Chapter X: Part 10

We had great confidence in a system of "indefatigable teasing," as Butler calls it. In the same year, 1832, by 2d and 3d Will. IV. ch. 62, capital punishment was abolished, in cases of stealing from a dwelling-house to the value of L5, and sheep-stealing; and by the same act, ch. 123, capital punishment was abolished, in all cases of forgery, excepting in the cases of wills, and powers of attorney for stock.

In 1833, by 3d and 4th Will. IV. ch. 44, capital punishment was abolished in case of dwelling-house robbery; repealing so much of the larceny act of 1827.

Our good friends in England next thought it expedient to divest the process of hanging, of all its postmortuary terrors. I have heard of condemned persons, who expressed a greater horror, at the thought of being dissected, than of being hanged. It was deemed proper, therefore, to relieve the unfortunates, on this tender point. Accordingly, in 1834, by 4th Will. IV. ch. 26, dissecting murderers, and hanging them, in chains, were abolished.

It had been the law of England, that all persons returning, _sua sponte_, after transportation, should be hanged. But experience has shown how deep is the affection, which convicts bear to their former haunts, their native land. It is a perfect _nostalgia_. This law was therefore repealed, in 1834, by 4th and 5th Will. IV. ch. 67.

In 1835, by 5th and 6th Will. IV. ch. 33, sundry felonies, never before deemed bailable offences, were made so, notwithstanding the parties confessed themselves guilty.

Sacrilege and letter-stealing had long been capital offences in England. In the same year, they were no longer punished with death.

We had great hopes from Victoria. In 1837, 1 Vic. ch. 23, she began, by abolishing the pillory entirely;--and ch. 84, capital punishment is abolished, in all cases of forgery;--ch. 85, capital punishment is inflicted, for administering poison, or doing bodily injury with intent to mutilate; but other acts, with intent to murder, or maim, or disfigure, are punished with different degrees of transportation and imprisonment.--Ch. 86 takes away capital punishment, in burglary, unless accompanied with violence.--Ch. 87 takes away capital punishment, in case of robbery, unless attended with cutting or wounding. Ch. 88 leaves the punishment of death, transportation or imprisonment, to the discretion of the court, in case of piracy, where murder is attempted. Ch. 89 varies the laws of arson, making arson a capital offence, in regard to a dwelling-house, _any person being therein_.--Ch. 91 abolishes capital punishment in cases of riotous assemblies, seducing from allegiance, and certain offences against the revenue laws.

It is rather surprising, that there is such a general prejudice throughout the world, in favor of putting murderers to death. The Bible is an awful stumbling block, in this respect. We are also reminded that Solon, when he abolished the code of Draco, retained the punishment of death, in the case of murder. I have never thought much of Solon, since I became acquainted with this weak point in his character.

A writer in the Edinburgh Review, vol. 86, p. 217, speaking of death as the punishment for murder, observes--"The intense desire which now actuates a portion of the community, to get rid of capital punishment even for murder, may be taken as an indication of this excessive sensibility. The propriety of that punishment in the given case, would certainly appear to be distinctly sanctioned by that book, to which its opponents professedly appeal--by reason--and by the all but universal practice of nations. It is the only certain guarantee which society can have for the security of its members." Here we have it again--"that book"--the Bible. It cannot be denied that the Bible, or Solon, or Sir Matthew Hale, or somebody else, is everlastingly in the way of this and other modern, philanthropic movements. What was Solon, in comparison with David Crockett--we are sure we are right, and why should we not go ahead?

For my own part, I have never been able to perceive the wisdom of attempting to conceal any of our prospective movements. Indeed, our future course must be sufficiently apparent, at a glance. When we have _agitated_, until capital punishment is abolished, and we have had a commemorative celebration, with emblematical banners, and an hundred guns on the Common, nothing will be further from our thoughts, than a dissolution, sine die. One of our chief arguments in favor of abolishing capital punishment, is the greater hardship of a life-long imprisonment. Availing of this argument, we shall be able to show, that we have placed these unfortunates, in a worse condition than before. A petition will be presented to the Governor and Council, from five thousand unhappy murderers, ravishers, house-burners, burglars and highway robbers--such we think will be the number, in a few years--representing their miserable condition, and respectfully requesting to be hanged, under the influence of ether or otherwise, as to the Governor and Council may seem fit. We shall then _agitate_ anew, and endeavor, through public meetings and the press, to exhibit the barbarity of refusing their humble request.

