The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1871-06-29
Making Fun OF Death.

A New England paper, picked up at ran.
| dom from pile in the Office, furnishes in its
miscellaneous column the following items,
which we reluctantly reproduce in order to
point the comments we desire to make: .,
'.suicide is almost as popular this season sas
the seaside.n ~.
"a negro boy in Montgomery asserted his
civil rights by trying to get free ride on
locomotive. A burial will be necessary in his
case"
"Frederlck Comm, a. rash youth, essayed to
stop running train by putting his foot against
1t, and hereafter will be slow in comin'."
"a St Louis mans modification at being
beaten at dominoes, led him t1 try his luck at
suicide with eminent success
'sspotted Tree.Toad, a Plck-Ute brave, at
tempted to lasso the Pacific lightning express
train, and: has gone to the happy hunting
grounds"
Many more such items we're in the same
column of this New England paper, but the
above will suffice. How to account. for the
disposition to ridicule the most solemn OF
earthly events, would be as hard as to ex'
plain why the relatives and friends Of the
dead persons thus ridiculed allow it to con-
tinue. It may be that the heartless and
would-be witty editor takes good care to
make fun OF only those who die or get killed
at distance, or it may be that the Yankee
nature is 80 strangely constituted that the
gentlemen aud ladies OF Down East are de-
lighted TO find the, morning paper making
merry over the death OF then best friends
and nearest relatives. We cannot tell. Ger
tain it is that this atrocious diablerie has be-
come exceedingly popular throughout the
North and West during the last few years,
and so far from any abatement the indica-
tions show an annual increase in this vilest
OF all conceivable attempts at wit The pa-
per which gets off most OF these fendish
paragraphs is the most popular; the paper
which does not get them of is the least
popular.
May it not be that the people who SUBJ
scribe to and encourage papers which habit
ually make light Of death are themselves
morbidly afraid OF death? Leading ungodly
lives, what is more natural than that they
should fear the King cf Terrors with an ex-
cessive fear, and gladly avail themselves ol
anv means, however sinful and foolish, to
accustor, their minds to the idea OF dying
Or may it be that they have lost the natural
horror oi death, and really look upon it as
rather good joke, for the survivors, GER
tainly, if not to the deceased themselves!
In either aspect the case is sad enough.
There is not, we dare be sworn, civilized
people on the face OF tie earth who make 9
farce OF death as these same Yankees are
now doing. During the orgies OF the French
Revolution, and when the cholera or the
plague ragged in Italy and the Decameror
was written, death was scoffed at, fouted
and made fun Of; but 1eTer before in the
worlds history was such sinful, devilish lev
ity INDUCED in systematically ard in colo
blood for the sake OF Increasing tae ctrc'tEa
ton of neuspaec''t For the honor OF the
American ueme .sot the sake OF human na'
ture itself, and 10 the sake OF the bettel
!. life TO which we al aspire, let this wretched
wicked folly be Stopped at once and forever
/