الخميس، 19 يناير 2012

A modern-day "Potter's field" in America


Photos from the Daily Mail of coffins being buried in a mass pauper's grave in a suburb of Chicago.
The pauper's burial section at Homewood Memorial Gardens was established for those who could not afford to pay for a burial plot...

Tony Cox, the legislative chairman and former president of the Illinois Coroners and Medical Examiners Association, earlier told the Chicago Sun Times other cities, including New York, follow similar mass burial procedures for those with limited options. New York City Department of Corrections spokesman Stephen Morello referred to a burial site in Hart Island, New York, where 800,000 bodies lie.* Officials there, he said, follow the same procedure - stacking coffins with inmates' remains three deep.
The term "Potter's field" dates from Biblical times, and referred originally to a field used for the extraction of potter's clay, which rendered the area useless for agriculture but suitable as a burial site.

Personally, I don't understand why it wouldn't be more practical, more sanitary, and probably less expensive, to cremate the remains.

* For more information on Hart Island, see the Al Jazeera video in the next post.

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