Chapter XI: Part III: contains one important provision. “Any dead child which has

issued forth from its mother after the expiration of the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy, whether alive or dead, shall be the dead body of a person within the meaning of the Coroners’ Act, 1887, and this Act, and a person within the meaning of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1874.”

By the foregoing extracts from the new Bill, it will be seen that a greater attention is to be paid to establishing _the fact of death_, something which hitherto has been left to be implied from the nature of the certificate. The intention of the provision is, of course, excellent. It may even help to abate the nervousness of persons who go in dread of burial alive. But its practical value will be dependent on the precautions taken by the individual medical practitioner in his examination of the corpse. The routine of examining dead bodies becomes as commonplace as any other routine, and it might not be a bad policy to include a provision for a definite test by which the medical practitioner could finally _prove the fact of death_.

Cases of premature coffining may be extremely numerous or extremely rare. It is a purely speculative question. There is, however, little doubt that where a supposed dead body is left to the tender mercies of funeral scavengers, few of these men would scruple to coffin the same, though still animate, if the chance of discovery were remote. And the chance of discovery would be remote--indeed, it might be quite absent in nine out of ten such cases. Obviously, the most perfect way to prevent premature coffining would be for the relatives or friends of the deceased to retain possession of the body until definite indications of decomposition or putrefaction were present. In many cases, the eight days allowed under ordinary circumstances by the new Bill would enable interested persons to secure evidence of this character.

An advantage which England has over France lies in the fact that in this country hasty burial has never been enforced. The climate here certainly lends itself to a comparatively tardy process of decomposition. In tropical countries, when a man dies his body is buried or otherwise disposed of a few hours after death. In France, unless special permission is obtained from the local authorities (which involves having the body embalmed), it is usual to carry out burial within forty-eight hours from the time of death. This applies to the North of France, Normandy and Brittany, where hasty burial is in no sense climatically necessary. But there are many other things associated with French regulations regarding the dead which would not find much support in this country. The grave lease, for instance, which merely secures _temporary burial_, is one. A person dies and a grave is leased for five years. At the end of the five years, the body may be exhumed, and, for want of a better purpose, it is removed to a factory where the residue of the decomposed flesh is boiled off, or steamed off, and a skeleton is the result. The skeleton is afterwards sold to the anatomical specimen dealer. As a regular traffic, the whole scheme is odious and would not appeal to the legislators of this country. Another French institution for the disposal of the dead is the “funeral pomp monopoly.” A _concessionnaire_ obtains the right to bury all the dead in a certain district, with the result that there is no competition and no choice of undertakers or methods left to the person who is responsible for the burial of a friend or relative. In Havre, in Rouen, in Paris, these monopolies exist. One finds them in the smaller towns, too, where the old peasant in the street feels distinctly uncomfortable, on beholding the very men who will certainly pack him in his coffin the moment he dies!

The employment of an undertaker is in no sense obligatory in England, and an amateur funeral, needless to say, is just as legal as a funeral carried out by Peter Robinson or Maple and Co.![9] There is also no reason why the persons who die in a certain district should be buried or cremated in that district. The law does not interfere with sentimental preference. In England, the voluntary choice of burial place,--means, method, etc.,--is legally sanctioned. To a material mind, however, it is absolutely incredible how the people themselves at this advanced epoch continue to employ the ludicrous top-hatted, woebegone scarecrows, whose only function is to carry a piece of furniture to a wagon, also equally grotesque in its appearance, and a little later on to discharge the burden at a graveyard, a railway station or a crematorium! The day of undertakers’ “mourners,” desperate-looking hearse-drivers, and other _bizarre_ mockeries connected with funerals, should be ended by the force of common sense. The system continues through habit, through a certain repulsion which many people have for giving practical thought to death and its circumstances.[10]

FOOTNOTES

[6] See Appendix B.

[7] Mr. Chester’s italics.

[8] “The Isle of Wight Coroner to-day decided that an inquest was unnecessary on Sir Alfred Lyall, who died suddenly at Lord Tennyson’s yesterday. Sir Alfred’s medical attendant has certified that he was suffering from angina pectoris. The funeral will take place at Harbledown, near Canterbury.” From the foregoing paragraph in _The Pall Mall Gazette_, April 11, 1911, it will be seen that the discretion allowed the coroner has been well employed. Though Sir Alfred Lyall fell down dead in his room, there was obviously no cause for an inquest.