This, we well enough know, will not be granted; and the only escape from the dilemma, will be to suffer them, to go at large, upon their parole of honor. It will not, of course, be expected, that this parole will be received from any, who cannot produce a certificate, under the hand of the warden, that they have committed no murder, rape, arson, burglary, or highway robbery, during the period of their confinement in the State Prison.

No. LVIII.

The late Archbishop of Bordeaux, when Bishop of Boston, Dr. Cheverus, told me, that he had very little influence with his people, in regard to their extravagance at funerals. It is very hard to persuade them to abate the tithe of a hair, in the cost of a _birril_.

This post-mortuary profligacy, this pride of death, is confined to no age or nation of the world. It has prevailed, ever since chaos was licked into shape, and throughout all Heathendom and Christendom, begetting a childish and preposterous competition, who should bear off the corpses of their relations, most showily, and cause them to rot, most expensively.

This amazing folly has often required, and received, the sumptuary curb of legislation. I have briefly referred, in a former number, to the restraining edicts of the law-givers of Greece, and the laws of the Twelve Tables at Rome.

Even here, and among the earlier records of our own country, evidences are not wanting, that the attention of our worthy ancestors had been attracted to the subject of funereal extravagance. At a meeting, held in Faneuil Hall, October 28, 1767, at which the Hon. James Otis was the Moderator, the following resolution was passed: "_And we further agree strictly to adhere to the late regulations respecting funerals, and will not use any gloves but what are manufactured here, nor procure any new garments, upon such occasions, but what shall be absolutely necessary_." This resolution was passed, _inter alia similia_, with reference to the Stamp Act of 1765, and as part of the system of non-importation.

There is probably no place like England--no city like London, for funereal parade and extravagance. The Church, to use the fox-hunting phrase, must be _in at the death_; and how truly would a simple funeral, without pageantry, in some sort--a cold, unceremonious burial, without mutes, and streamers, and feathers--without bell, book, or candle--flout and scandalize the gorgeous Church of England! The Church and the State are connected, so intimately and indissolubly connected, that he, who dies in the arms of Mother Church, must permit that particular old lady, in the matter of his funeral, to indulge her ruling passion, for costly forms and ceremonies.

It is more than forty years, since, with infinite delight, I first read that effusion--outpouring--splendid little eruption, if you like--of Walter Scott's, called Llewellyn. Apart from all context, a single stanza is to my present purpose; I give it from memory, where it has clung, for forty years:

When a prince to the fate of a peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark, round the dim lighted pall,
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,
And pages stand mute in the canopied hall.
Through the vault, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming,
In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming,
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

In all this, the nobility ape royalty, the gentry the nobility, the commonalty the gentry: and there is no estate so low, as not, in this particular, to account the death of a near relative a perfect justification of extravagance.

There is scarcely one in a thousand, I believe, who has any just idea of the amount, annually lavished upon funerals, in Great Britain; or of the extraordinary fact, that joint stock burial companies exist there, and declare excellent dividends.

In 1843, at the request of her Majesty's principal Secretary of State, for the Home Department, Edwin Chadwick, Esquire, drew up "a report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment, in towns."

Mr. Chadwick states, that, _upon a moderate calculation, the sum annually expended in funeral expenses, in England and Wales, is five millions of pounds sterling_, and that four of these millions may be justly set down as expended on the mere fopperies of death.

Evelyn says, that his mother requested his father, on her death bed, to bestow upon the poor, whatever he had designed, for the expenses of her funeral.

Speaking of this abominable misapplication of money, a writer, in the London Quarterly Review, vol. 73, p. 466, exclaims--"To what does it go? To silk scarfs and brass nails--feathers for the horses--kid gloves and gin for the mutes--white satin and black cloth for the worms. And whom does it benefit? Not those, whose unfeigned sorrow makes them callous, at the moment, to its show, and almost to its mockery--not the cold spectator, who sees its dull magnificence give the lie to the preacher's equality of death--but the lowest of all hypocrites, the hired mourner, &c." It is calculated by Mr. Chadwick, that L60 to L100 are necessary to bury an upper tradesman--L250 for a gentleman--L500 to L1500 for a nobleman.

