serve it, and reconcile survivors to its purification and reduction to harmless ashes, when these are followed to the last resting-place. Of which more hereafter.

But I interpolate a suggestion here; and it is one which must ere long be considered with a view to legislative enactment. It ought to be made imperative that in every one of these cases, when not cremated, the coffin should be filled, after the body is placed therein, with quicklime, not longer than twenty-four hours after death. Less perfect than cremation, this process at least ought to be enjoined under penalty. It will rank as a national folly, if not a crime, to omit this or an equivalent safeguard after due warning given of the importance of protecting the living; since there can be no difficulty in resorting to this mode of lessening, if not of extinguishing, the risk from infection.

Thirdly. In all other cases, such as those of old age, consumption, and various other modes of death, which have gradually arrived at their termination under medical supervision without manifesting a symptom to denote the action of any violent agent, an application to be cremated should be granted on the conditions prescribed by the Cremation Society of England (already detailed). When a responsible officer, médecin vérificateur, is appointed, the decision will of course form part of his ordinary business. I may add that up to this time. I have charged myself with the duty, on behalf of the English society as its president, of carefully examining the certificates sent in and other sources of information, and no cremation has taken place until I have been satisfied with the evidence adduced.

Fourthly. In every case in which evidence is wanting, one of two courses are open to the applicant. If there really is any doubt as to the cause of death, it is a case in which, according to the present state of our law, the coroner ought to interfere. If he thinks that it is not necessary to do so, the responsible officer may say, as I should feel called on to say now, if circumstances suggested the want of more distinct evidence, 'I advise an autopsy to be made, and will send a proper person to conduct one.' In that case the doubt will almost certainly be solved; but if not, the stomach and a portion of some internal organ would be transferred to a small case, sealed and preserved. And doubt after autopsy could be entertained only in an extremely small proportion of cases. If the friends object, let the body be buried by all means; we have avoided the doubtful case.

Moreover, we have done so without raising an imputation. If any arise, it is solely due to the action of those who have declined a private autopsy requested by the officer responsible for cremation, who merely desired to avoid the faintest chance of applying the process to a body when the cause of death is not quite apparent. It is difficult to imagine an objection to such a proceeding; but if there is, as I said before, the cemetery is always open.

What has become of the medico-legal difficulty? I contend that it has absolutely vanished. And I add that if my suggestions are adopted, secret poisoning, which it must be confessed, owing to our carelessness in the matter of the certificate, is much more easily practicable in this country than in France or Germany, would, thanks to the supporters of cremation, be more readily detected, and therefore would be more unlikely to occur than in any other country in the world.

Two other results of another kind naturally follow the adoption of cremation.

First. Thousands of acres, yearly increased in number, might be restored to better uses than that of storing decaying bodies. Action to this end will be inevitable some day, and is simply a question of time and population. The late Bishop of Manchester drew attention to this obvious fact some years ago. If the directors of cemeteries are wise in time, they will, after passing of an Act, petition for leave to erect crematories, utilising the chapels as before, and reserving small spaces for the conservation or burial of ashes. Nine-tenths of the area will be available, with due care, for ornamental gardens for the use of towns where such exist; or, after the lapse of suitable periods of time, to other purposes.

Secondly. I propose to restore the purified remains of the Christian worshipper to the consecrated precincts of his church, whence the 'corruptible body' has been for ever banished by urgent sanitary necessity.

In ancient crypt, or in cloisters newly erected for the purpose on the long disused burying-ground, the ashes might be deposited, each in its cell, in countless numbers after religious service performed. Or, being absolutely harmless, they may be consigned to the soil.

Cremation gives truth and reality to the grand and solemn words, 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' and that impressive service, with slight change, will be read with a fulness of meaning never conveyed before. The last rite has purified the body; its elements of physical evil have been annihilated by fire. Already its dispersed constituents, having escaped the long imprisonment of the tomb, pursue their eternal circuit, in harmony with nature's uniform and perfect course.

It will soon be desirable to ask the Government of the day or Parliament again to consider the question of legislating to secure better evidence as to the cause of death in all cases than is attainable by the present system. At the same time the conditions on which cremation should be performed should be considered and determined.

I venture to offer the following suggestions by way of indicating the chief provisions to be settled by any Bill introduced into Parlia• What an opportunity for a Campo Santo at Westminster !

ment to regulate the registration of death and the disposal of the dead:

1. No body to be buried, burned, or otherwise disposed of without a medical certificate of death signed, after personal knowledge and observation, or sufficient inquiry, by a qualified medical man.

2. A qualified medical man should be appointed in every parish or group of neighbouring parishes, whose duty it will be to examine in all cases of death and report the cause in writing, together with such other details as may be deemed necessary.

3. If the circumstances of death obviously demand a coroner's inquest, the case goes into his court and the cause is determined, with or without autopsy. If there appears to be no ground for holding an inquest, and autopsy be necessary to the furnishing of a certificate, the appointed officer will make it and state the result in his report.

