Dealings With The Dead Volume I Part 20

It is really quite pleasant to gather a party, upon such short notice, and with so little effort; and without the trouble of providing wine and sweetmeats. Upon the very threshold of manhood, how they scatter and disperse! There is a pa.s.sage of the Dialogus--the tenth section--which is so true to life, at the present hour, that one can scarcely realize it was written, before the birth of Christ:--"Ille (Scipio) quidem nihil dificilius esse dicebat, quam amicitiam usque ad extremum vitae permanere.

Nam vel ut non idem expediret utrique, incidere saepe; vel ut de republica non idem sentirent; mutari etiam mores hominum saepe dicebat, alias adversis rebus, alias aetate ingravescente. Atque earum rerum exemplum ex similitudine capiebat incuentis aetatis, quod summi puerorum amores saepe una c.u.m praetexta ponerentur; sin autem ad adolescentiam perduxissent, dirimi tamen interdum contentione, vel uxoriae conditionis, vel commodi allicujus, quod idem adipisci uterque non posset. Quod si qui longius in amicitia provecti essent, tamen saepe labefactari, si in honoris contentionem incidissent: pestem esse nullam amicitiis, quam in plerisque pecuniae cupiditatem, in optimis quibusque honoris certamen et gloriae: ex quo inimicitias maximas saepe inter amicissimos ext.i.tisse." Lord Rochester said, that nothing was ever benefited, by translation, but a bishop. This, nevertheless, I believe, is a fair translation of the pa.s.sage--

He (Scipio) said, that nothing was more difficult, than for friends.h.i.+p to continue to the very end of life: either because its continuance was found to be inexpedient for one of the parties, or on account of political differences.

He remarked, that men's humors were apt to be affected, sometimes, by adverse fortune, and at others, by the heavy listlessness of age. He drew an example of these things, from a similar condition in youth--the most vehement attachments, among boys, were commonly laid aside with the praetexta, or at the age of maturity; or, if continued beyond that period, they were occasionally interrupted, by some contention about the state or condition of the wife, or the possessions or advantages of somebody, which the other party was unable to equal. Indeed, if some there were, whose friends.h.i.+p was drawn along to a later period, it was very apt to be weakened, if they became rivals, in the path of fame. The greatest bane of friends.h.i.+p, among the ma.s.s, was the love of money, and among some, of the better sort, the thirst for glory; by which the bitterest hatred had been generated, between those, who had been the greatest friends.

Unless it be orthodoxy, nothing has been so variously defined, as _friends.h.i.+p_. A man who stands by, and sees another murdered, in a duel, is his _friend_. Mutual endorsers are _friends_. Partisans are the _friends_ of the candidate. Those gentlemen, who give their time and talents to eat and drink up some wealthy fool, who would pa.s.s for an Amphytrion, and laugh at the fellow's simplicity, behind his back, are his _friends_. The patrons of players and buffoons, signors and signorinas, are their _friends_. The venders of Havana cigars and Bologna sausages inform their _friends_ and patrons, that they have recently received a fresh supply. Marat was the _friend_ of the people. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were the _friends_ of Job; and he told them rather uncivilly, I think, that they were miserable comforters. Matthew speaks of a _friend_ of publicans and sinners.

Monsieur Megret, who, as Voltaire relates, the instant Charles XII. was killed, exclaimed--_Voila la piece finie, allons souper_--see, the play is over, let us go to supper, was the king's _friend_. William the First, like other kings, had many _friends_, who, the moment he died, ran away, and literally left the dead to bury the dead; of which a curious account may be found, in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii. page 160, London, 1809. Friends.h.i.+p flourishes, at Christmas and New Year, for every one, we are told, in the book of Proverbs, is a _friend_ to him that giveth gifts.

There seems to be no end to this enumeration of _friends_. The name is legion, to say nothing of the whole society of _Friends_. What then could Aristotle have meant, when he exclaimed, as Diogenes Laertius says he did, lib. v. sec. 21, _My friends, there is no such thing as a friend_?

Menander is stated by Plutarch, in his tract, on Brotherly Love, cap. 3, to have proclaimed that man happy, who had found even _the shadow of a friend_?