High profits were obtained, by the joint stock burial companies in England, in 1843. The sale of graves in one cemetery was at the rate of L17,000 per acre, and a calculation, made for another, gave L45,375 per acre, not including fees for monuments, &c. One company, says Mr. Chadwick, has set forth an estimate, that seven acres, at the rate of ten coffins, in one grave, would accommodate 1,335,000--one million three hundred and thirty-five thousand--paupers. The following interrogatory was put, and repeated by members of the Parliamentary Committee, to the witnesses: "_Do you think there would be any objection to burying bodies with a certain quantity of quick lime, sufficient to destroy the coffin and the whole thing in a given time?_"

In 1843, Mr. J. C. Loudon published, in London, his work on the Managing of Cemeteries and the Improvement of Churchyards. The cool, philosophic style, in which Mr. Loudon handles this interesting subject, is rather remarkable. On page 50, he expatiates, as follows: "_This temporary cemetery may be merely a field, rented on a twenty-one years' lease, of such an extent, as to be filled with graves in fourteen years. At the end of seven years more it may revert to the landlord, and be cultivated, planted, or laid down in grass, or in any manner that may be thought proper. Nor does there appear to us any objection to union workhouses having a portion of their garden ground used as a cemetery, to be restored to cultivation, after a sufficient time had elapsed._"

This certainly is doing the utilitarian thing, with a vengeance. Quite a novel rotation of crops--cabbages following corpses. My long experience assures me, that the rapidity of decomposition depends, upon certain qualities in the subject and in the soil. Skeletons are sometimes found, in tolerably perfect condition, after an inhumation of two hundred years. Perhaps Mr. Loudon, in his eager festination for a crop, may have determined to bury in quicklime. Paupers and quicklime would make a capital compost, and scarcely require a top-dressing, of any kind, for years. What beets! what carrots, for the cockney market! Notwithstanding the quicklime, I should rather fear an occasional envelopment of some _unlucky_ relic, in the guise of a _lucky_ bone--a grinder, perhaps. And, when these vegetables shall again have been converted into animals, and these animals shall have served their day and generation, they shall again be converted into cabbages and carrots, as all their predecessors were. Well, this Mr. Loudon is a practical fellow; and his metastasis is admirable. Here are thousands of miserable wretches--_nullorum fiilii_, many of them--they have contributed scarcely anything to the common weal, while living; now let us put them in the way, with the assistance of a little quicklime, of doing something for their fellow-beings, after they are dead. The pauper squashes and cabbages must have been at a premium, in Leadenhall Market. Imagination is clearly worth something. After all my reason can accord, in the way of respect, for these utilitarian notions, I solemnly protest against marrowfats, cultivated in Mr. Loudon's pauper hotbeds. No doubt they would be larger, and the flavor richer and more peculiar--nevertheless, Mr. Loudon must excuse me--I say I protest. He gives an alternative permission, to lay down his mixture of dead bodies and quicklime to grass, or for the pasture of cows. Even then the milk would have a suspicious flavor, or _post-mortem_ smell, I apprehend; it would be the same thing, by second intention, as the surgeons say.

The explanation of Mr. Loudon's monstrous proposition can be found nowhere, but in his concentrated interest in agriculture, to which he would have the living and the dead alike contribute. When contemplating the corpse of a portly pauper, he seems to think of nothing, but the readiest mode of converting it into cabbages.

I have heard of a cutaneous fellow, who had an irresistible fancy, for skinning animals--it had become a passion. Nothing came amiss to him. He sought with avidity, for every four-footed and creeping thing, that died within five miles of his dwelling, for the pleasure of skinning it. The insides of his apartments were covered with the expanded skins, not only of beasts and the lesser vermin, but of birds, serpents and fishes. His house was an exuvial museum. He had a little son, a mere child, who assisted his father, on these occasions, in a small way. He had the misfortune to lose his grandmother--a fine old lady--and the following brief colloquy occurred, between the father and the child, the day before she was buried: "I say, father." "What, Peter?" "When are you going to skin Granny?"

No. LIX.

