Curiosities of Medical Experience Part 5

IV. THE AMERICAN.

Skin of a copper colour; hair black, stiff, straight, and sparing.

Forehead short; cheek-bones broad, but more arched and rounded than in the Mongolian variety; the orbits generally deep; the forehead and vertex frequently deformed by art; cranium usually light. The face broad, with prominent cheeks, not flattened, but with every part distinctly marked if viewed in profile; the eyes deep; the nose rather flat, but still prominent.

This comprehends all the American, excepting the Esquimaux.

V. THE MALAY.

Skin tawny; hair black, soft, curled, thick, and abundant; head rather narrow; forehead slightly arched; cheek-bones not prominent, upper jaw rather projecting. Face prominent at its lower part; the features viewed in profile more distinct; the nose full, broad, bottled at its point; mouth large.

This comprehends the inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean, of the Marian, Philippine, Molucca, and Sunda isles, and of the Peninsula of Malacca.

The Caucasian variety derives its name from _Mount Caucasus_, where we meet with a beautiful race--the Georgians; and because, so far as the imperfect light of history and tradition can guide us, the original abode of the species appears to have been in that quarter. In this cla.s.s are included all the ancient and modern Europeans; the a.s.syrians, Medes, Chaldeans, Sarmatians, Scythians, and Parthians; the Philistines, Phoenicians, Jews; the Turks, Persians, Arabians, and Hindoos of high caste. Blumenbach is inclined to believe that the primitive human race belonged to this variety. In support of this opinion it may be stated, that the part of Asia which seems to have been the cradle of the race has always been, and still is, inhabited by tribes of this formation; and the inhabitants of Europe in great part may be traced back for their origin to the West of Asia.

Are all these various tribes, brethren descended from one stock? or must we trace them to more than one? The physiologists who have ventured to express the latter opinion have been stigmatized by intolerance and blind bigotry as atheists and unbelievers; yet this question belongs to the domain of the naturalist, and the philosopher has an unqualified right to moot it without incurring the heinous charge of infidelity. To form an opinion on this difficult subject, it will be necessary, as Lawrence justly observes, to ascertain carefully all the differences that exist between the various races of men; to compare them with the diversities observed among animals; to apply to them all the light which human and comparative physiology can supply, and to draw our inferences concerning their nature and causes from all the direct information and all the a.n.a.logies which these considerations may unfold. "It is quite clear,"

continues the same ingenious writer, "that the Mosaic account makes all the inhabitants of the world descended from _Adam_ and _Eve_. The entire, or even the partial inspiration of the various writings comprehended in the Old Testament, has been and is doubted by many persons, including learned divines and distinguished Oriental and Biblical scholars. The account of the creation, and subsequent events, has the allegorical figurative character common to Eastern compositions, and it is distinguished amongst the cosmogonies by a simple grandeur and natural sublimity, as the rest of these writings are by appropriate beauties in their respective parts. The representation of all the animals being brought before Adam in the first instance, and subsequently of their all being collected in the ark, if we are to understand them as applied to the living inhabitants of the whole world, is zoologically impossible. How could the polar bear have traversed the torrid zone? If we are to believe that the original creation comprehended only a male and female of each species, or that one pair only was saved from an universal deluge, the difficulties are increased; the carnivorous animals must have perished with hunger, or destroyed most of the other species." On this obscure subject Adelung has expressed himself with much ingenuity: "Asia has been at all times regarded as the country where the human race had its beginning, and from which its increase was spread over the rest of the globe. Tracing the people up to tribes, and the tribes to families, we are conducted at last, if not by history, at least by the tradition of all old people, to a single pair, from which tribes and nations have been successively produced. What was the first family, and the first people descended from it?--where was it settled?--and how was it extended so as to fill the four large divisions of the globe? It is a question of fact, and must be answered by History. But History is silent: her first books have been destroyed by time; and the few lines preserved by _Moses_ are rather calculated to excite than to satisfy our curiosity.

"We must fancy to ourselves this first tribe endowed with all human faculties, but not possessing all knowledge and experience, the subsequent acquisition of which is left to the natural operation of time and circ.u.mstances. As Nature would not unnecessarily expose her first-born and inexperienced son to conflicts and dangers, the place of his early abode would be so selected that all his wants could be easily satisfied, and every thing essential to his existence be readily procured. He would be placed, in short, in a garden of paradise. Such a country is found in central Asia, between the 30th and 50th degrees of north lat.i.tude, and the 90th and 110th of east longitude (from Ferro); a spot which in respect to its height, can only be compared to the lofty plains of Quito in South America. Here, too, all the animals are found wild, which man has tamed for his use, and carried with him over the whole earth."

