“It is not so much undue haste as inexcusable carelessness that must be blamed for the premature burying of persons who are not really dead. Such heedlessness as alone can lead to the commission of this crime is not a shade less black than manslaughter. We speak strongly, because this is a matter in regard to which measures ought to be at once taken to render the horrible act impossible, and to dismiss all fear from the public mind. If it be a fact, as would seem to be indisputable, that during the last few weeks there have been cases--we will not attempt to say how many or how few--of burying alive, a scandal and a horror, wholly unpardonable in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, have to be faced; and the sooner the full truth is known and rules of safety established the better. Let it be once for all decided that measures shall be taken to ascertain the fact of death before burial. Why not revert to the old practice, and _always_ open a vein in the arm after death, or pass a current of electricity through the body before the coffin is finally screwed down? It may be held that these unpleasant resorts are unnecessary. We do not think they are. In any case enough is known of the possibilities of ‘suspended animation’ to render it unsafe to bury until the evidences of an actual extinction of life are unmistakable; and, as it is impossible to wait until decomposition sets in in all cases of death from infectious diseases, it would be prudent to adopt what must certainly be the least of evils.” If, as the _Lancet_ maintains, it is not possible to wait until the only absolute sign of death is manifest, then, in a large majority of cases, there is no safety, and those who die fatally mutilated by horrible accidents may be considered fortunate. The difficulty, we admit, is of a serious nature, particularly for the poor, and can only be overcome by the erection of mortuaries, as discussed in another chapter. The expedient of applying the electric current, suggested by the _Lancet_, has been proved useless in cases of death-trance, where the patients are impervious to the most violent modes of cutaneous excitation. The _Jewish World_, September 13, 1895, observes:--“Cases of trance and of the burial of persons who only seemed to be dead, and of narrow escapes of others from the most terrible of all imaginable fates, are not so uncommon as most people suppose; and while Jews adhere to the practice of interring their dead within a few hours after the supposed demise, there will always be a risk of such horrible catastrophes happening, even more frequently among us than among the general community. Here is, then, really a matter in which some reform is needed, and that without a day’s delay. [OPINIONS OF THE “JEWISH WORLD.”]