It would be hard to describe the friend, whom Aristotle and Menander had in mind. Cicero has employed twenty-seven sections, and given us an imperfect definition after all. Such a friend comes not, within any one of the categories I have named.

_Friends_, in the common acceptation of that word, may be readily lost and won. The direction, ascribed to Rochefoucault, seems less revolting, when applied to such _friends_ as these--_to treat all one's friends, as if, one day, they might be foes, and all one's foes, as if, one day, they might be friend_. This cold-blooded axiom is Rochefoucault's, only by adoption. Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, lib. ii. cap. 13, and Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Bias, lib. i. sec. 7, ascribe something like this saying to him. Cicero, in the sixteenth section of the _Dialogus de Amicitia_, after referring to the opinion--"_ita amare oportere, ut si aliquando esset ossurus_," and stating Scipio's abhorrence of the sentiment, expresses his belief, that it never proceeded from so good and wise a man, as Bias. Aulus Gellius, lib. i. cap. 3, imputes to Chilon, one of the seven wise men of Greece, substantially, the same sentiment--"_Love him, as if you were one day to hate him, and hate him, as if you were one day to love him_." Poor Rochefoucault, who had sins enough to answer for, is as unjustly held to be author of this infernal sentiment, as was Dr.

Guillotin of the instrument, that bears his ill-fated name.

Boccacio was in the right--_there is a skeleton in every house_. We have, all of us, our crosses to carry; and should strive to bear them as gracefully, as comports with the infirmity of human nature; and among the most severe is the loss of an old friend. Aristotle was mistaken--there is such a thing as a friend. Some fifty years ago, I began to have a friend--our professions and pursuits were similar. For some fifty years, we have cherished a feeling of mutual affection and respect; and, now that we have retired from the active exercise of our craft, we daily meet together, and, like a brace of veteran gra.s.shoppers, chirp over days bygone. I believe I never asked of my friend an unreasonable or unseemly thing. G.o.d knows he never did of me. Thus we have obeyed Cicero's first law of friends.h.i.+p--_Haec igitur prima lex in amicitia sanciatur, ut neque rogemus res turpes, nec faciamus, rogati_.

We are most happily adapted to each other. I have always taken pleasure in regurgitating, from the fourth stomach of the mind, some tale or anecdote, and chewing over the cud of pleasant fancy. No man ever had a friend with a more willing ear, or a shorter memory. But for this, which I have always accounted a Providence, my stock would have been exhausted, long ago.

After lying fallow, for two or three months, every tale is as good as new.

G.o.d bless my friend, and compensate the shortness of his memory, by giving him length of days, and every good thing, in this and a better world.

No. LX.

Much has been said and written, of late, here and elsewhere, on the subject of _intra mural_ interment--burial within the _walls_ or _confines_ of cities. This term, though commonly employed by British writers, is wholly inapplicable, in all those rural cities, which have recently sprung up among us, and in which there are still many broad acres of meadow and pasture, plough-land and forest. In these almost nominal cities, the question must be, in relation to the propriety of burying the dead, not within the confines, but in the more densely peopled portions--in the very midst of the living.

I have an opinion, firmly fixed, and long cherished, upon this important subject; and, considering myself, professionally, an expert, in these matters, I shall devote the present article to their consideration.

There is no doubt, that a cemetery, from its improper location, or the ma.s.s of putrefying material, which the madness, or folly, or avarice of its proprietors has acc.u.mulated there, or from the indecent and almost superficial deposition of half-buried corpses, may become, like the burden of our sins--_intolerable_. It is not less certain, that it may become a _public nuisance_--not merely in the _popular_ sense--but _legally_, and, as such, indictable at common law. Neither can there be any doubt, that the city authorities, without a resort to the process of indictment, and as conservators of the public health, have full power, to prevent all future interments in that cemetery. This is true of a cemetery in the suburbs--_a fortiori_, of a cemetery in the city.

At the present day, it may seem astonis.h.i.+ng to many, that any doubt ever prevailed, in the minds of respectable members of the medical faculty, as to the unhealthy influences of the effluvia, arising from _animal_ corruption. Orfila, Parant Duchatelet, and other Frenchmen, of high professional reputation, have maintained, that such effluvia are perfectly innocuous. It seems to be almost universally agreed, at the present day, to reject such extraordinary doctrines entirely; although it is admitted, by the highest authorities, that the exhalations from _vegetable_ corruption are the more pernicious of the two.