This ingenious historical investigation points out the east as the earliest and original seat of our species, the source of our domesticated animals and our princ.i.p.al vegetable food; but it by no means decides whether the globe was peopled by one or several original stocks.

The startling nature of this question on the first view of the subject must induce us to consider the circ.u.mstance of these five distinct varieties arising from one stock as miraculous; but when we compare them with the corresponding difference in animals, we can easily come to the conclusion that the various races of human beings are only to be regarded as varieties of a single species, without supposing the intervention of any supernatural agency.

The sceptic Voltaire, who evinced more wit than learning in his endeavours to invalidate Scriptural tradition by ridicule, thus expresses himself: "Il n'est permis qu'a un aveugle de douter que les blancs, les negres, les albinos, les Hottentots, les Lapons, les Chinois, les Americains, soient des races entierement differentes;" but had this philosopher been better versed in zoology and physiology, he would not have made so groundless an a.s.sertion. "a.n.a.logical and direct facts," says Dr. Elliotson, "lead to the conclusion that none of the differences among mankind are so great as to require the belief of their originality." A contrary opinion, however, should not be stigmatized by bigotry, for Locke has justly observed that only matters above human reason are the proper subjects of revelation; and Bacon has also maintained that religious and philosophical inquiries should be kept separate, and not pompously united. Dr. Bostock, than whom no man could be less sceptical, plainly admits that we do not find that the writer of the book of Genesis lays claim to any supernatural source of information with respect to natural phenomena, while the whole tenour of his work seems to show that on such topics he adopted the opinions which were current among his contemporaries.

The causes of the difference of our species have been the subject of as great a discrepance in opinion. Most of the Greek and Roman Historians have attributed it to the influence of climate; and amongst the moderns, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Buffon, and Zimmerman, have considered the modification of the individual and the degeneration of the offspring as the result of this external agency. Lord Kaimes, Hume, and many other philosophers, have entertained a contrary opinion. No doubt, the influence of climate may materially affect colour, stature, hair, features, and even the moral and intellectual character; but it must be considered as inadequate to act upon conformation. The prevalence of light colours in the animals of polar regions is well known: the arctic fox, the white bear, the snow-bunting, are striking instances of this peculiarity; but these circ.u.mstances are purely superficial. The skulls of these individuals are similar to those of the Europeans; nay, it is well known that light races are found among dark nations, and many protected parts of the body are blacker than those which are exposed. Buchanan tells us, that the Jews in Cochin are divided into white and black cla.s.ses, though born under the same parallel; the white Jews having been known there for upwards of one thousand seven hundred years. Dr. Shaw and Bruce describe a race of fair people, near Mount Aurasius in Africa, with red hair and blue eyes, and who are, according to tradition, descended from the Vandals. We find the red Peruvian, the brown Malay, and the white Abyssinian in the very zones peopled by jet black races. This influence of temperature upon colour frequently varies according to the seasons. Pallas observed that even in domestic animals, such as the horse and cow, the coat is of a lighter colour in winter. The Siberian roe, red in summer, is white in the winter; the fur of the sable and the martin is much deeper in the warm months; and the squirrel and mustela nivalis, which become white in Siberia and Russia, do not change their hue in Germany. The winter coat, it has been observed by naturalists, is found far advanced in the preparatory autumn. This bounteous provision of nature seems to have been extended to the vegetable kingdom and it has been observed that the pellicle of onions is much thicker on the approach of a severe winter than on that of a more temperate season. But if further proof were necessary to impugn this doctrine respecting climate, we may adduce the fact of a woman having borne twins of different complexions, a white and a black. With all due respect to the much-lamented Bishop Heber, we must receive with some degree of hesitation his a.s.sertion that the Persian, Greek, Tartar, and Arabian inhabitants of India, a.s.sume, in a few generations, without any intercourse with the Hindoos, a deep blue tint, little lighter than that of a negro; and that the Portuguese, during three hundred years' residence in that climate, have a.s.sumed the blackness of a Kaffer. The same learned prelate is of opinion that our European complexion was not primitive, but rather that of an Indian; an intermediate tint is perhaps the most agreeable to the eye and instinct of the majority of the human race. Dr.