Last Sabbath morning, I read Cicero's _Dialogus de Amicitia_--simple Latinity, and very short--27 sections only. It seemed like enjoying the company of an old friend. It is now just forty-seven years, since I first read it, at Exeter. I marvel at Montaigne, for not thinking highly of it--but find some little motive, in the fact, that he had written a tract upon the subject, himself, which may be found, in his first volume, page 215, London, 1811, and which can no more be compared to the _Dialogus_, than--to use George Colman's expression--a mummy to Hyperion.

The Dialogus de Amicitia, of a Sabbath morning! Aye, my reverend, orthodox brother. Not having, in my system, one pulse of sympathy for disorganization, and liberty parties, I reverence the holy Sabbath, as much as you do yourself; and, to prevent the _Dialogus_ from hurting me, I read one sermon before, and another immediately after--Jeremy Taylor's _Apples of Sodom_; and Flechier's _Sur La Correction Fraternelle_--such sermons, as, in the concoction, would, perhaps, be very likely to burst your mental boiler, and which would not suit the appetites of many, modern congregations, who have ruined their powers of inwardly digesting such strong meat, by dieting upon theological _fricandises faites avec du sucre_.

And you was not at meeting then! Right again, my dear brother. I am deaf as a haddock; though Sir Thomas Browne has annihilated this favorite standard of comparison, by assuring us, that a haddock has as good ears, as any other fish in the sea. Mine, however, are quite unscriptural--ears not to hear. My ear is all in my eye.

Roscius boasted of his power to convey his meaning, by mute gesticulation. Our modern clergy have so little of this gift, that, with my impracticable ears, it is all dumb show for me. Now and then, when the wind is fair, I catch a word or two; and no cross-readings were ever more grotesque and comical, than my cross-hearings. I am convinced, that I do not always have the worst of it. When, in reply to an old lady, who once asked me how I liked the preacher, I told her I heard not a syllable--what a mercy! she exclaimed. But consider the example! True, there is something in that. Try the experiment--stop the _meatus auditorius_ with beeswax, and try it, for half a dozen Sabbaths, even with the knowledge, that you can remove the impediment at will, which I cannot!

After I had finished the _Dialogus_, I found myself successfully engaged, in the process of mental exhumation:--up they came, one after another, the playmates of my childhood, with their tee-totums and merry-andrews--the companions of my boyhood, with their tops, kites, and marbles--the friends and associates of my youth, with their skates, bats, and fowling pieces. 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 passage 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 cum 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 extitisse." Lord Rochester said, that nothing was ever benefited, by translation, but a bishop. This, nevertheless, I believe, is a fair translation of the passage--

He (Scipio) said, that nothing was more difficult, than for friendship 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 friendship 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 friendship, among the mass, 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 _friendship_. 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 pass 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. Friendship 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 grasshoppers, chirp over days bygone. I believe I never asked of my friend an unreasonable or unseemly thing. God knows he never did of me. Thus we have obeyed Cicero's first law of friendship--_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.

God 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 mass of putrefying material, which the madness, or folly, or avarice of its proprietors has accumulated 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 astonishing 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 constitute 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 superstition 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 constituents_. 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 passes 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 passed 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 Massachusetts 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 illustrious 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 passenger; 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 _constitutional_, he alluded, analogically, to the power of the Commonwealth, to pass sanatory laws. If the municipal 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 circumstances. The tombs, in the churchyard, were not nuisances, when population was sparse--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 sexton, 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, pronounced 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.

Draco, I think, would have been perfectly satisfied with some portions of the primitive, colonial and town legislation of Massachusetts. Hutchinson, i. 436, quotes the following decree--"Captain Stone, for abusing Mr. Ludlow, and calling him _Justass_, is fined an hundred pounds, and prohibited coming within the patent, without the Governor's leave, upon pain of death."

Hazard, Hist. Coll. i. 630, has preserved a law against the Quakers, published in Boston, by beat of drum. It bears date Oct. 14th, 1656. The preamble is couched, in rather strong language--"Whereas there is a cursed sect of heretics lately risen up in the world, which are commonly called Quakers, who take upon them to be immediately sent of God," &c. The statute inflicts a fine of L100 upon any person, who brings one of them into any harbor, creek, or cove, compels him to carry such Quaker away--the Quaker to be put in the house of correction, and severely whipped; no person to speak to him. L5 penalty, for importing, dispersing, or concealing any book, containing their "devilish opinions;" 40 shillings for maintaining such opinions. L4 for persisting. House of correction and banishment, for still persisting.

