Читать книгу Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself. Vol. II (of 2) - Bird Robert Montgomery - Страница 5

The reflection that I possessed the power (already thrice successfully exercised) to transfer my spirit, whenever I willed it, from one man's body to another, and so get rid of any afflictions that might beset me, was highly agreeable, and, under the present circumstances, consolatory. But there was one drawback to my satisfaction; and that was a discovery which I now made, that men's bodies were not to be had every day, at a moment's warning. This was the more provoking, as I knew there was no lack of them in the world, between eighty and ninety thousand men, women, and children having given up the ghost in the natural way that very day, whose corses would be on the morrow consigned to miserable holes in the earth, where they could and would be of no service to any person or persons whatever, the young doctors only excepted.

And here I cannot help observing, that it is an extremely absurd practice thus to dispose of – to squander and throw away, as I may call it – the hosts of human bodies that are annually falling dead upon our hands; whereas, with the least management in the world, they might be converted into objects of great usefulness and value.

According to the computation of philosophers, the population of the world may be reckoned in round numbers at just one thousand millions; of which number the annual mortality, at the low rate of three in a hundred, is thirty millions – and that without counting the extra million or two knocked on the head in the wars. Let us see what benefit might be derived from a judicious disposition of this mountain of mortality – I say mountain, for it is plain such a number of bodies heaped together would make a Chimborazo. The great mass of mankind might be made to subserve the purpose for which nature designed them, namely – to enrich the soil from which they draw their sustenance. According to the economical Chinese method, each of these bodies could be converted into five tons of excellent manure; and the whole number would therefore produce just one hundred and fifty millions of tons; of which one hundred and fifty thousand, being their due proportion, would fall to the share of the United States of America, enabling our farmers, in the course of ten or twelve years, to double the value of their lands. This, therefore, would be a highly profitable way of disposing of the mass of mankind. Such a disposition of their bodies would prove especially advantageous among American cultivators in divers districts, as a remedy against bad agriculture, and as the only means of handing down their fields in good order to their descendants. Such a disposition of bodies should be made upon every field of victory, so that dead heroes might be made to repair some of the mischiefs inflicted by live ones. The English farmers, it is well known, made good use of the bones left on the field of Waterloo; and though they would have done much better had they carried off the flesh with them, they did enough to show that war may be reckoned a good as well as an evil, and a great battle looked upon as a public blessing. A similar disposition (to continue the subject) of their mortal flesh might be, with great propriety, required, in this land, of all politicians and office-holders, from the vice-president down to the county collector; who, being all patriots, would doubtless consent to a measure that would make them of some use to their country. As for the president, we would have him reserved for a nobler purpose; we would have him boiled down to soap, according to the plan recommended by the French chymists, to be used by his successor in scouring the constitution and the minds of the people.

In this manner, I repeat, the great bulk of human bodies could be profitably appropriated; but other methods should be taken with particular classes of men, who might claim a more distinguished and canonical disposition of their bodies. The rich and tender would esteem it a cruelty to be disposed of in the same way with the multitude. I would advise, therefore, that their bodies should be converted into adipocire, or spermaceti, to be made into candles, to be burnt at the tops of the lamp-posts; whereby those who never shone in life might scintillate as the lights of the public for a week or two after. Their bones might be made into rings and whistles, for infant democrats to cut their teeth on.

The French and Italian philosophers, as I have learned from the newspapers, have made sundry strange, and, as I think, useful discoveries, in relation to the practicability of converting the human body into different mineral substances. One man changes his neighbour's bones into fine glass; a second turns the blood into iron; while a third, more successful still, transforms the whole body into stone. If these things be true, and I have no reason to doubt them, seeing that I found them, as I said before, in the newspapers, they offer us new modes of appropriation, applicable to the bodies of other interesting classes. Lovers might thus be converted into jewels, which, although false, could be worn with less fear of losing them than happens with living inamoratos; or, in case of extreme grief on the part of the survivers, into looking-glasses, where the mourners would find a solace in the contemplation of their own features. The second process, namely, the conversion of blood into iron, would be peculiarly applicable in the case of soldiers too distinguished to be cast into corn-fields; and, indeed, nothing could be more natural than that those whose blood we buy with gold, should pay us back our change in iron. The last discovery could be turned to equal profit, and would do away with the necessity of employing statuaries in all cases where their services are now required. But I would confine the process of petrifaction to those in whom Nature had indicated its propriety by beginning the process herself. None could with greater justice claim to have their bodies turned into stone, than those whose hearts were of the same material; and I should propose, accordingly, that such a transformation of bodies should be made only in the case of tyrants, heroes, duns, and critics.

But this subject, though often reflected on, I have had no leisure to digest properly. For which reason, begging the reader's pardon for the digression, I shall now leave it, and resume my story.