Coal-fire” changed to “Coal fire”, as elsewhere; Page 32 unmatched double quote behind “Many a one dies is——” replaced by single quote; Page 32 “and the very day at after we came” changed to “and the very day after we came”; Page 32 missing period added after “Thou ’rt a likely lad, and sure o’ work”; Page 33 unmatched double quote before “Ay, if it will come to me.” replaced by single quote; Page 35 doubling of “Park” in “and entered St. James’s Park Park” removed; Page 37 “Guinea Pig” in “When did _I_ ever tell the Guinea Pig” hyphenated, as elsewhere; Page 40 “ploughing match” in “I won a great ploughing match” hyphenated, as elsewhere; Page 40 missing opening quote added before “When I was seventeen”; Page 41 “threshing machine” in “They had been breaking Farmer Bullivant’s threshing machine” hyphenated, as elsewhere; Page 41 missing opening quote added before “Here was a blow;”; Page 42 closing quote removed behind “I refused point blank.”, as the speaker continues; Page 42 four asterisks interpreted as thought break; Page 43 “passage-money” in “with the passage-money of poor men’s relations” separated, as usual at the time of publication; Page 44 “burial places” in “great burial places from their chief cities” hyphenated, as elsewhere; Page 46 single closing quote behind “for Promoting the Practice of Decomposing the Dead by Fire.” replaced by double quote, to match the opening; Page 48 “the slaughter-attendant on an African funeral” changed to “the slaughter attendant on an African funeral”; Page 48 “Published at...Printed by” line combined into one; originally one was placed under the left column, the other under the right one.