(This article appeared in the local Connersville paper in May of 1891.)
Connersville, Ind. May 10. The manner of burying paupers here is creating quite a bit of talk. It has been the custom to hold brief funeral services for paupers who died leaving no relatives, but to allow the relatives, if any survived, to provide a funeral if they chose. Sometimes they did not. Warren O. Hull, prominent in the business and in the affairs of the first M. E. church, published a signed statement in each of the local papers recently in which he said the act of burying paupers without services was barbarous and unchristian, and was a reflection on the county that permitted it.
There are many who favor the established custom, and argue that, if a dead indigent's next of kin do not care for a funeral the county has no reason to care. The majority however, hold the view that a pauper is the county's charge, alive or dead, and that a burial without ceremony is the county's business, and a bad business too, whether or not the dead has relatives, and whether they Care.
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