Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1888-07-01
A GLUT OF MUMMIES.
su Nye Regrets the Decadence OF Real
Old Relics.
N,,g York World

Rin Nye ReRfets INV - ~
! Old Relics.
Mw FORK World.
Auonp the many letters Of inquiry're-
cs;ved during the past week ia the follow
inc. LAST year made trip abroad,
and among other trophies of my visit to
the Old World secured a fine specimen
Of q mummy, for which l paid rs scudi.
While showing it to friend last week /
discovered that the air Of Illinois is detri-
ments, 10 it and that disintegrstion is
taxing place. Can you tell me what is
the csuse and what had better do IN
order to preserve the specimen intact?
We all Rad the World here and regard 1t
as the great Want medium"
You have no doubt paid at least "a scudi
too much for your mummy as mummies
90 Nothing is more dishearteDing than
the discovery that ones mummy 10 not
standing our harsh American climate.
But the chances are that you have what Is
called the modern style Of mummy, made
especially for Americans By the trade. de
| ia not antique, and before August you will
have to decide whether to cast him aside
or let him run the house
The genuine mummy has been ground up
for fertilizing purposes during the past
twenty years to such an extent that we are
running short and spurious mnmmies made
of cosrse people who have died recectIy are
flooding the market. A friend of mine
purchased vanished king, supposed to be
over two thousand years old, for which he
gave $50 scudi and silk umbrella. In
MAY of last year he began TO assert him
sslt-the king did-aud to enter more
and more into the home life of his
owner till il was decided to have
coat of shellsc put on him.
house, sign and carriage painter came up
to the house, and while retitting and re-
furnishing the royal relics discovered on
the forearm dark blue Goddess OF Lib.
erty in India ink and the legend, Rich
ard Maginnis, Valparaiso, Ind, 1853" A
mummy that had to be kept in the re-
frigerator is bitter, bitter disappolnt-
ment, and no doubt yours is of that class.
The modern methods of preserving people
do not in all cases prove satisfactory, and
do not know of anything more pitiful
or more humiliating than while ex-
planning your mummy to coterle OF
friends in the library to have him explode
on your hands and reveal his true identi-
ty. Should disintegration continue in the
case of your own mummy, private funeral
is the best thing could suggest. Let it be
plain affair, opening with select read
| ing or recitation, followed by a vocal solo
| and set-to between some good artist and
the piano. You could charge small ad-
mission fee, perhaps, which would 60 to-
wards defraying expenses, and close with
parade and torrent of grief at the grave.
The wanton destruction Of mummies and
their wholesale importation to this country,
where they have been ground up and used
as fertilizers, is going TO make good num-
mics scarce and high. When nation be-
comes so naughty and exacting that it de-
mands rhubarb pies, stimulated by the
gentlemen who furnished corn to Joseph
during the dry spell, and expects to pro-
mote its asparagus by means of dead mon
archs and the dust of heirs presumptuous
to the throne of Egypt, you can safely pre-
dict that mummies will be mummies be-
fore snow flies again. You can't eat your
cake and keep it too. Neither can yon
turn out mummy in Connecticut in two
DAYS which will take the place Of the real
thing. A jndge of those things will tell
you al once that the bouquet ID different.
| There is not the same nut-brown flavor
aud odor of poorly ventilated linesge
about the COnnectioutmade mummy
that there is about the Egyptian job.
The Egyptians had way of curing their
people good deal the same as our physi-
clans have now, viz by filling them full
of high priced drugs. Our physicians,
however, begin on man before he dies,
while the Egyptians, instead Of printing
bulletins about thin pulse, showing what
their respiration and temperature were,
and large amount of sick-roOm gossip,
which man hates to read after he has rs
covered, Just waited around till the gen.
tleman had been permitted to die quietly
in his own way, surrounded by his family,
that on the morning Of The f RESURRECTION stti -a &
toothbrush and Turkish bath would
make him look like new man,
The american bison and the Egyptian
mummy are fading away. The day will
come when those who have slaughtered
whole herds of buffalo for their tongues
and fertilized their timothy sod with the
dust of dynasties will 90 hungry. We may
think that an Egyptian cemetery has no
bottom to it and that true assure vein of
these people is practically inexhaustible,
but some day the foreman, working on the
lower level, will come to the surface and
state in hosTss accents that the pay streak
has pinched out The difference between
gas well, for instance, and q deposit of
emperors, is that the latter is not self-sus-
tanning. A gas we'll may continue to give
down or give up as the case may be, for
hundreds of years, but you cannot dig mp
kings and queens forever. Some day You
are certain to dig below their set and strike
another strata of society.
am now told that In many OF the mines
1 Egyptians are not found in paying quanti-
ties. AS result of this an inferior style
Of mummy is being made, both there on
the grounds and here in New York. was
shown last winter specimen made OH the
Bowery which was certainly a disgrace to
any city the size of New York. l claim
that the taste for the mummy is acquired,
and that those who affect them are gen.
orally people who like to 20 to fu-
nerals, especially to the funerals of
people who are more or Less shattered.
1t is not natural appetite, but like the
morbid desire to keep four-pound sachet
OF Limburger cheese in ones chiffoniere, is
the result of training. Still there ia de-
mand for the mummy, and if we are to
enter into competition with other nations
in their manufacture, let Us get mp class
Of mummy which will speak for itself, one
that will stand up in the library all
through the long. tedious summer weather
and yet never murmur or repine.
1t is hard to tell you exactly what you
had better do. but If you are like me you
can never be the same towards a mummy
after you have once suspected him. II
you doubt him, cast him aside and try to |
forget him. 1t will cost you q pang or two |
at first, but that is better than 10 be cursed |
by doubts all the time. You will meet
but you will miss him for few DAYS, but |
you can think ofsomething else as much |
as possible, and finally you will forget |
You might taper of on parrot. No one |
can give much time to any other great woe |
as long as they have q parrot. I once
knew man who had bone felon on his
finger aud parrot at the same time. He