Dealings with the Dead, Volume 2 (of 2)Sargent, Lucius M. (Lucius Manlius)
History
Dealings with the Dead, Volume 2 (of 2)
Sargent, Lucius M. (Lucius Manlius)
Death; Funeral rites and ceremonies; Funeral rites and ceremonies -- United States
"The hair was in an astonishingly perfect state; its color a light brown,
its length six inches and a half, and, although somewhat clotted, it
appeared, after having been well washed, as strong as the hair of a living
being. Fountain said he was determined to have two of his teeth; but as
they resisted the pressure of his fingers, he struck the jaw, with a
paving stone, and several teeth then fell out. There were only five in the
upper jaw, and these were taken by Fountain; the four, that were in the
lower jaw, were seized upon, by Taylor, Hawkesworth, and the sexton's man.
The hair, which had been carefully combed, and tied together, before the
interment, was forcibly pulled off the skull, by Taylor and another; but
Ellis, the player, who had now joined the party, told the former, that
being a good hair-worker, if he would let him have it, he would pay a
guinea-bowl of punch. Ellis, therefore, became possessed of all the hair:
he likewise took a part of the shroud, and a bit of the skin of the skull:
indeed, he was only prevented from carrying off the head, by the sextons,
Hoppy and Grant, who said, that they intended to exhibit the remains,
which was afterwards done, each person paying sixpence to view the body.
These fellows, I am told, gained near one hundred pounds, by the
exhibition. Laming put one of the leg-bones in his pocket."
After reading this short, shameless record, one half inclines to
cremation; even if, instead of being enshrined or inurned, our dust be
given, in fee simple, to the winds. How forcibly the words of Sir Thomas
ring in our ears--"_To be gnawed out of our graves, to have our skulls
made drinking bowls, and our bones turned into pipes, to delight and sport
our enemies, are tragical abominations, escaped in burning burials_." The
account from General Murray's diary, and at greater length, may be found
also, in the appendix to Mitford's life of Milton, in the octavo edition
of his poetical works, Cambridge, Mass., 1839.
Great indignation has lately been excited, in England, against a vampyre
of a fellow, named Blore, who is said to have destroyed one half of
Dryden's monument, and defaced Ben Jonson's, and Cowley's, in Westminster
Abbey. Inquiring after motive, in such cases, is much like raking the
ashes, after a conflagration, to find the originating spark. There is a
motive, doubtless, in some by-corner of the brain; whether a man burns the
temple, at Ephesus; or spears the elephant of Judas Maccabæus, with
certain death to himself; or destroys the Barberrini vase. The motive was
avowed, on the trial, in a similar case, by a young man, who, some years
ago, shot a menagerie elephant, while passing through a village, in the
State of Maine, to be a wish "_to see how a fellow would feel, who killed
an elephant_."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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