The poor Quakers gave our intolerant ancestors complete vexation. Hazard, ii. 589, gives an extract from a law, for the special punishment of two of these unhappy people, Peter Pierson and Judah Brown--"That they shall, by the constable of Boston, be forthwith taken out of the prison, and stripped from the girdle upwards, by the executioner, tied to the cart's tail, and whipped through the town, with twenty stripes; and then carried to Roxbury, and delivered to the constable there, who is also to tie them, or cause them to be tied, in like manner, to the cart's tail, and again whip them through the town with ten stripes; and then carried to Dedham, and delivered to the constable there, who is again, in like manner, to cause them to be tied to the cart's tail, and whipped, with ten stripes, through the town, and thence they are immediately to depart the jurisdiction, at their peril."

The legislative designation of the Quakers was _Quaker rogues, heretics, accursed rantors, and vagabonds_.

In 1657, according to Hutchinson, i. 197, "an additional law was made, by which all persons were subjected to the penalty of 40 shillings, for every hour's entertainment, given to a known Quaker, and every Quaker, after the first conviction, if a man, was to lose an ear, and a second time the other; a woman, each time, to be severely whipped; and the third time, man or woman, to have their tongues bored through, with a red-hot iron." In 1658, 10 shillings fine were levied, on every person, present at a Quaker meeting, and L5 for speaking at such meeting. In October of that year, the punishment of death was decreed against all Quakers, returning into the Colony, after banishment. Bishop, in his "New England Judged," says, that the ears of Holden, Copeland, and Rous, three Quakers, were cut off in prison. June 1, 1660, Mary Dyer was hanged for returning, after banishment. Seven persons were fined, some of them L10 apiece, for harboring, and Edward Wharton whipped, twenty stripes, for piloting the Quakers. Several persons were brought to trial--"for adhering to the cursed sect of Quakers, not disowning themselves to be such, refusing to give civil respect, leaving their families and relations, and running from place to place, vagabond-like." Daniel Gold and Robert Harper were sentenced to be whipped, and, with Alice Courland, Mary Scott, and Hope Clifford, banished, under pain of death. William Kingsmill, Margaret Smith, Mary Trask, and Provided Southwick were sentenced to be whipped, and Hannah Phelps admonished.

Sundry others were whipped and banished, that year. John Chamberlain came to trial, with his hat on, and refused to answer. The verdict of the jury, as recorded, was--"_much inclining to the cursed opinions of the Quakers_." Wendlock Christopherson was sentenced to death, but suffered to fly the jurisdiction. March 14, 1660.--William Ledea, "_a cursed Quaker_," was hanged. Some of these Quakers, I apprehend, were determined to exhibit the naked truth to our Puritan fathers. "Deborah Wilson," says Hutchinson, i. 204, "went through the streets of Salem, naked as she came into the world, for which she was well whipped." At length, Sept. 9, 1661, an order came from the King, prohibiting the capital, and even corporal, punishment of the Quakers.

Oct. 13, 1657.--Benedict Arnold, William Baulston, Randall Howldon, Arthur Fenner, and William Feild, the Government of Rhode Island, addressed a letter, on the subject of this persecution, to the General Court of Massachusetts, in reply to one, received from them. This letter is highly creditable to the good sense and discretion of the writers--"And as concerning these Quakers, (so called)" say they, "which are now among us, we have no law, whereby to punish any, for only declaring by words, &c., their mindes and understandings concerning the things and ways of God, as to salvation and an eternal condition. And we moreover finde that in those places, where these people aforesaid, in this Coloney, are most of all suffered to declare themselves freely, and are only opposed by arguments in discourse, there they least of all desire to come; and we are informed they begin to loath this place, for that they are not opposed by the civil authority, but with all patience and meekness are suffered to say over their pretended revelations and admonitions, nor are they like or able to gain many here to their way; and surely we find that they delight to be persecuted by the civil powers, and when they are soe, they are like to gaine more adherents by the conseyte of their patient sufferings than by consent to their pernicious sayings."

One is taken rather by surprise, upon meeting with such a sample of admirable common sense, in an adjoining Colony, and on such a subject, at that early day--so opposite withal to those principles of action, which prevailed in Massachusetts.

