There can be no doubt of the superior economy of cremation, over earth-burial. The notions of an “expensive process,” and the “immense quantities of fuel,” have no foundation in practice. If the ashes, as has been sometimes the case, were given to the winds, or cast upon the waters, the expense of cremation would be exceedingly small. But cremation, however inexpensive, in itself, has led to unmeasured extravagance, in the matter of urns of the most costly materials, and workmanship, of which an ample account may be found, in the Hydriotaphia of Sir Thomas Browne, London, 1835, vol. iii. p. 449.
More remarkable changes have occurred, in modern times, than a revival of the practice of cremation. It is an error, however, to suppose this practice to have been the original mode of dealing with the dead. It was very general about the year 1225, B. C., but the usage, at the present day, was, doubtless, the primitive practice of mankind. So thought Cicero, De Legibus ii. 22. “Ac mihi quidem antiquissimum sepulturæ genus id fuisse videtur, quo apud Xenophontem Cyrus utitur. Redditur enim terræ corpus, et ita locatum ac situm, quasi operimento matris obducitur.”
Nevertheless, there is a strong cremation party among us. Who would not save sixpence, if he could, even in a winding-sheet! Should the wood and lumber interest be fairly represented, in our city councils, it would not be surprising, if there should be a majority, in favor of taking the remains of our citizens to Nova Scotia, to be burnt, rather than to Malden, to be buried. My friends, Birch, Touchwood, and Deal, are of this opinion; and would be happy to receive the citizens on board their regular coasters, for this purpose, at a reasonable price, per hundred, or by the single citizen—packed in ice.
An experienced person will be always on hand, to receive the corpses. Religious services will be duly performed, during the burning, without extra charge; and, should the project find favor with the public, a regular line of funeral coasters, with appropriate emblems, and figure-heads, will, in due time, be established. Those, who prefer the more economical mode of water-burial, for their departed relatives, thereby saving the expense of fuel altogether, will be accommodated, if they will leave orders in writing, with the masters on board, who will personally superintend the dropping of the bodies, off soundings.
No. LXXV.
While attempting to rectify the supposed mistakes of other men, we sometimes commit egregious blunders ourselves. In turning over an old copy of John Josselyn’s Voyages to New England, in 1638 and 1663, my attention was attracted, by a particular passage, and a marginal manuscript note, intended to correct what the annotator supposed, and what some readers might suppose, to be a blunder of the printer, or the author. The passage runs thus—“In 1602, these North parts were further discovered by Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold. The first English that planted there, set down not far from the Narragansetts Bay, and called their Colony Plimouth, since old Plimouth, An. Dom., 1602.” The annotator had written, on the margin, “gross blunder,” and, in both instances, run his indignant pen through 1602, and substituted 1620. There are others, doubtless, who would have done the same thing. The first aspect of the thing is certainly very tempting. The text, nevertheless, is undoubtedly correct. It is altogether likely, that the matter, stated by Josselyn, can be found, so stated by no other writer. In 1602, Gosnold discovered the Elizabeth Islands, and built a house, and erected palisades, on the “Island Elizabeth,” the westernmost of the group, whose Indian name was Cuttyhunk. In 1797, Dr. Jeremy Belknap visited this interesting spot. “We had the supreme satisfaction,” says he, Am. Biog. ii. 115, “to find the cellar of Gosnold’s store-house!”
Hutchinson, i. 1, refers expressly to the passage, in Josselyn; and after stating that Gosnold discovered the Elizabeth Islands, in 1602, and built a fort there, and intended a settlement, but could not persuade his people to remain, he adds, in a note—“This, I suppose, is what Josselyn, and no other author, calls the first colony of New Plimouth, for he says it was begun in 1602, and near Narragansett Bay.”
The writer of a “Topographical Description of New Bedford,” M. H. C., iv. 234, states, that the island, on which Gosnold built his fort and store-house, was Nashaun, and refers to Dr. Belknap’s Biography. The New Bedford writer is wrong, in point of fact, and right, in point of reference. Dr. Belknap published the first volume of his Biography, in 1794, containing a short notice of Gosnold, in which, p. 236, he says—“The island, on which Gosnold and his companions took up their abode, is now called by its Indian name, Nashaun, and is the property of the Hon. James Bowdoin, of Boston, to whom I am indebted for these remarks on Gosnold’s journal.” The writer of the description of New Bedford published his account, the following year, and relied on Dr. Belknap, who unfortunately relied on his informant, who, it seems, was entirely mistaken.
Dr. Belknap published his second volume, in 1798, with a new and more extended memoir of Gosnold, in which, p. 100, he remarks—“The account of Gosnold’s voyage and discovery, in the first volume of this work, is so erroneous, from the misinformation, which I had received, that I thought it best to write the whole of it anew. The former mistakes are here corrected, partly from the best information which I could obtain, after the most assiduous inquiry; but principally from my own observations, on the spot; compared with the journal of the voyage, more critically examined than before.”