Heber, perhaps, had not seen, in various Roman catholic treasures, portraits of the Virgin Mary, painted, according to tradition, by St.

Luke, and in which she is represented as a negress.

That solar heat produces blackness of the integuments is an ancient opinion, and is ill.u.s.trated by Pliny, who tells us, "aethiopes vicini sideris vapore torreri, adustisque similes gigni, barba et capillo vibrato, non est dubium." Buffon a.s.serts that "climate may be regarded as the chief cause of the different colours of man;" and Smith is of opinion "that from the pole to the equator we observe a gradation in the complexion nearly in proportion to the lat.i.tude of the country."

Blumenbach, under the same impression, endeavours to account for this black tinge by a chemical ill.u.s.tration somewhat curious. He states that the proximate cause of the dark colour is an abundance of carbon secreted by the skin with hydrogen, precipitated and fixed by the contact of the atmospheric oxygen. Our creoles, and the British inhabitants of India, may esteem themselves particularly fortunate in not being subject to this chemical operation!

On the other hand, it is well known that a black state of the skin has been produced in white races under peculiar circ.u.mstances; and Le Cat and Camper mention cases of women who turned dark during their pregnancy. It would be idle to dwell further on the hypothetic ill.u.s.trations regarding this supposed operation of climate, which the observation of every unprejudiced traveller can impugn. Yet the following remarks on the subject by an American divine, the Rev. J. S. Smith are worthy of notice:

"In tracing the globe from the pole to the equator we observe a gradation in the complexion nearly in proportion to the lat.i.tude of the country, immediately below the arctic circle a high and sanguine colour prevails.

From this you descend to the mixture of red and white. Afterwards comes the brown, the blue, the tawny, and at length the black as you proceed to the line. The same distance from the sun, however, does not in any degree indicate the same temperature of climate. Some secondary causes must be taken into consideration, in connecting and limiting its influence. The elevation of the land, its vicinity to the sea, the nature of the soil, the state of cultivation, the course of the winds, and many other circ.u.mstances enter into this view. Elevated and mountainous countries are cool in proportion to their alt.i.tude above the level of the sea, increasing to the ocean, just in opposite effects, in northern and southern lat.i.tudes; for the ocean being of a more equal temperature than the land, in one case corrects the cold, and in the other moderates the heat. Ranges of mountains, such as the Apennines in Italy, and Taurus, Caucasen, and Iman, in Asia, by interrupting the course of cold winds, render the quite dry country below them warmer, and the countries above them colder, than is equivalent to the proportionate difference of lat.i.tude. The frigid zone, in Asia, is much wider than it is in Europe; and that continent hardly knows a temperate zone."

Climate also receives some difference from the nature of the soil, and some from the degree of cultivation; sand is susceptible of greater heat than clay, and an uncultivated region shaded with forests and covered with undrained marshes, is more frigid in northern and more temperate in southern lat.i.tudes, than a country laid open to the direct and constant action of the sun. History informs us that when Germany and Scythia were bound in forests, the Romans often transported their armies across the frozen Danube; but since the civilization of those barbarous regions, the Danube rarely freezes.

Migration to other countries has also been adduced as one of the causes of variety in mankind; but the permanency of the characteristic distinctions of any race militates against this supposition. The physical character of the Celts, who peopled the west of Europe at an early period, is still observable in the Spaniard, most of the French, the native Welsh, the Manks, and the Scotch Highlander; whereas the German race, who occupied the more northern and eastern settlements, are still distinguished by their transparent skin, rosy complexion, flaxen hair, and blue eyes; and in Ireland, the race of the Danes and the Milesians can to this day be recognised in their respective characters. Shaw and Bruce traced the descendants of the Vandals who pa.s.sed from Spain into Africa in the fifth century; and, after a lapse of thirteen centuries, Bruce says that they are "fair like the English, their hair red, and their eyes blue." Negroes have been introduced into the New World for upwards of three centuries, where, despite of a new clime and different habits, they still retain the character of their race; and the Jews who have not intermarried out of their nation, have preserved their features for nineteen centuries.

