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REFORM IN BURIAL RITES.
LETTER
BY
REV. CHARLES VOYSEY, B.A.,
IN THE “INDEX,” Aran. 12, 1873.
Editor of the Index,
Sib,—'Without waiting to know the effect upon your
readers of my last letter about Euthanasia, I proceed to give
them another violent shock.
From my past experience of human kind, I feel convinced
that it is much more difficult to effect a change in their social
customs than in their ethics. In every country the births,
marriages, and deaths are attended by certain social rites which
are more imperious than any demands of conscience, and it
would be easier far to relax or to tighten the restraints of
morality than to alter one of the social ceremonies. I half
expect then that, for every one whom I may have startled by
my last letter, there will be a score to be horrified by what I
am going to say in this.
I wish to revolutionize our funeral rites. I want to abolish
the burial of the dead, and the wearing of •‘mourning.”
If the reader should lose his breath here, let me pause for a
moment and tell him that my object originates in pure pity. I
desire to relieve mankind of a great and needless burden; to
remove some of the greatest aggravations to which we have
foolishly submitted in times of our deepest grief; and to insti
tute customs which will be an unspeakable relief to the poor.
My objections to the present system of interment, with its
distressing paraphernalia of Under takerism, are as follows :—
To
the
�The first and least important objection is that it is needlessly
expensive and an undoubted hardship on the poor. Second,
that it is sooner or later a source of great injury to the public
health. Third, that our cemeteries occupy a vast amount of
space which could be more profitably filled. Fourth,—and this
I reckon to be the chief of all objections,—it is a needless and
' cruel aggravation of our physical and mental pain in bereave
ment, to witness the process of interment.
There may be some persons whose feelings are not harrowed
by this sight; but I can speak for myself and for thousands of
persons of equally sensitive nerves and strong imagination, that
it is positive torture to witness the burial of the body of a very
near and dear relative. The outward form which we have loved
and caressed we place in a coffin, close fitting to the outline of
a human body (a coffin is in itself a melancholy object, quite
apart from its associations); and this gloomy case, containing
our beloved dead, we follow to the dark vault or deep grave,
into which it is lowered amid choking sobs and a dead weight
at our hearts. We leave the loved object at the bottom of a
cold, dark pit, in which we picture to ourselves, for months and
years afterwards, all the foul and revolting processes of chemical
decay, our thoughts being positively scourged by this haunting
picture. It is bad enough to lose our friends and to miss them
• day by day ; but it is a monstrous aggravation of our physical
pain in losing them, to be tortured by such visions, such
memories.
Now what I would propose is this. As soon as death is per
fectly assured,—after such an interval as would render it
impossible for a medical man to doubt that death had ensued,—
the body should be chemically destroyed. It should be placed in
some receptacle containing those powerful agents known to
chemical science, which would simply annihilate the outward
forip. and practically destroy it. There would necessarily be
some deposit, which one might call the “ashes” of the dead;
and these might be reverently gathered and placed in a beauti
ful urn or vase, to be disposed of according to the wishes of the
.survivors. They might easily be deposited in consecrated places,
in niches in the walls of churches, or in mortuary chapels
designed for their reception. This, too, might be accompanied
by a religious service ; so that. the religious element is left
untouched by my revolutionary proposal.
The advantage of all this to people of highly-wrought feel
ings would be immense. I can imagine the peaceful calm which
would steal over the mind when one could take reverently into
�3
one’s hands the sacred urn and say, “ This holds all that remains
of my beloved.” No horror of dark vaults and damp graves,
with their seething corruption. No precious body being eaten
piecemeal by worms of the earth, or melting away in a loath• some stream. The form is changed; the substance really
remaining after chemical burning is not in the least degree sug
gestive of the past or the future. The body is saved thereby
from every possible dishonour, purified from every decay. No
words can describe the relief which such a process would bring
to many and many an afflicted soul.
On the ground of health to the community, it would also
be most salutary. We little know, in England at least, what
mischief is brewing for us in our seething cemeteries. They
are getting fuller and fuller, at the rate of I know not how
many hundreds of corpses a day, the later ones being nearer
and nearer the surface. Many are within four feet of the turf,
and that is not enough to prevent the escape of the most foul
and pestilential gases. I know of one old cemetery which is
now occupied by a cooperage, and which is constantly wet
with stagnant water. All around it typhus fever is perpetually
raging. The danger would not be so great if the bodies were
buried without a coffin. The earth would sooner disinfect
them; but as it is, the mischief is nursed and multiplied a
hundred-fold by the process of decay being delayed.