4. No person or company to construct or use an apparatus for burning human bodies without a license from the Home Secretary or cther officer as determined.

5. No crematory can be so employed unless the site, construction, and system of management are approved after survey by an officer appointed by Government for the purpose.

6. The burning of a human body, otherwise than in an officially recognised crematory, shall be illegal and punishable by penalty.

7. No human body shall be burned unless the official examiner who signs the certificate of death shall, in consequence of application made, add the words 'Cremation permitted.' And this he is bound to do if after inquest or autopsy, or in any circumstances admitting in his mind no doubt as to the cause of death, this is returned by him as natural.

HENRY THOMPSON.

VOL. XXIII.-No. 131.

с

THE TWO PATHS: A DIALOGUE.

Oxford: The Garden of St. John's.

WISEMAN, of Balliol; PAPILLON, of Christ Church.

Wiseman. Well! old fellow! where were you last night? You never turned up at our Plato grind. We were on that seventh book of the Republic, about the underground den and the screen which the marionette players have when they show their puppets. We should have liked your ingenious ideas about the parable of the Cave, for it is not so entirely obvious. Take a turn round the garden, and let us hear what became of you.

Papillon. I was much better employed. I did intend to have joined you over the Plato; but as I came up from the House, I dropped in at the Union to see the paper. There I stumbled on a sort of address that some fellow in Parliament (I forget his name) had been making about reading. I skipped a good deal, for it was rather a long grind; but he says, read just as the whim takes you. So I took up King Solomon's Mines, and read that for an hour. There's an underground den in that, and some jerking about of puppets. Plato might have bored me; so I read Rider Haggard for my own pleasure, as the M.P. advises.

W. And you call that pleasure?

P. Well! it's as good as Mayne Reid, and what more do you want? But I got tired of that old hag in the cavern, and took up a volume of Darwin's Letters. I read something about Evolution, but it seemed rather rot. And then I tried old Lecky's new volumes --it's easy reading, you know-and I very nearly fell asleep over his Mirabeau and Pitt. But I could not stand much of a fellow who takes seven or eight volumes over a hundred years. Why, at that rate the history of England from Alfred would want about eighty volumes! So then I took a pull at Swinburne's Locrine-awfully pretty-but you can't stand more than six ice-creams at a sitting; and after a few pages, I settled into Zola's La Terre.

W. And you call that pleasure?

P. No! Beastly! But you must see something of whatever comes out nowadays. Last Long, you know, at Paris I went down the sewers with a guide to see what it was like. So I always read

Zola to see what is the last new thing in smells, for I am more eclectic than you are. By that time Tom' had gone a long while, and I felt in no mood for Plato, so I finished with the Sporting Life over my pipe.

W. I can well believe you were in no mood for Plato; and Zola would not help us to explain τὰς τῶν σκευαστῶν σκιάς. How are you going to get up your Republic?

P. Oh! I shall cram up likely hits from Jowett in the last term, and with my sixth form Greek I shall do. The Governor, you know, does not want me to go in for Honours. He says I am to prepare for Parliament and public life, and get all the general information I So I turn over any book, old or new, just as it comes; and I never read a line further when it begins to bore me.

can.

W. I know that you have read as many books as any ten of us together. But, my dear' Pap,' did you ever read a book from title to finis' in your life?

life?

P. No! why should I? I read to amuse me.

W. And did you ever read a book a third time through in your

P. No! nor twice. Why should I? I like something fresh. W. What! Not Milton's Lyrics, nor Bacon's Essays, nor Tom Jones?

P. Pooh! I read all that at school. One wants something fresh to amuse one-Half-hours with Obscure Authors, or a Realist novel in a yellow cover.

W. What a Don Juan among the books you must be! Flirtations mille e tre with the literature of every country in Europe. Do the gardens of this old place never bore you, at all, Giovannino mio?

P. Indeed they do! They are as dull as a prison yard. The everlasting old grey roof, the conventional mullions in the oriels of Laud's Library there, eternally posing at the end of the formal lawn, weary me as much as the nightingales in May. Oxford would be a monotonous place were it all like this; if one had not Keble and the Taylor Gallery.

W. And how far do you carry your gospel of the butterfly: into Art as well as books? Did you ever cultivate your taste in music— I know you have a flute and a pretty tenor voice? Do you take any pains with your natural gifts?

P. God forbid that I should pick or choose! I leave pedants to cultivate their taste, which ends in Wagner and all that is dismal. No! I take music as it comes-symphonies, waltzes, sonatas, Carnaval de Venise, and Two lovely Black Eyes. They all are music; any of them please a man with an ear; and one is as pleasant to hear as the other.

W. So your idea in music is a Pot pourri by Dan Godfrey, or a Caprice avec souvenirs variés by Offenbach?