THREE HUNDRED YEARS PREVIOUSLY, the victims of the pestilence had
been buried. Mr. Cooper, in explaining the causes of some epidemics,
remarks that the opening of the plague burial-grounds at Eyam resulted
in an immediate outbreak of disease.’–NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, NO.
3, VOL. 135.
In an address before the Chicago Medical Society, in advocacy of cremation,
Dr. Charles W. Purdy made some striking comparisons to show what a burden
is laid upon society by the burial of the dead:–
‘One and one-fourth times more money is expended annually in funerals in
the United States than the Government expends for public-school purposes.
Funerals cost this country in 1880 enough money to pay the liabilities
of all the commercial failures in the United States during the same year,
and give each bankrupt a capital of $8,630 with which to resume business.
Funerals cost annually more money than the value of the combined
gold and silver yield of the United States in the year 1880!
These figures do not include the sums invested in burial-grounds
and expended in tombs and monuments, nor the loss from depreciation
of property in the vicinity of cemeteries.’
For the rich, cremation would answer as well as burial;
for the ceremonies connected with it could be made as costly
and ostentatious as a Hindu suttee; while for the poor,
cremation would be better than burial, because so cheap
the poor got to imitating the rich, which they would do
by-and-bye. The adoption of cremation would relieve us of a muck
of threadbare burial-witticisms; but, on the other hand,
it would resurrect a lot of mildewed old cremation-jokes
that have had a rest for two thousand years.
I have a colored acquaintance who earns his living by odd jobs and heavy
manual labor. He never earns above four hundred dollars in a year,
and as he has a wife and several young children, the closest scrimping
is necessary to get him through to the end of the twelve months debtless.
To such a man a funeral is a colossal financial disaster. While I was
writing one of the preceding chapters, this man lost a little child.
He walked the town over with a friend, trying to find a coffin that
was within his means. He bought the very cheapest one he could find,
plain wood, stained. It cost him twenty-six dollars. It would have cost
less than four, probably, if it had been built to put something useful into.
He and his family will feel that outlay a good many months.
Chapter 43
The Art of Inhumation
ABOUT the same time, I encountered a man in the street,
whom I had not seen for six or seven years; and something
like this talk followed. I said–
‘But you used to look sad and oldish; you don’t now.
Where did you get all this youth and bubbling cheerfulness?
Give me the address.’
He chuckled blithely, took off his shining tile, pointed to a notched
pink circlet of paper pasted into its crown, with something lettered
on it, and went on chuckling while I read, ‘J. B —-, UNDERTAKER.’
Then he clapped his hat on, gave it an irreverent tilt to leeward,
and cried out–
‘That’s what’s the matter! It used to be rough times with me when you
knew me–insurance-agency business, you know; mighty irregular.
Big fire, all right–brisk trade for ten days while people scared;
after that, dull policy-business till next fire. Town like this don’t
have fires often enough–a fellow strikes so many dull weeks in a row
that he gets discouraged. But you bet you, this is the business!
People don’t wait for examples to die. No, sir, they drop off
right along–there ain’t any dull spots in the undertaker line.
I just started in with two or three little old coffins and
a hired hearse, and now look at the thing! I’ve worked up
a business here that would satisfy any man, don’t care who he is.
Five years ago, lodged in an attic; live in a swell house now,
with a mansard roof, and all the modern inconveniences.’
‘Does a coffin pay so well. Is there much profit on a coffin?’