This disposition to be wasteful might have been checked, or at least the errors of the domestic circle might have been rectified very considerably, but for one disturbing element. We became such devout worshippers of hygiene as to become insensible to all reasoning. A few years ago the practice was to discharge the contents of the ash-barrel upon open waste land. A small army of workers, even the nomadic element of the community, turned to and raked over the spoil from our homes very diligently. In this way immense quantities of odds and ends in infinite variety which otherwise would have been lost found a market as raw materials for many industries. Even the ultimate organic residue fulfilled a mission of utility and one in consonance with the laws of Nature, because, in the process of decomposition, the nitrogen and phosphoric acid contents of the dump suffered release to feed the soil to raise sustenance for man and beast. But ransacking the garbage heap was declared to be a degrading and health-menacing occupation and practice. Indeed, the whole system of household refuse disposal was held up to obloquy. Reform was achieved by the energetic advocacy of another means wherewith to cope with such waste. It received widespread support because it fully coincided with all the requirements of hygiene, while, furthermore, it was simple, expeditious, effective and apparently cheap. This was destruction by fire along so-called scientific lines. The new idea arrested public fancy mainly for the reason that its champions laid emphasis upon the fact that it presented the possibility of obtaining energy to generate electric light and power and to drive tramways for nothing. Municipalities became affected with the incineration fever. Steam was necessary to drive the electric plant which had been acquired. Why not cut down the coal-bill by making use of the fuel properties possessed by household refuse? The contents of the domestic dust-bin are so varied, ranging from waste-paper, grease-laden bones, fragments of fat, cinders, rags and vegetable odds and ends as to present, in the aggregate, a readily combustible mass possessing distinct calorific value. By utilizing the garbage, which has to be collected, in this manner, the coal-bill might be reduced by so much. So argued the advocates of the new idea, and their reasonings proved so specious as to gain the day. The prospect of being able to get “Something for nothing” was so alluring as to silence effectively all adverse criticism. Of course, it was futile to gainsay that cremation could be rivalled as a prompt, simple, and completely sanitary means of coping with the refuse which accumulates in every city and big town. Forthwith destruction by fire became the widely-accepted means of getting rid of the unsightly and unsavoury contents of the dust-bin.