Not only do we observe the peculiarities of physical conformation resisting the destructive or degenerating hand of time, but certain imperfections in their faculties have been equally permanent in certain tribes. It is a curious fact that the Mamelukes, who have resided in Egypt for upwards of five hundred and fifty years, have never perpetuated their subsisting issue. Volney observed, that there does not exist one single family of them in the second generation; all their children perishing in the first or second descent. The same observation applies to the Turks, who can only secure the continuance of their families by marrying native women, an union which the Mamelukes disdained. This singularity, remarked by Volney, has been since confirmed by late travellers.

It will be found that the progress of domestication, the natural result of civilized improvement, tends more materially to operate a wonderful change in the animal conformation, than any other supposed agency. The head of the domestic pig differs as much from that of the wild one as the Negro's from the Caucasian's. At Padua, it has been observed that fowls have a cranium perforated by numerous holes, and hollowed out like a sh.e.l.l. In some countries, nay districts, cattle and sheep have or have not horns; and in other instances sheep have so many of them as to have acquired the epithet of _polycerateous_. Wild animals continuing to inhabit the place that bore them, undergo little or no change, and their fossil remains and skeletons are similar to the present species; but nothing can form a stronger contrast to this specific uniformity than the numerous varieties to be found in those races that have been crossed in breed and domesticated by man. We could scarcely imagine that our sheep owe their origin to the mouflon or argali, (_ovis ammon_,) an animal large in size, fleet, and fierce. The sheep of Senegal and India are those that have undergone the least degradation; while those of Barbary, Egypt, Arabia, and Persia, have experienced greater degeneration. We daily see dogs degenerate before our eyes, and it has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained whether they arise from one or several species. Cuvier, in his diligent researches, has concluded that our oxen do not originate in the urus or bison of the ancients formerly found in various parts of Europe, and still met with in the forests of Lithuania, and on the Carpathian and Caucasian chains; but he is of opinion, from the examination of fossil remains, that, like the camel and the dromedary, the species has been destroyed by civilization: the causes of these changes do not appear to operate by altering the parents but disposing them to produce offsprings more or less dissimilar in colour, form, and disposition.

Dr. Prichard observes, that the negro slaves of the third and fourth generation differ materially from the natives of Africa.

In opposition to this doctrine, which admits this wonderful degeneration under the plastic influence of domestication, it has been shown that, as far as we know, the lapse of ages has not produced any change in the generality of animals. The zoological descriptions given by Aristotle twenty-two centuries ago apply distinctly to the same species of the present day, and every work of art in which these animals are represented corroborates the fact. Geoffroy de St. Hilaire brought numerous mummies of animals from the sepulchres of Egypt, and found no more difference between their skeletons and the osseous conformation of the present races, than in the relics of the human mummy and the bones of our contemporaries.

The following luminous conclusion of Lawrence ill.u.s.trates the observation of the foregoing fact: "If new characters are produced in the domestic animals because they have been taken from their primitive condition, and exposed to the operation of many, to them, unnatural causes,--if the pig is remarkable among these for the number and degrees of his varieties, because it has been the most exposed to causes of degeneration,--we shall be at no loss to account for the diversities in man, who is, in the true, though not in the ordinary sense of the word, more of a domesticated animal than any other. We know the wild state of most of them, but we are ignorant of the natural wild condition to which man was destined. Probably there is no such state; because Nature having limited him in no respect,--having fitted him for every kind of life, every climate, and every variety of food,--has given him the whole earth for his abode, and both the organized kingdoms for his nourishment. Yet, in the wide range through which the scale of human cultivation extends, we may observe a contrast between the two extremities, a.n.a.logous to that which is seen in the wild and tamed races of animals. The savage may be compared to the former, which range the earth uncontrolled by man; civilized people to the domesticated breeds of the same species, whose diversities of form and colour are endless."

It is therefore obvious that the various causes which operate upon animals in producing these alterations from the primitive race, although the manner in which they act is unknown, are sufficiently evident to convince us, by a.n.a.logy, that they may account for similar phenomena in the human race, without the gratuitous a.s.sumption of different original species, tending to invalidate the Mosaic account of the creation. Despite the witticisms of Voltaire and other philosophers on this subject, sound philosophy teaches us to a.s.sign the same causes to the same effects without calling in the advent.i.tious aid of other possible influences; and no difficulties prevent us from recognising the unity of the human species, which are not applicable to all other animals.

ON THE INHUMATION OF THE DEAD IN CITIES.

