New-York tribune., 1907-06-30
ANCESTRAL HOMES.
HoSc EUery Nan May LiUe in the
House of His Fathers at Small Cost,

House of His Fathers at Small Cost.
The price of building materials has been go
ing up for ten years. and conservative judges Of
the situation declare that there Is no hope Of Q
return to former prices The average man to-
day finds It impossible for him to consider buy
ing any kind Of residence save a castle in Spain
Even a five room summer cottage built OF cigar
box planks reinforced with wall paper is almost
unattainable automobile With this
market Information a starter. the reader viii
be able to commend tntelligently the invention
Of Boston inventor, who has discovered
method of cheap home building
Our inventor-we say 1t with all telberatfo,-
has revolutionized the building trade and solved
the homeseeker's problem He has patented a
brick made out Of the human body With thar
carelessness characteristics OF genius, the in
ventor experimental upon himself nrst He
committed suicide. after leaving written instruc-
tions to have his corpse cremated and worked
up into bricks. Had he only bought soma cheaD.
secondhand corpses from any medical school bs
might have built for himself human habitatfon.
started a stock company In competition to tha
brick trust and become rich Let US not wesp
though. because he threw himself into his inven-
ton; 1t is natural for a great man 70 put his
was a patent brick. 1t was only fitting that ha
should disappear into It. Instead Of sorrowing.
therefore, let US calmly inspect the everlasting
monument, to Wit the bricks. raised by this
noble soul and understand what blessing tbs
inventor has bestowed upon posterity.
The end Of high prices is at hand. Take few
statistics into consideration. An eminent doctor
said recently that within another decade no
fewer than fifteen million people year would
be dying from Bright's disease alone while all
bricks haf- m will
claiming their due share Suppose that ell over
the world twenty million human brickyards ara
opened up annually; maybe the figure is high
but 1t is q convenient number. Each little brick
yard has an average output Of twenty pounds OF
brickdust which, when mixed with little GEM
ent and water and worked up into hollow fire.
proof tiles. would give at least four large bricks
or the most approved pattern, filing wall
space OF about a cubic foot It IS obvious froEss
these scrupulously exact computations that a
decade or two Of mortalities would bring the
price OF houses down to respectable figure
Ten years would yield 100000, 900 cubic feet OF
walls. and If good epidemic came along maybs
an extra ten million.
OF course, We must expect some foolish oppo-
sition to the idea OF houses made OF hands. feet
heads and curly mustaches. Many Ignorant
folks will probably protest that their privacy
would be broken in upon by having ths walls
OF their dining rooms filed with the solid middle
class OF a previous generation. It IS bad enough,
they will say, that the very walls have ears:
now infinitely worse, then for them 70 have
eyes. noses and tonguesI But this prejudice Is
unfair; these ancestors. rising tier upon tier
around the dining room. are bricks every one
of them. They can be trusted. Other people
VIII complain no doubt. at having their relatives
Incorporated IN their domiciles because they
have had enough visits from their connections
during life to last for a generation OF two Fur
thermore, IL an old aunty knew that she was
v,Io, -
she would feel justified in making longer and
more frequent visits. True though this Is we
feel that 1T Is minor objection. A more serious
one advanced by some young people. is tbas
pehurious relatives would offer themselves as
wedding gifts 10 young married couples the
craze for making useful presents for the br4ss,s
nome now being at Its height But we ask,
would not any young couple free from faIss
sentiment De glad 10 receive a fine home of fire.
proor brick from sixty-three uncIes aunts cou-
sins and others of the clan? Has not such a
present something personal in IT? Does II not
bring the giver with 1t?
NO. we find unlimited opportunities for DELI
cate touches OF true sentiment in future archi-
lecture II human bricks come into vogue Build
Ihss can De constructed out of materials har-
monious with their purposes. Instead of making
jats and cathedrals out of the same noonotoDors
granite and limestone. men with a feeling for
the eternal fitness of things will build penitan-
tiaries out or bricks made of the bodies of ths
graduates OF the latter institutions Citv halls
VIII be built OF the bodies OF dead politicians:
and here. with the unlimited supply OF material
the most towering edifices can be erected at
small cost. Churches will be fashioned out OF
the millions who have been preached to death:
schooIs out of those who have been taught to
death; hospitals out OF patients experimented
upon; railway stations out of the victims OF
smash-ups and those who have dropped dead
from heart disease while running for the train;
saloons out of picked jagsters-and who can
finish the list? Truly. the poet saw with pro-
phetic vision when he spoke of men rising on
stepping stones of their dead selves to higher
things. While our inventor has not succeeded
IN making il possible for the tenants Of house
TO use themselves walls and stairs. yet ths
poets words have been realized in SO far as
mans ancestors are only his defunct prototypes.
a flight OF stairs made OF ancestral bricks would
give one the feeling that the human race was
rising to higher things in the second and third s
stories on stepping stones of dead selves
The ancestral homo WILL we think. prove pop
ular. Men will have such opportunity to eis-
play their lineage by the size Of human brick
houses built exclusively of their relatives. Par
venus Will be forced to purchase pauper anu
criminal bricks in lieu of grandfather ties,
While the poor but long descended citizen VIII
dwell in a palace of a hundred generations, Fam
lily pride and anti-race suicide will have com
mercial value. thanks to the invention; and TN
alone VIII make the human brick II mooe