So far as the decision of this question concerns the remedy, by legal process, it is of no absolute importance. The popular impression, that exhalations, of any kind, cannot const.i.tute a _public nuisance_, in the technical import of those words, unless those exhalations are injurious to health, is erroneous. Lord Mansfield held this not to be necessary; and that it was enough, if the air were so affected, as to be breathed by the public, with less comfort and pleasure, than before.

Interment, beyond the confines of the city, was enjoined, some eighteen hundred years ago. It was decreed in Rome, by the twelve tables--_hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito_.

A writer, in the London Quarterly Review, vol. 73, p. 446, has written, very ably, on this interesting topic. He supplies some facts of importance, connected with the history of interment. A. D. 381.--The Theodosian code forbade all interment within the walls of the city, and even ordered, that all the bodies and monuments, already placed there, should be carried out.

A. D. 529.--The first clause was confirmed by Justinian. A. D. 563.--The Council of Brague decreed, that no dead body should be buried, within the circle of the city walls.

A. D. 586.--The Council of Auxerre decreed, that no one should be buried in their temples. A. D. 827.--Charlemagne decreed, that no person should be buried in a church. A. D. 1076.--The Council of Winchester decreed, that no person should be buried in the churches. A. D. 1552.--Latimer, on Saint Luke vii. ii., says, "the citizens of Nain had their burying places without the city; and I do marvel, that London, being so great a city, hath not a burial place without," &c. A. D. 1565.--Charles Borromeo, the good bishop of Milan, ordered the return to the ancient custom of suburban cemeteries.

Sir Matthew Hale used to say, "churches were made for the living, not for the dead." The learned Anthony Rivet observed--"I wish this custom, which covetousness and superst.i.tion first brought in, were abolished; and that the ancient custom were revived to have burying places, in the free and open fields, without the gates of cities." In 1832, fifteen Archbishops, Bishops, and others, ecclesiastical commissioners, in London, recommended the abolition of all burials in churches.

At great expense, the City Government of Roxbury have judiciously selected a spot, eminently beautiful, and remote from the peopled portion of the city, for the burial of the dead. The great argument--the manifest motive--was _a just regard for the health of their const.i.tuents_. If the present nuisance should continue much longer, and grow much greater, may not the question be respectfully asked, with some little pertinency, _what has become of that just regard?_

Surely there is no lack of power. In 1832, the government of Boston said to the town of Roxbury, not in the language of David to Moab--thou shalt be "_my wash pot_"--but thou shalt be the receptacle of our offal--of all, that is filthy, and corruptible, within our borders. The City Government of Boston went extensively then into the carrion and garbage business, and furnished the provant for a legion of hogs, the property of an influential citizen of Roxbury. This awful hoggery was located on the road, now called East Street. The carrion carts of the metropolis of New England, _eundo, redeundo, et manendo_, dropping filth and fatness, as they went, became an abominable nuisance; and, as Commodore Trunnion beat up to church, on his wedding day, so every citizen, as soon as he discovered one of these aromatic vehicles, drawn by six or eight horses, tossing up their heads, and snorting sympathetically, was obliged to close-haul his nose, and struggle for the weather gage.

Then again, the proprietor of this colossal hog-sty, with his burnery of bones, and other fragrant contrivances, created a stench, unknown among men, since the bituminous conflagration of the cities of the plain--Sodom and Gomorrah; and which terrible stench, in the language of Sternhold & Hopkins, "_came flying all abroad_." In the keeping of the varying wind, this "_arria cattiva_," like that from a graveyard, surcharged with half-buried corpses, visited, from day to day, every dwelling, and nauseated every man, woman, and child in the village. Four town meetings were held, upon this subject. Roxbury calmly remonstrated,--Boston doggedly persisted; and, at last, patience having had its perfect work, the carrion carts, while attempting to enter Roxbury, were met, by the yeomanry, on the line, and driven back to Boston. Chief Justice Shaw having refused an application for an _injunction_, the complaint was brought before the grand jury of Norfolk. Bills were found, against the owner of the hogs, and the city of Boston. My learned and amiable friend, the late John Pickering, then the City Solicitor, defended them both, with great ability; and the present Judge Merrick, then County Attorney, opposed the whole swinish concern, with the spirit of an Israelite, and the power of a Rabbi. The owner of the hogs and the city of Boston were both duly convicted, and, entering into a written obligation to sin no more, in this wise, the indictment was held over them, for a reasonable period, until they had given satisfactory evidence of their sincerity.