From time immemorial, medical men have strongly pointed out to munic.i.p.al authorities the dangers that arise from burying the dead within the precincts of cities or populous towns. Impressed with the same conviction, ancient legislators only allowed to the most ill.u.s.trious citizens a sepulchre in the temple of the G.o.ds. Euclides was interred in the temple of Diana Euclis, as a reward for his pious journey to Delphi in search of the sacred fire; the Magnesians erected a monument to Themistocles in their forum; Euphron received the same honour in Corinth; and Medea buried her two sons, Mermerus and Pheres, under the protection of Juno Acraea's altars, to guard their ashes from their persecutors. Lycurgus was perhaps the only Grecian legislator who recommended inhumation in temples and in cities, to accustom youth to the daily spectacle of death.

The primitive Grecians, it appears, buried their dead in or about their dwellings; and we find a law amongst the Thebans, ordaining that every person who built a house should provide a repository for the dead upon his premises. In latter days, both Grecians and Romans erected their tombs outside of their cities, and chiefly by the road-side. It appears also, that, among the Romans, the bodies of the lower orders were promiscuously cast into wells, called _fruticuli_. Horace seems to allude to this practice. _Hoc miserae plebi stabat commune sepulchrum._ The funerals of the wealthy patricians appear to have been most sumptuous and costly, the pall formed of valuable materials and decorated with splendid ornaments.

Thus Statius:

_Ditantur flammae: non unquam opulentioan ille ante cinis: crepitant gemmae: atque immane litescit argentum, et pietis exsudat vestibus aurum._ The laws of the twelve tables prohibited the practice of this waste of gold.

Both religious and civil motives might have dictated the propriety of this regulation. The traveller, setting out upon a journey, and pa.s.sing by the sepulchres of his sires, could in the presence of their manes invoke their protection; and on his return to his penates, safe from danger, he could put up thanks to the G.o.ds for his preservation. As a prudential measure, the interment of the dead beyond the walls of their towns prevented the fatal consequences that might have arisen from extensive putrefaction and infection, and moreover the burning of bodies would have exposed the adjoining buildings to the danger of frequent fires. It is also possible that policy dictated these sanatory enactments. The ancients held the remains of the departed as a sacred trust, in the defence of which they were ever prepared to fall; and it is not improbable that their warriors would have rushed forth to meet the invader, before he would have defiled, by his approach to their cities, the ashes of their ancestors. So scrupulously religious were the Athenians in performing the funeral rites of the dead, that they put to death ten of their commanders, after the battle of Arginusae, for not having committed to the earth the dead bodies that floated on the waters. Such was the dread of being deprived of sepulchral rites, that it is related of several citizens of Cappadocia, that during the pestilence that devastated their town in the reign of Gallus and Valerian, they actually shut themselves up to perish in their tombs.

There is no doubt but that their dead were buried in such a manner as not to prove injurious to the survivors; and Seneca plainly says, "Non defunctorum causa, sed vivorum, inventa est sepultura." The ancients both burned and buried their dead, but inhumation appears to have been the most early and the most approved rite. "Let the dead be buried," says a law of Cecrops. Solon justifies the claims of the Athenians to the island of Salamis, from the circ.u.mstance of the dead bodies interred on its sh.o.r.es having been inhumed according to the Athenian custom, with their feet turned to the west, whereas the Megarensians turned theirs to the east.

In various instances the burial or the burning appear to have been adopted upon philosophical doctrines. Democritus, with a view to facilitate resurrection, recommended interment, and Pliny thus ridicules the intention: "Similis et de a.s.servandis corporibus hominum, et reviviscendis promissa a Democrito vanitas, qui non revivixit ipse." Herac.l.i.tus, who considered fire as the first principle, advocated the funeral pile; while Thales, who deemed water the chief element, urged the propriety of committing the departed to the damp bosom of the earth. Although burning the dead was customary, there were curious exceptions to the rule. Infants who died before cutting their teeth, persons struck dead with lightning, were buried. The place of interment of infants was called the _suggrundarium_.

The early Christians inhumed the bodies of their martyrs in their temples.

This honour was afterwards conferred on the remains of distinguished citizens, ill.u.s.trious prelates, and princes. The infectious diseases which at various periods arose from this custom, induced Theodosius, in his celebrated code, strictly to prohibit it; and he even ordered that the remains of the dead thus inhumed should be removed out of Rome. The vanity of man, and the cupidity of the priesthood, soon overruled these wise regulations. Every family possessing sufficient means, claimed a vault within the churches, and thereby the revenues of the clergy were materially increased. At all times, even the dead appeared to have shared with the living the obligation of supporting the ministers of the altar.

