Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 27 - CHI-ELD.pdf/304

 270

C R E M E R

cremations numbered 155 up to December 31, 1900. At Venice the total cremations numbered 45 in May 1899. One crematorium began in Eome in 1883, and the cremations numbered 800 up to May 1899. At the present time 28 crematoria exist in Italy. In Germany the first crematorium was erected at Gotha ; it began in 1879, and the total cremations in December 31, 1900, numbered 2468. At Ohlsdorf, Hamburg, the crematorium began in November 1892, and the total cremations up to December 31, 1900, numbered 646. At Heidelburg the crematorium started in 1891, and the total cremations up to November 28, 1900, numbered 895. A crematorium started working at Offenbach on December 13, 1899, and at the end of its first year (December 13, 1900) had cremated 113 bodies. Throughout the German Empire there are forty societies for promoting cremation, numbering about 40,000 members. Other societies now exist in Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland. At the crematorium recently constructed at Copenhagen 28 bodies were cremated in 1899, the same in 1900 ; the total being 56. The Stockholm crematorium began in October 1887, and the total cremations up to May 1899 numbered 495. The Gothenburg crematorium (also in Sweden) began in January 1890, and the total cremations up to May 1899 was 120. In Paris a Cremation Society was founded in 1880, and in 1886-87 a large crematorium was constructed by the Municipal Council at Pere Lachaise, containing three Gorini furnaces. It was first used in October 1887 for two men who died of small-pox. The demand became large ; an improved furnace was soon devised, the unclaimed bodies at the hospitals and the remains at the dissecting rooms being cremated there, besides a large number of embryos. In 1890 the total number, including the last-named class, exceeded 3000 ; in 1895, 4000 ; numbering 4554 at the end of 1899 ; and the number for the year 1900 was rather larger. The total number of incinerations in private life exceeds the previous record, being, up to December 31, 1900, 197 ; but the employment of cremation for the purposes named has deterred a resort to it by many. Had a separate establishment been organized for the public, its success would have been greater; the error is now obvious and may be rectified soon, for a magnificent edifice is in course of construction by the municipality of Paris for the conservation of the ashes, &c., which will form a larger and more imposing columbarium than has yet been seen. Lastly, the construction of crematoria in all the great provincial centres of France— Lyons, Lille, Rheims, Nice, Marseilles, Toulouse, and Bordeaux— is being completed or is commencing. At Rouen it is already in operation with good results, the low damp soil there being unfit for burial.1 In Buenos Ayres, since 1844, the bodies of all persons dying of contagious disease are cremated, and there is also a separate establishment for the use of the public. At Tokio in Japan no less than twenty-two crematoria exist, and about an equal number of cremations and burials in earth take place. United Kingdom.—The following is the report from the crematorium at Woking for each year, commencing with the first in 1885 and concluding with that ending December 31, 1900. Cremations at Woking. Year. Number. Year. Number. 1885 . 3 1894 . 125 1886 . 10 1895 . 150 1887 . 13 1896 . 137 1888 . 28 173 1897 . 1889 . 46 1898 . 240 1890 . 54 1899 . 240 1891 . 99 1900 . 301 1892 . 104 1893 . 101 Total 1824 The Manchester crematorium began in 1892, and the total cremations to December 31, 1900, numbered 475. The Glasgow crematorium began in 1895, and the total cremations up to December 31, 1900, numbered 75. The Liverpool crematorium began in 1896, and the total cremations up to December 31, 1900, numbered 102. The Hull crematorium was opened on January 2, 1901. It is the first crematorium erected in England under municipal authority. Seven cremations took place within a month of its opening. The Birmingham crematorium is not yet in operation. The capital is subscribed, but a proper site has not yet been met with. 1 The writer is indebted for the history of cremation in France and its departments to the Bulletin de la Soc pour la Propagation de VIncineration, Paris, by M. Georges Salomon, secretary from its foundation in 1880 up to the end of 1900 ; and also for the reports from South America and Japan. The present writer has visited Pere Lachaise several times, and the above report is partly based on his personal observation.

