The Weekly Kansas chief. [volume] (Troy, Kan.) 1872-1918, 1882-03-02
THE BONES OF FAMOUS MEN.

The trustees of JOrdan's burial ground decline
to pledge themselves to precise identification
of Penn's tomb and remains. Their reasons for
this hesitation will be found elsewhere in the
simple and sensible letter in which they have
replied to the American application. The head
stone which marks what is supposed to be PENIS
grave only placed in its position about
twenty years ago. Before that time a rough
plan of the graveyard was the only available
clue to the actual spot where Penn and his FAM
lily were laid, and it is therefore more than
doubtful whether identification is even 80 much
as possible. The trustees, with characteristic
Caution affect TO regard the application as being
only n conditional proposal TO remove the re-
mains of Penn, surprising that they "did exist"
But having clearly shown that this reservation
is no mere subterfuse. but a real and fatal bar
to the enterprise, they proceed, in a manner
which will command the sympathy of all, to ex-
plain their general objections TO the proposal.
These objections speak for themselves; they are
simple, terse, and conclusive. There is little to
add to them. and less TO be said in reply That
Pennsylvania should desire to do honor to its
founder and eponymous hero is natural right,
and fitting, and there are many ways of doing
honor without disturbing the dead, and il is
hardly too much TO ask that Pennsylvania should
endeavor 10 crafty its own natural sentiment
without wounding the still more natural senti-
ment of others.
'.Where the tree falls, there let it lier This
is the true sentiment with which to regard the
resting-place of the illustrious dead. IL the
PENIS remains 10 America once to find
general favor, there is no saying what it might
lead to. The contest over the birthplace of Ho-
mer would he nothing to the struggles that
might arise over the mortal remains of the
worlds undying heroes But for Shakespeare's
curse, who can say where his bones would now
be laid, and yet. who could really wish that his
resting place should be other than that which
he chose himself, in the quiet church beside the
Avoni Dante still sleeps at Ravenna, though
Florence-pdrri FlOrentid mater aroris, as his
epithet bitterly calls her-might almost be ex-
cused her passionate longing for his remains, if
il were nos for the sOunder sentiment which for
bids the violation of his tomb. Columbus after
several migrations, lies buried in Havana and
Spain might strive with America in the vulgar
contest for his dust. There are, il is true, one
or two notable instances which make the other
way. But the scene lately enacted at Rome is
hardly an encouragement to those who would
traffic in dead mems bones, can We think
that the transfer of NapoleOn's remains from ST.
Helena 20 Paris a precedent which healthy
sentiment would have any strong desire to fol-
low. The CANDY and rocco mausoleum ut the
Invaliies, with its tricks of colored light and
darkened passages, is, after all, but poor ex-
change for the simple tomb in the lonely Attain
tic island. The cnmbrous pile may crafty Par-
sian taste, but il sorts i'll with the truer sent-
ment, as broad rs humanity itself, which belongs
10 the original resting place Of any man whom
the world has rcckoned among its great ones
In truth, the place where the great man is first
laid is much part of his history anything
else which concerns him. To take the remains
of Penn 70 America, there to hp laid under pile
of modern Inagniicence, would be simply to add
a mOnstrous falsehood to his real and genuine
history. He an Englishman, and he rests
in English ground. He chose his resting-place
for himself, and there he is, surrounded by his
two wives and by five of his children. To di-
vide these whom death has thus united. after
nearly two centuries of peaceful rest, would
surely be little short of sacrilege. Moreover,
William PENIS history really belongs To Eng
land. even more than it does to America. In
England he lived and died, and to what he did
and suffered in England belongs whatever of
glory or Of ohlOquy attaches to his name. 1t
in England that the sect to which he so
arlently attached himself had its rise, and the
controversies in which he took large a share,
were of wholly native growth. 1t in Eng
land, too, that the great dispute to the up
rightness of his character and the simplicity of
his motives arose-a dispute which is said TO
have embittered the last days of Maeaulay
With what justice can sueh man be claimed
for Pennsylvania, or even for American If he
had died in America, and been buried there, no
doubt his remains would have been justly held
In homer, and no one would have grudged Penn
sylvania their possession. But Penn lies buried
in England, and we can not doubt that the trucr
and sounder sentiment of America will repudi-
ate the unhallOwed proposal TO disturb the tran
quility of his grave.
The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous
men, said the greatest of Athenian statesmen, on
one of the most solemn occasions of Greek histo-
~. 1t is not their mortal remains that posteri-
" should care to honor. but the spirit and
ample of their lives Would any single Ameri-
can be the better because the doubtful remains
of William Penn, untimely snatched from the
quiet earth of Jordan's burial ground, were '.re-
moved to n transatlantic home, amid the pomp
and circumstance of State ceremonial there
to repOSe under n monumental pile such the
too magnificent and not too refined taste of q
Pennsylvania Legislature would he certain to
provide. On the contrary, every American
would be the worse for the violence done to the
natural and most wholesome sentiment which
enjoins respect for the grave.-LoRdoR Times.