By a law of Hippias, the priestesses of Minerva received a choenix[6] of wheat, and one of barley, with an obolus, for every individual who departed this life. The _libitinarii_ of the Romans fulfilled the duties of our undertakers, or rather of the directors of funeral pomp of the French; yet they were attached to the temple of the G.o.ddess Libitina, whose priests received a fee in silver for every one who died, under the name of _Libitinae ratio_. Suetonius informs us, that in Nero's time the mortality was so great during one autumn, that thirty thousand of these silver pieces were deposited in the fatal treasury. To increase the emoluments of this sacerdotal body, these _libitinarii_ sold at high prices every thing that was requisite for the funeral ceremonies, received a toll at the city gate through which the bodies were carried out, as well as at the entrance of the amphitheatre through which the dead gladiators were borne away. Phaedrus alludes to this speculation in one of his fables, when speaking of a miser,

Qui circ.u.mcidis omnem impensam funeris, Libitina ne quid de tuo faciat lucrum.

It is supposed that this avaricious divinity owed her name to the displeasure which it must have occasioned to all who heard it,--_qud nemini libeat_; but it is also possible that it was derived from her bearing poor mortals away, whenever she fancied it, and _ad libitum_.

In more modern times, Theodolphus, Bishop of Orleans, complained to Charlemagne that lucre and vanity had converted churches into charnel-houses, disgraceful to the clergy and perilous to the community.

It was upon this representation that this prince, in his capitularies, prohibited burials in churches under heavy penalties. But the laws of the wisest could not prevent priesthood from considering this source of emolument, although endangering public salubrity, an indisputable property that could not be meddled with without endangering the church.

In England the custom of burying the dead in churches was first sanctioned by Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 758, it having been previously forbidden by Augustine, who had decreed that no corpse either of prince or prelate should be buried within the walls of a city.

In France, Maret in 1773, and Vicq d'Azyr in 1778, pointed out the danger of this practice in such glaring colours, that government by an edict, only allowed church interment to certain dignitaries; but in 1804, by a wise law that should be enforced in every civilized country, inhumation in cities was entirely abolished. Amongst the numerous well authenticated evil results of burying in churches that led to this wise prohibition, the following were the most striking and circ.u.mstantial:

In 1773, in Saulieu, Burgundy, an epidemic disease arising from the inhumation of a corpse in the church of St. Saturnin created considerable alarm. The body of a corpulent person had been interred on the 3d of March, and a woman was buried near it on the 20th of April following: both had died of a reigning fever. During the last burial a fetid effluvia arose from the vault, which pervaded the whole church; and, out of one hundred and seventy persons who were present, one hundred and forty-nine were attacked with the prevailing malady, although its progress had been arrested amongst the other inhabitants of the town.

In 1774, a similar accident occurred in a village near Nantes, where several coffins were removed in a vault, to make room for the lord of the manor: fifteen of the bystanders died from the emanation.

In 1744, one-third of the inhabitants of Lectouse perished from a fever of a malignant character that manifested itself after some works that required the removal of a burial-ground. Two destructive epidemics swept away large proportions of the population of Riom and Ambert, two towns in Auvergne.

Taking this matter under consideration in a moral, or even a religious light, it may be questioned whether any advantage can accrue from the continuance of this pernicious custom, which during the prevalence of epidemic diseases endangers the life of every person who resides near a church. Does it add to the respect which the remains of the dead are ent.i.tled to? Certainly not: the constant tolling of "the sullen bell"--the daily cortege of death that pa.s.ses before us--the graves that we hourly contemplate, perusing monumental records which more frequently excite unseasonable laughter than serious reflection--every thing, in short, tends to make death of little or no moment, except to those who have heard the mutes gossiping at their door. So accustomed, indeed, are we from our childhood to sepulchral scenes, that, were it not for the parish-officers, our churchyards would become the playground of every truant urchin; and how often do we behold human bones become sportive baubles in the wanton pranks of the idlers, who group around the gravedigger's preparations! So callous are we to all feelings of religious awe when surrounded with the dead, that our cemeteries are not unfrequently made the rendezvous of licentiousness and the a.s.sembly-ground of crime, where thieves cast lots upon a tomb for the division of their spoil.