[9] “The French have the reputation of being a witty people, but although they have shaken off belief in revelation, they are to the last degree credulous in other things. No invention, says _The British Medical Journal_, seems to be too silly for a French paper to palm off on its readers when it deals with English matters. Not long ago it was gravely announced in a French medical journal that an English company had been formed to work a patent for the installation of cremation ovens in private houses.... Our contemporary, which professes to quote from a circular issued by the new company, states that the apparatus is therein described as ‘a gas furnace, low, but long and wide, covered with a steel case, into which the coffin is introduced.’ The corpse, it is said, is burnt in a few seconds. The oven must be heated an hour beforehand. For those who do not happen to possess this convenient arrangement among their household furniture, the company offers it on hire. All one has to do is to telephone to the right address and the company will forthwith send the apparatus with skilled operatives to work it. The price of the whole apparatus is given at £90, and the total cost of the operation as £2. But the company hopes that if its affairs prosper it will be able to reduce the price. Here, says our contemporary, is an idea which could only spring from the brain of an Anglo-Saxon.... To this we reply that the idea, wherever it sprang from, could only have been published in a French journal. This suggested addition to the comforts of the English home opens up wide possibilities. We are recognised as the pioneers of sanitation. Are not our water-closets diffused throughout the civilised globe? The bathroom has followed, though to a much more limited extent. A home crematory would certainly have several advantages, alike from the sentimental and the practical points of view. The crematory _à domicile_ would sweep away once and for all the mourning coaches, undertakers’ men, and all the trappings and ceremonies that make death hideous to all but those ghouls who find an unholy joy in the last rites paid to a defunct fellow creature.... With the home crematory available the only funeral-baked meat would be the corpse of the deceased. Now that we are told to lead the simple life, here is a way of getting rid once and for all of one of the most artificial ceremonies of civilised life. A crematory in the home would also supply to unscrupulous persons who wished to get rid of inconvenient relatives an easy way of disposing of the compromising remains. Lest the lively but simple-minded Gaul should misunderstand us, we hasten to add the warning which Artemus Ward found necessary for his readers, that this is a ‘goak.’”--_Pall Mall Gazette_, April 15, 1911.

[10] It has frequently occurred to the writer, who has made a practical study of such subjects, that the conduct and methods of persons who traffic in the disposal of dead bodies should be brought into the closer cognizance of the law. A regular system of police inspection is required. The acts and omissions of the irresponsible scavengers who thrive on burying the dead are often of such a character that the law itself is infringed. A popular weekly paper contains the following passage in its current issue:--“In one of the poorer districts of Manchester the police have just found on the premises of a female undertaker the bodies of nine children--all very young, seventeen days being the oldest--waiting until the parents could secure the necessary burial fees, to be buried. The remains were discovered in an outhouse; and, impossible as it may seem, one body had been there for two weeks.... On making inquiries, I find that there is nothing at all unusual in this procedure. The poorer people are very sensitive where their dead are concerned, and have a great aversion to what is termed ‘a pauper’s grave.’ It is in times of trouble or death that the real good-heartedness of the working-class shows itself. Directly the neighbours learn that the house of someone in their midst has been visited by death, a subscription is started. However, as they are in receipt of only a meagre wage themselves, a week or so often has to pass ere sufficient has been raised to satisfy the undertaker, and apparently his premises are used as a sort of pawnshop for dead bodies.... When a child has had a separate existence, the doctor gives a certificate of death, and a _post mortem_ is not necessary. Consequently, it is very doubtful if anything further will be heard about the matter.”

The poor make, relatively, the easiest victims in connection with funeral extortions. One hears of defunct costermongers being carted to the grave in four-horsed hearses, etc.! A good example of funeral extravagance is to be found in the subjoined paragraph:--“_Miner’s Funeral Costs £40._--It was shown at Pontefract County Court, on Tuesday, that the mother of a miner, just deceased, had spent £40 on the funeral. This sum included £5 10s. for tea to 110 persons who attended. There was also £10 for dresses, and the mother had borrowed £16 to make other payments.”

It is interesting to note that there is no right of property in a corpse. It is usual, however, for the executors of the deceased to have possession of the body and to control the means and method of disposal.