The Cremation Society of England has been long endeavouring to obtain a site on which to establish a crematorium within convenient driving distance of Central London ; and in December 1899 a company was formed for the purpose, its title being “The London Cremation Company Ltd.” The only crematorium at present available to the inhabitants, of London is that at Woking, the property of, and managed by, the Cremation Society of England ; but a freehold site, 12 acres in extent, has been purchased about 5 miles distant from the Marble Arch, surrounded by open country, and on one of the best main roads north of London, and here it is intended to erect crematoria on the newest and the most approved principle, with a chapel, waiting - rooms, and attendants’ lodges, together with private and public columbaria for the reception of cinerary urns. The land not so occupied will be laid out as a garden, with lawns, trees, and shrubs, becoming a place of increasing interest and beauty from year to year : where ample space will be afforded for the erection of monuments, and provision made for the interment of ashes for those who prefer it. United States.—There are twenty-five crematoria in the United States. At Fresh Pond, Now York, the first crematorium was erected in 1885, and the total number of cremations to December 31, 1900, was 3903. At Buffalo, N.Y., the first cremation took place in 1885, and the total number up to December 31, 1900, was 484. At Troy (Earl Crematorium), N.Y., the first cremation took place in 1890, and the total number up to December 31, 1900, was 146. At Swinburne Island, N.Y., cremations commenced in 1890, total to 1898 being 106. At Waterville, N.Y., cremations commenced in 1893, total to December 31, 1900, being 38. At St Louis, Missouri, cremations commenced in 1888, total to December 31, 1900, being 1054. At Philadelphia, Penn., cremations commenced in 1888, total to December 31, 1900, being 914, At San Francisco, Cal. (“Odd Fellows”), commenced in 1895, total to December 31, 1900, being 1535. At San Francisco, Cal. (“Cypress Lawn”), commenced in 1893, total to December 31, 1900, being 632. At Los Angelos, Cal., commenced in 1888, total to 1898 being 352. At Boston, Mass., commenced in 1893, total to December 31, 1900, being 1057. At Cincinnati, Ohio, commenced in 1887, total to December 31, 1900, being 647. At Chicago, commenced in 1893, total to December 31, 1900, being 695. At Detroit, Michigan, commenced in 1887, total to December 31, 1900, being 371. At Pittsburg, Penn., commenced in 1886, total to December 31, 1900, being 216. At Baltimore, commenced in 1889, total to December 31, 1900, being 180. At Lancaster, Penn., commenced in 1884, total to December 31, 1900, being 95. At Davenport, Iowa, commenced in 1891, total to December 31, 1900, being 134. At Milwaukee, commenced in 1896, total to October 1900 being 170. At Washington, commenced in 1897, total to December 31, 1900, being 109. The Le Moyne (Washington) Crematory, the first in the United States, was erected by Dr F. Julius Le Moyne in 1876 for private use. The first cremation was that of the Baron de Palin of New York, December 6, 1876. Dr F. Julius Le Moyne died October 1879, and his remains were cremated in his own crematory. Total number cremations since, to February 1901, being 42. At Pasadena, Cal., commenced in 1895, total to end of 1898 being 55. At St Paul, Minn., commenced in 1897, total to December 31, 1900, being 55. At Fort Wayne, Ind., commenced in 1897, total to December 31, 1900, being 14. From the remaining crematorium at Middletown, Conn., statistics have not been received. The sum total of the above incinerations at the twenty-five crematoria in America amounts to 13,004 up to December 31, Cremer, Jakobus Jan (1837-1880), Dutch novelist, born at Arnhem, September 1837, started life as a painter, but soon exchanged the brush for the pen. The great success of his first novelettes (Betuwsche Novellen and Overbetuwsche Novellen), published about 1855— reprinted many times since, and translated into German and French—showed Cremer the wisdom of his new departure. These short stories of Dutch provincial life are written in the quaint dialect of the Betuwe, the large fiat Gelderland island, formed by the Rhine, the name recalling the presumed earliest inhabitants, the Batavi. Cremer is strongest in his delineation of character. His picturesque humour, coming out, perhaps, most forcibly in his numerous readings of the Betuwe novelettes, soon procured him the name of the “Dutch Fritz Reuter.” In his later novels Cremer abandons both the language and the slight love-stories of the Betuwe, depicting the Dutch life of other centres in the national tongue. The