BURIAL REFORM
At about this time the wife of one of the Cabinet officers died, and
Administrator Dru attended the funeral. There was an unusually large
gathering, but it was plain that most of those who came did so from
morbid curiosity. The poignant grief of the bereaved husband and
children wrung the heartstrings of their many sympathetic friends. The
lowering of the coffin, the fall of the dirt upon its cover, and the
sobs of those around the grave, was typical of such occasions.
Dru was deeply impressed and shocked, and he thought to use his
influence towards a reformation of such a cruel and unnecessary form of
burial. When the opportunity presented itself, he directed attention to
the objections to this method of disposing of the dead, and he suggested
the formation in every community of societies whose purpose should be to
use their influence towards making interments private, and towards the
substitution of cremation for the unsanitary custom of burial in
cemeteries. These societies were urged to point out the almost
prohibitive expense the present method entailed upon the poor and those
of moderate means. The buying of the lot and casket, the cost of the
funeral itself, and the discarding of useful clothing in order to robe
in black, were alike unnecessary. Some less dismal insignia of grief
should be adopted, he said, that need not include the entire garb.
Grief, he pointed out, and respect for the dead, were in no way better
evidenced by such barbarous customs.
Rumor had it that scandal's cruel tongue was responsible for this good
woman's death. She was one of the many victims that go to unhappy graves
in order that the monstrous appetite for gossip may be appeased. If
there be punishment after death, surely, the creator and disseminator of
scandal will come to know the anger and contempt of a righteous God. The
good and the bad are all of a kind to them. Their putrid minds see
something vile in every action, and they leave the drippings of their
evil tongues wherever they go. Some scandalmongers are merely stupid and
vulgar, while others have a biting wit that cause them to be feared and
hated. Rumors they repeat as facts, and to speculations they add what
corroborative evidence is needed. The dropping of the eyelids, the smirk
that is so full of insinuation is used to advantage where it is more
effective than the downright lie. The burglar and the highwayman go
frankly abroad to gather in the substance of others, and they stand
ready to forfeit both life and liberty while in pursuit of nefarious
gain. Yet it is a noble profession compared with that of the
scandalmonger, and the murderer himself is hardly a more objectionable
member of society than the character assassin.