That attitude—revulsion at the way other groups handle their dead—has endured through millennia. If you have ever come within 500 feet of a modern funeral home, you know that morticians love the following quote, attributed to William Gladstone, a nineteenth-century British prime minister: Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.
