Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1882-12-21

Gertrude Garrison in The Indianapolis Review.
Man is fond of obtaining the mastery
over nature. He never really does OBJ.
tain it, but occasionally when he sue
ceeds in arresting her processes for ever
so brief u time he is delirous withdc-
light at his fancied victory. A couple
of enthusiasts of Erie, Pennsylvania,
have applied for patent on a newly
discovered process OF preserving the
dead. They think they have the long
lost art of mummy-making within their
grasp. Anyhow they have brewcd a
liquid, which il diflusey through a dead
body, even when the body is foul from
decay, will destroy all corruptiblc mat
ter and convert the flesh into acartilag-
inous state, the ears becoming like
polished horn. These two inventors
experimental on the corpse of IN in
FAINT, and in ten weeks after the body
had been removed from contact with
the compound the little mass Of clay
had become like u rubber doll. with
cheeks full and plant to the touch, and
ears hard and polished as u cornct. 1t
is claimed by the patentecs that bodies
treated in this way cannot decay, and
in the stcreotypcd words of the veracious
chroniclcr of the daily press, "thc dis
covery has excited much interest among
scientists"
The man who causes two blades Of
grass to grow where but one grew be-
fore is benefactOr to human kind.
but for the life of us we can't see where
tho man who keeps dead bodies from
rotting benefits anybody. He is Il posi-
tive foe to agriculture, as much valua-
BILE fertilizing matter will be lost if his
patent is generally adopted. In what
way will civilization he advanced and
mankind helped by making corpscs in
destructible? We shall be neither hap
pier nor better for walking over I'M
pcrishable bodies. We don't believe
any one who seriously thinks about it
feels at all comforted by the thought
that after death he can be put down in
the earth with his ears like horn and
his cheeks like those of u rubber doll.
Life would be no easier for Us if we
knew that the bodies of our kindred
were preserved that way than if we
knew they had yielded to the decree of
nature and returned to their original
elements. 1t is the spirits or souls of
our beloved that we value, not their
bodies, and though We turned corpscs
to everlasting stone and stacked them
higher than the tower of Babel, we
could not win comforting smile or
word from one of them.
Nature intended the human body to
perish entirely after the immortal soul
passed out of it, and this is one of the
benigncst and teRdcrest of her wise de-
crees. Hygiene and happiness both
demand it. Instead of searching Tor
means to preserve the dead, quicker
methods of complete discntegration
should be adopted. If we knew that
beneath our feet the ground was thick
ly spread with indestructiblc cOrpScs,
ghastlincss would be the prominent
feature of life. Dead people who are
superior to decay are no props to any
country, no solace to any heart, no
help to any living creature. we DO
not take our dead out of their tombs to
look at them every once ina while, as
we do our Jewels and kccpsakcs and
personal treasures. We put thom
away from us for ever, and by and by
when our grief has softcned into regret
we stand by their graves and feel n
solrowful comfort in the thought that
their bodies have become dust, and can
never by any possibility be subjected 10
any rudencss or indignitY. They are
safe from the conqucror worm and the
ghOuls of our own race.
The Egyptian art of mummilication
has mystilied the people of modern
times and furnished iirewood for some
of them. Beyond that it has been no
benefit to the world. Those who choose
may take advantage of the new patent
for preserving corpses but we predict
that there will be no general anxiety
among men and women to be convert
ed into Il hidccus imperishable carica-
ture of their former selves with ears
like horn and cheeks puffed out like
ancient Pistol.