In the testimony of Dr. George Cheyne Shattuck, which was published, at the time, after sustaining the prosecutors amply, in their allegation, in respect to the deleterious effect of the nuisance, he remarks--"_The Creator has established, in the sense of smelling, a sentinel, to descry distant danger of life. The alarm, sounded through this organ, seldom pa.s.ses unheeded, with impunity._"

Dr. John C. Warren and sixteen other respectable physicians concurred in this opinion.

No. LXI.

How long--oh Lord--how long will thy peculiar people disregard the simple, unmistakable teachings of common sense, and the admonitions of their own, proper noses, and bury the dead, in the very midst of the living!--Above all, how long will they continue to perpetrate that hideous folly of burying the dead, in tombs! What a childish effort, to keep the worm at bay--to stave off corruption, yet a little while--to procrastinate the payment of nature's debt, at maturity--DUST THOU ART AND UNTO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN!--For what? That the poor, senseless tabernacle may have a few more months or years, to rot in--that friends and relatives may, from time to time, be enabled, upon every re-opening of the tomb, to gratify their morbid curiosity, and see how the worms are getting on--that, whenever the tomb is unbarred, for another and another tenant, as it may often happen, at the time, when corruption is doing its utmost--its rankest work--the foul quintessence--the reeking, deleterious gases may rush back upon the living world; and, blending with ten thousand kindred stenches, in a densely peopled city, promote the mighty work of pestilence and death.

Who does not sympathize with Cowper!

Oh for a lodge, in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where the atrocious smells of docks, and sewers, Eruptive gas, and rank distillery May never reach me more. My lungs are pain'd, My nose is sick, with this eternal stench Of corpse and carrion, with which earth is fill'd.

I am not unmindful, that, in a former number of these Dealings with the Dead, I have pa.s.sed over these burial-grounds, and partially exhibited the interior of these tombs already. But there really seems to be a great awakening, upon this subject, at the present moment, at home and abroad; and I rejoice, that it is so.

I am aware, that, within the bounds of old, peninsular Boston, no inhumations--_burials in graves_--are permitted. This is well.--_Burials in tombs_ are still allowed.--Why? This mode of burial is much more offensive. In _grave burial_, the gases percolate gradually; and a considerable portion may be reasonably supposed to be neutralized, _in transitu_. This is unquestionably the case, unless the grave is kept open, or opened, six times, or more, on the speculation principle, for the reception of new customers. In _tomb burial_, it is otherwise. The tomb is opened for new comers, and sometimes, most inopportunely, and the horrible smell fills the atmosphere, and compels the neighboring inhabitants, to close their windows and doors.

As, with some persons, this may seem to require authentication, without leading the reader to every offensive graveyard in this city, I will take a single, and a sufficient example--I will take the oldest graveyard in the Commonwealth, and the most central, in the city of Boston. I refer to Isaac Johnson's lot, where, in 1630, his bones were laid--the Chapel burying-ground. The Savings Bank building bounds upon that cemetery. The rooms of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society are over the Bank.

The stench, produced, by burials in the tombs, in that yard, during the summer of 1849, has compelled the Librarian to close his windows. _Tomb burial_, in this yard, has not been limited to deceased proprietors, and their relatives; it has, in some instances, been a matter of traffic. I have been struck with the present arrangement of the gravestones, in this yard. Some ingenious person has removed them all, from their original positions, and actually planted them, "_all of a row_," like the four and twenty fiddlers--or rather, in four straight rows, near the four sides of the graveyard. This is a queerer metamorphosis, than any I ever read of.

Ovid has nothing to compare with it. There they are, every one, with its "_Here lies_," &c., compelled to stand forever, a monument of falsehood.