It is quite possible that an outcry might be made on the plea
of my scheme being impracticable. I can only say that our
Undertakers might take this' subject into their consideration,
* and see whether they could not furnish all that was necessary,
and conduct the business of destroying the body with decency
and skill. Science will not fail to furnish the best chemi cal
agents for performing this service speedily and inoffensively.
I should not have touched on the question of economy but
for my sad experience amongst the poor. The most ordinary
burial costs them five pounds; that is a fearful sum for a really
poor family to contribute, and that often after heavy medical
expenses. Whereas my plan ought to be quite within the cost
of a fifth of that sum, let it be done in the best manner
possible.
As for the rites of burial in themselves, no wise man would
care what became of his own dead body, so long as it was not
left to be an injury to the living. I should not mind being sent
to the dissecting room, or to the kennels. But the rites of
burial assume a very important aspect in the interests of the
surviving relatives and friends. And for their sakes I plead
�4
that those rites may be made as little harrowing as possible ;
may conduce as much as possible to console and cheer them, and
leave no artificially cruel memories and associations behind
them. It is on this ground that I object to the barbarous prac
tice of‘ ‘Christian” burial and would do my utmost to revolutionize
our customs in this matter, and introduce -a refined method of
burning instead. Christianity is deeply to blame for aggrava
ting our fear of death, and for aggravating our grief when
death visits our homes. It is time that we turned such a reli
gion out of doors; not only expelling it from our hearts and
minds, but driving out its offensive and oppressive customs,—thus
claiming the privileges of consolation under bereavement,
which are ours by nature.
In another letter I must write a word or two on the subj ect
of wearing 11 mourning.’’
I am very sincerely yours,
Charles Voysey.
Camden House,
Dulwich, S.E., March 14, 1873.
P. S. I have mentioned the subject to some of my most
admired and cultivated friends, and I never met yet with a
disc ouraging remark from them. All we want is for some brave
family to set the example.
The Index is published weekly in Toledo, Ohio.
Wertheimer, Lea and Co., Printers, Finsbury Circus, London.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Reform in burial rites: letter by Rev. Charles Voysey
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Voysey, Charles
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 9 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Wertheimer, Lea and Co., Finsbury Circus, London. Reprinted from The Index, April 12 1873. The Index is published weekly in Toledo, Ohio.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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1873
Identifier
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G5527
Subject
The topic of the resource
Death
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Reform in burial rites: letter by Rev. Charles Voysey), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Burial
Conway Tracts
Funeral Rites and Ceremonies
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b0733a8bb7653276a5d4ee3a1f6c4b78
PDF Text
Text
erne
/
THE CUSTOM OF WEARING
“ MOURNING.”
TO THE EDITOR OF “ THE INDEX.”
Sir,
I will follow up my last letter on Funeral Rites by a few
remarks on the custom of wearing black as a sign of mourning
for the dead.
The most obvious objections to it are—that it adds unneces
sarily to the gloom and dejection already caused by bereave
ment, where grief really exists ; that where there is no real
grief, the putting on of signs of grief is a contemptible sham;
that the custom of wearing “mourning” tends greatly to per
petuate unhappy—and, as I conceive, false—views of death;
and it is also objectionable in being compulsory upon many
families who are too poor to bear the expense. I will say
something upon each of these objections.
1. That it adds needlessly to the gloom and dejection of really
afflicted relatives must be apparent to all who have ever taken
part in these miserable rites. The houses are generally closed
until the burial is over, and this of itself is a glaring instance of
self-inflicted torture. When the physical frame is already
weakened by long watchings, want of sleep, and floods of tears,
common sense would direct the sufferers to seek the refreshing
stimulants of air and sunshine ; to throw open doors and win
dows and let in God’s heavenly messengers of “sweetness and
light;” to endeavour to turn the thoughts as much as possible
away from the troubled past, and to relieve the dull pain at the
�2
heart by objects and occupations of cheerfulness; to avoid a
darkened chamber, or a black dress, as one would avoid the
devil—if there were any such “ enemy of mankind.” But no
sooner is the breath gone from the body of one of the household,
than all the blinds are drawn down and the shutters closed, and
a fearful race against time is begun with the horrid prepara
tions for “mourning.” Dressmakers are in demand, the anxieties
of economical shopping are multiplied, often at the very time
when every penny is needed for coming wants or for past
doctor’s bills. And all is black—crape—jet ; everything
hideously black, the blackness only deepened by the white cap
or white edging in which it is set. A poor widow, for instance,
must shudder afresh over all the realities of her woe, the first
time she looks in the mirror after having put on the hateful
garb. Her sorrow was surely enough without her being com
pelled to bear about on her own body its ghastly tokens.
