_Indignities on the Bodies of Suicides_ (Vol. v., p. 272.).--I much
doubt whether burying in cross roads was originally meant as an
indignity. I think this is nearly connected with my still unanswered
Query, _What is a Tye?_ Vol. iii., p. 263. I suspect suicides were
buried in a cross road, because that was a place where a cross or
crucifix stood, and only second in sanctity to the churchyard; and the
stake driven through the body was perhaps first intended not as an
insult, but to keep the ghost of the suicide from walking on the earth
again.
I would willingly believe our ancestors were not always such savages as
R. S. F. shows us the Scotch once were in this respect. I fear at that
time we were not much better.