Of all the pranks, ever perpetrated in a graveyard, this, surely, is the most amusing. In defiance of the _lex loci_, which rightfully enjoins solemnity of demeanor, in such a place--and of all my reverence for Isaac Johnson, and those ill.u.s.trious men, who slumber there, I was actually seized with a fit of uncontrollable laughter; and came to the conclusion, that this sacrilegious transposition must have been the work of Punch, or Puck, or some Lord of misrule. As I proceeded to read the inscriptions, my merriment increased, for the gravestones seemed to be conferring together, upon the subject of these extraordinary changes, which had befallen them; and repeating over to one another--"_As you are now, so once was I_." As it happened, in the case of Major Pitcairn, should any person desire to remove the ashes of his ancestor, these misplaced gravestones would surely lead to the awakening of the wrong pa.s.senger; and some venerable old lady, who died in her bed, may be transported to England, and buried under arms, for a major of infantry, who died in battle.

Why continue to bury in tombs? _Surely the sufferance on the part of the City Government, does not arise, from a respect for vested rights!!!_ If the City Government has power to close the offensive cellars in Broad Street, and elsewhere, being private property, because they are accounted injurious to public health, why may they not close the tombs, being private property, for the very same reason? Considerations of public health are paramount. When, upon an application from a number of the liquor-sellers, wholesale and retail, in this city, Chancellor Kent gave his opinion, adverse to their hearts' desire, that the license laws were _const.i.tutional_, he alluded, a.n.a.logically, to the power of the Commonwealth, to pa.s.s sanatory laws. If the munic.i.p.al power were deemed inadequate, legislation would give all the power required. For it would, indeed, be monstrous, having settled the fact, that the public health suffered, from burial in tombs, to suppose it a remediless evil.

The slaughter-houses and tanneries, which once existed, in Kilby Street and Dock Square, would not be tolerated now. Originally, they were not nuisances. Population gathered around them--their precedency availed them nothing--they became nuisances, by the force of circ.u.mstances. The tombs, in the churchyard, were not nuisances, when population was spa.r.s.e--though they are so now. But the fact I have stated will increase the evil, from day to day: there can be no more burials, in graves, within the city proper--people will die--and, as we have not the taste nor courage to burn--they must be buried--where? In the tombs--which, as I have stated, is the most offensive and mischievous mode of burial. I have already alluded to some instances of traffic, connected with certain tombs, in the Chapel yard. If some plan be not adopted, a new line of business will spring up, in which the members of my profession will figure, to some extent: many of the present owners of tombs will sell out, and move their dead to Mount Auburn, or Forest Hills; and the city tombs will be crammed with as many corpses, as they can hold, by their speculating proprietors.

Rather than this, it would have been better to continue the old mode of earth burial. The remedy is plain--the fields are before you--_carry out_ "your dead!"

A famous preacher of eternal torment, and who always, in addition to the sulphurous complexion of his discourses throughout, devoted three or four pages, at the close, exclusively to brimstone and fire; is said, upon a special occasion, to have produced a prodigious effect, upon the more devoted of his intensely agitated flock, by causing the s.e.xton, when he heard the preacher scream BRIMSTONE, at the top of his lungs, to throw two or three rolls, into the furnace below, whose fumes speedily ascended into the church.

This anecdote came instantly to my recollection, some twenty years ago, one Sabbath morning, while attending the services in St. Paul's church, in this city. The rector was absent, and a very worthy clergyman supplied his place. In the course of his sermon, he repeated, in a very solemn tone, pointing downward with his finger, in the direction of the tombs below, those memorable words of Job--_If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister._ Almost immediately--the coincidence was wonderful--I was oppressed by a most offensive stench, which certainly seemed to be _germain_ to the subject. It became more and more powerful. It seemed to me, and I call myself a pretty good judge, to be posthumous, decidedly. I certainly believed it proceeded from the charnel house below. My eyes turned right and left, to see how my neighbors were impressed. The females bowed their heads, and used their handkerchiefs--the males were evidently aware of it; but, with a slight compression of their noses, kept their eyes fixed upon the preacher. Two medical gentlemen, then present, and yet living, p.r.o.nounced it to be _the worm and corruption_, and connected it with the burial of a particular individual, not long before.

The case was carefully investigated, by the wardens and others; who were perfectly satisfied, that this horrible effluvium was, very probably, produced, by the burning of a heretic, in the form of a church mouse, that had taken up his quarters, in the pipe or flue, and was thus converted into an unsavory _pastille_.

No. LXII.