At the funeral, this is made worse still by “mourning coaches,”
and that most repulsive thing that moves on earth—the hearse
—with its plumes of black stuck all over it, waving and nodding
like so many fiends mocking at your grief as they are carrying off
their prey. Long and costly hatbands of crape and silk, dozens
of costly black gloves which seldom fit, cloaks of the same
eternal, infernal black—all contrived to make you feel as
miserable and wretched as possible, while the woe at your heart
is almost unendurable! Why should we be reminded for months
afterwards, by outward tokens, of our sad loss ? Every time we
brush the little ring of hat left us by the undertaker, we are
carried back to that terrible day on which the crape or cloth was
first put on, and the very things we ought to try to forget are
forced upon our notice at every turn in our lives.
2. But when, as is often the case, there is no real grief, but
perhaps a good deal of real rejoicing over the death, the putting
on of “mourning” is a piece of hypocrisy and falsehood which
nothing can justify. No one will contend that “ mourning ’ is
anything but a sign of grief; therefore if the sign be assumed
when there is no grief, it is an acted lie, and helps to corrupt
�3
society and make it love shams and pretences and varnished
deceit. I greatly honour those really broken-hearted widows
who keep their “ mourning” on all their days, for it is with
them a true token, an outward and visible sign of an inward
and heartfelt grief which must abide with them through all
their weary pilgrimage ; but I utterly despise the custom of
putting on 11 mourning” because it is the fashion, and because
“ people would talk so, you know,” if the “ mourning” were to
be omitted. As a sign of grief, ‘ ‘ mourning ” would often be
much more suitable before the death than after it, inasmuch as
the grief of watching a beloved one pass through weeks and
weeks of physical torture, with the certainty of no recovery, far
exceeds the grief of bereavement. It is only a truism to say
that death is often the greatest possible relief to the poor sufferer
himself, and to the sorrowing relatives. The number of cases
in which the grief before far exceeds the grief after death, is
much larger than is generally supposed.
3. I come now to the last and perhaps most important objec
tion of all. “ Mourning” tends to perpetuate unhappy and
1
false views of death. To those who have no belief in immor
tality and re-union with our dear ones after death, it might
f
seem only natural to give oneself up to despair and to all its
fl E horrible outward signs.
But to those who profess to believe,
Efci
and who really do believe, that the dead are still living in a
I'M happier world, free from earthly pain and sorrow, it ought to
be quite natural to rejoice and give thanks “ that it hath pleased
A
Almighty God to take unto himself the soul of the departed,
a» and to deliver him from the miseries of a sinful world,”—to
quote from the Christian Burial Service. Death ought to
ed be looked upon as at least as much of a heavenly boon to the be
fol loved one, as a source of bitter pain to ourselves. But that pain
raff! itself would be greatly diminished if we were trained to think
■aol of death as we are trained to talk about it; if we were brought
nJ
up to feel that it is a manifest and real benefit, and however
£Ij1 distressing to survivors, is not to be regarded from its dark
side. By refusing to darken our homes and to gird ourselves in
�4
black raiment, we would make our protest against the melan
choly—the unmitigated melancholy—of the popular views of
death. We would shake off as much as we could that morbid
weeping and sighing which are so destructive to health and
enfeebling to the mind. We would let the world know that how
ever great our loss, however irreparable it might be on earth,
we still trusted in the loving kindness of God, and unselfishly
resigned into His hands the soul of our nearest and dearest,
believing that He can and will, as a faithful Creator, give us a
happy meeting in a brighter home above.
I have myself resolved never to put on “ mourning ” again—
not even for my children or my wife ; and I will do my best to
persuade others to get rid of this most cruel and oppressive
burden. (In the case of a public “mourning,” I would make
an exception ; but this would be altogether on different grounds,
and would be worn for the sake of strangers who know not my
private opinions.) One thing seems very clear; it is our
bounden duty to'mitigate and remove all the grief we possibly
can. We have no right to add to our natural distress by
artificial means, nor to bemoan any loss longer than we can
possibly help. If we believed in God and in His fidelity more,
we should be the better assured of our meeting again beyond
the tomb.
I am, Sir,
Yours very sincerely,
Charles Voysey.
Dulwich, S.E., March 31s^, 1873.
Wertheimer, Lea & Co,, Printers, Circus Place, Finsbury.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The custom of wearing "mourning"
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Voysey, Charles [1828-1912]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 4 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: A letter to the Editor of "The Index". From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Wertheimer, Lea & Co,., London.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1873
Identifier
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CT116
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The custom of wearing "mourning"), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Death
Mourning
Conway Tracts
Death
Funeral Rites and Ceremonies
Mourning