Note 9 — Chapter II

“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.