The laws of the Colony, enacted from year to year, were first collected together, and ratified by the General Court, in 1648. Hutchinson, i. 437, says, "Mr. Bellingham of the magistrates, and Mr. Cotton of the clergy, had the greatest share in this work."

This code was framed, by Bellingham and Cotton, with a particular regard to Moses and the tables, and a singular piece of mosaic it was. "Murder, sodomy, witchcraft, arson, and _rape of a child_, under ten years of age," says Hutchinson, i. 440, "were the only crimes made capital in the Colony, which were capital in England." Rape, in the general sense, not being a capital offence, by the Jewish law, was not made a capital offence, in the Colony, for many years. High treason is not even named. The worship of false gods was punished with death, with an exception, in favor of the Indians, who were fined L5 a piece, for powowing.

Blasphemy and reproaching religion were capital offences. Adultery with a married woman, whether the man were married or single, was punished with the death of both parties; but, if the woman were single, whether the man were married or single, it was not a capital offence, in either. Man-stealing was a capital offence. So was wilful perjury, with intent to take away another's life. Cursing or smiting a parent, by a child over sixteen years of age, unless in self-defence, or provoked by cruelty, or having been "unchristianly neglected in its education," was a capital offence. A stubborn, rebellious son was punished with death. There was a conviction under this law; "but the offender," says Hutchinson, ibid. 442, "was rescued from the gallows, by the King's commissioners, in 1665." The return of a "cursed Quaker," or a Romish priest, after banishment, and the denial of either of the books, of the Old or New Testament, were punished with banishment or death, at the discretion of the court. The jurisdiction of the Colony was extended, by the code of Parson Cotton and Mr. Bellingham, over the ocean; for they decreed the same punishment, for the last-named offence, when committed upon the high seas, and the General Court ratified this law. Burglary, and theft, in a house, or in the fields, on the Lord's day, were, upon a third conviction, made capital crimes. The distinction, between grand and petty larceny, which was recognized in England, till 1827, 7th and 8th Geo. IV., ch. 29, was abolished, by the code of Cotton and Bellingham, in 1648; and theft, without limitation of value, was made punishable, by fine or whipping, and restitution of treble value. In some cases, only double. Thus, ibid. 436, we have the following entry--"Josias Plaistowe, for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, is ordered to return them eight baskets, to be fined five pounds, and hereafter to be called by the name of Josias, and not Mr., as formerly he used to be."

This lenity, in regard to larceny, Mr. Cotton seems to have been willing to counterbalance, by a terrible severity, on some other occasions.

Mr. Hutchinson, ibid. 442, states, that he has seen the first draught of this code, in the hand-writing of Mr. Cotton, in which there are named six offences, made punishable with death, all which are altered, in the hand of Gov. Winthrop, and the death penalty stricken out. The six offences were--"Prophaning the Lord's day, in a careless or scornful neglect or contempt thereof--Reviling the magistrates in the highest rank, viz., the Governor and Council--Defiling a woman espoused--Incest within the Levitical degrees--The pollution, mentioned in Leviticus xx. 13 to 16--Lying with a maid in her father's house, and keeping secret, till she is married to another." Mr. Cotton would have punished all these offences with death.

On the subject of divorce, the code of 1648 differed from that of the present day, _with us_, essentially. Adultery in the wife was held to be sufficient cause, for divorce _a vinculo_: "but male adultery," says Hutchinson, i. 445, "after some debate and consultation with the elders, was judged not sufficient." The principle, which directed their decision, was, doubtless, the same, referred to and recognized, by Lord Chancellor Eldon, in the House of Lords, in 1801, as reported by Mr. Twiss, in his Memoirs, vol. i. p. 383.

No. LXIII.

If the materials, of which history and biography are made--the sources of information--were accessible to every reader, and the patience and ability were his, to examine for himself, there is, probably, no historian nor biographer, in whose accuracy and impartiality, his confidence would not be occasionally weakened. The statement or assertion, the authority for which lies scattered, among the pages of fifty different writers, perhaps, and which the historian has compressed within ten short lines, would, now and then, be found tinctured, and its true complexion materially altered, by the religious or political coloring of the writer's mind.

The entire history of one or more ages has been written, to support a particular code of religious or political tenets. The prejudices of an annalist have, occasionally, from long indulgence, become so habitual, that his offences, in this wise, become almost involuntary.