The Portland daily press., 1881-12-21
international Body-snatching.

saturday Reyiew.l
Some American citizens seem to have sim
gular love of disinterring dead bodies and re-
moving them from the places where they were
deposited by the friends and relatives of the
departed. 1t is lot long since all that was
mortal of the late Mr.. Stewart, successful
tradesman, was secretly dug up and carried off
nor are we aware that the relics have even
now beer recovered and restored. Mr.. Stewart
was probably by descent Scotchman, yet we
deem it an improbable theory that Prof Black
lie and other Caledonian patriots have COM
bined to remove his ashes to the land of the
mountain and the flood Some of the inhabi-
tants of Pennsylvania are eager to carry the
bones of William Penn from their English
grave to the State which Penn founded, and to
bury them in the midst of a city where it is
supposed that their presence will raise the
moral tone Of the public. There is something
of ancient Greek sentiment in this proposal.
About the time of the Persian-or wasit the
Peloponnnesan war?-an oracle commanded
the Athenians to bring back the mighty bones
of their great local hero, Theseus, and 20 bury
them in Athenian soil. According to the ira
dition, TheseuS died in exile at SyroS, and his
posthumous restoration to Attica was kind Of
amends to his memory. In the same way the
removal of the dust Of Dante from
"the tomb
On Rayenna sands, in the shade
OF RaveHna pines"
to Florence would be a kind of dilatory amends
made by that city to the memory OF her most
illustrious exile. The renterment of Napole-
on in Paris was the most famous modern ex-
ample of an honorable disturbance OF the dead.
All these are examples of the restoration OF an
exile to the country which regrets him. We can
understand the French sentiment about NapO-
leon;
"Though more than half the world was his
He died without rood his own,
And borrowed from his enemies
Six foot of ground to lie upon"
So Thackeray rhymed And it was natural
that the French should wish to transport their
hero from remote and hostile island TO the
capital of the nation which, for moment OF
historic time, he made the foremost in the
world. The Pennsylvania desire to bring
back the ashes of Penn to Pennsylvania does
not seem to us to have quite the same sentl-
mental excuse. Penn, after all, was an Eng
lishman, and he died in his own country, among
his own people, among friends OF his own reii-
gion. Among them, too, he was buried. he
is surrounded by his two wives and hve chill
dren and many of his most intimate friends"
say the Trustees of Jordan's Estate, the plot OF
ground in which Penn is inferred. A Buck
inghamshire man and a Quaker, he IS barred
in Quaker burial ground, in quiet held IN
his native land. Why should he not be allowed
to remain there, especially as the members OF
the Society of Friends and the Trustees OF the
cemetery are anxious that his grave and the
grave of his wives should not be violated, even
BY the pious hands of Pennsylvanians? We
confess that the circumstances which 1ustily
interference with the last resting-Dlaces OF
men are rare and it is not without regret that
read OF invasions even Of ancient barrows, and
of modern pickaxes at work above the sleeping
head of the King Of Men.