Part 5

‘I refused point blank. “Well,” he said, “I rely on your honour not to peach.” He knew he had caught me. My master took an early opportunity of having me flogged on a charge of insolence; the magistrates were two friends who had been dining with him. My tempter came to me again, and, on the next opportunity, I drove in the bullocks and became a _thief_. Having begun I could not stop; my tempter became my tyrant; to drown care I began to drink and to associate with the old hands, and then the money, for which I had resigned body and soul, melted away. What I saved up I knew not what to do with, and so I went on getting worse and worse, until one day, just as I was driving a pair of young heifers into the butcher’s yard, I was arrested, tried, and convicted on the evidence of my fellow-servant, who, having been found out in another robbery, saved himself by turning on me. I was sentenced to three years hard labour in an iron gang on the Blue mountains. What I suffered in those three years no tongue can tell. I was coupled with a wretch who had been a thief from his childhood, a burglar, and a murderer, but there was one man, a political prisoner sentenced to the iron gang for striking his overseer, who saved me, and spoke words of comfort to me; my term was shortened a year for rescuing a gentleman from a bush ranger, and Major Z—— having left the colony, I was assigned to my present master. In another year I shall have my ticket, but what I shall do heaven only knows. I have had one letter from my wife; she was living as dairy-maid with one of the Miss Caltons, who had married a country gentleman; they were very good to her, and I think her letter, full of good words, helped to save me from total ruin. But you, sir, are almost the only gentleman that has spoken a kind word to me in the Colony. We live like beasts of the field, working and well-fed, but nothing more. On many stations the prisoners don’t even know when Sunday comes round, and we die like dogs.’

Here he paused: and I felt so much affected by his melancholy story, that I could not at the time answer him, or offer any words of comfort.

* * * * *

In my various wanderings I lost sight of Carden for two or three years; but one day as I was going down to Sydney with a mob of horses of my own for sale, at a roadside inn I met Jem Carden, at the head of a party of splitters and fencers doing some extensive work in the neighbourhood on a new station; he was looking thin, haggard, nervous, and was evidently ashamed to meet me. In fact he was only just recovering from a drunken spree; I taxed him with his folly; he owned it, and showed me the cause. He could earn with ease at piece-work, from 5_l._ to 8_l._ a week, building stations and stockyards. Twice he had saved, and paid into the hands of apparently respectable parties, 40_l._, to remit for the passage of his wife and daughter. The first time the dashing Mr. W—— was insolvent two days after receiving the money. In the second instance he was kept nine months in suspense, and then learned from England by letter and in the Sydney list of bankrupts, that he had been again swindled. ‘And what,’ he asked, when he had concluded this tale of pitiful, contemptible robbery, ‘what can a poor fellow do but drink his cares away, when all striving to be honest and happy is in vain!’

I thought, but did not say, how uneven were the laws that sent Jem to the iron gang for stealing a bullock, and had no punishment for those who devoured his hard earnings, and laughed at him from their carriages. Thank God, a better system has been established, and government now charges itself with the passage money of poor men’s relations.

But barren sympathy was of little use, so I turned to the ploughman, and said, ‘What money have you left?’ ‘About 10_l._ in the landlord’s hands; he’s an honest man, although a publican.’ ‘And what are you to have from this contract?’ ‘My share will be over 40_l._, and I can get it done in less than six weeks, working long hours.’ ‘Then hand me over the 10_l._, give me your solemn promise not to touch anything stronger than Bushman’s tea for twelve months, and to let me have 30_l._ out of your contract when I return this way, and I will send the money for you.’

To cut this long story short, I put the business in the hands of my excellent friend B******, one of the modern race of Australians, wealthy, warm-hearted, and liberal, who was on his way to England. Within a year the ploughman embraced his wife; they returned with me to my station, they passed some years with me, and some eventful scenes, before the district round me was settled. They have now a station and farm of their own; they are growing rich, as all such industrious people do in Australia, but they have not forgotten that they once were poor. If you need a subscription for a church, a school, or a sick emigrant, you may go to Mr. Carden, safe of a generous answer. It is Mr. Carden now; and perhaps that fine little boy may sit a native Representative in an Australian Parliament. A tall youth who rides beside him, is not his son but the orphan child of a poor prisoner, whom he adopted ‘to make up in part,’ as he expressed it, ‘for what happened long ago.’

Lucy Carden, now the mother of a numerous brood of Australians, has grown happy and portly, although you may trace on her mild features the tide marks of past griefs.

The last time I saw them I was on my way to England. ‘Oh, sir,’ said the happy husband and father, ‘tell the wretched and the starving how honest, _sober_ labour is sure of a full reward here. Tell them that here poverty may be turned to competence, crime to repentance and happiness. And pray tell the great gentlemen who rule us that we much need both preachers and teachers in this wide Bush of Australia, but that it is _virtuous wives who rule us most_, and in a lovely land make the difference between happiness and misery.’

HEATHEN +and+ CHRISTIAN BURIAL.

If, from the heights of our boasted civilisation, we take a retrospect of past history, or a survey of other nations—savage nations included,—we shall, with humiliation, be forced to acknowledge that in no age and in no country have the dead been disposed of so prejudicially to the living as in Great Britain. Consigning mortal remains to closely-packed burial-grounds in crowded cities; covering—scarcely interring them—so superficially that exposure sometimes shocks the sentiments, while the exhalations of putrefaction always vitiate the air, is a custom which prejudice has preserved the longest to this land. A calculation made by Dr. Playfair, and quoted by the Board of Health in their admirable report on Burials, estimates the amount of noxious gases evolved annually from the metropolitan grave-yards alone at 55.261 cubic feet per acre. The average of corpses packed into each acre is 1117; therefore, as 52,000 interments take place every year, the entire amount of poison-gas emitted per annum to enter the lungs of the Londoners, and hasten their descent to the grave to contribute fresh supplies for their successors, is 2,572,580 cubic feet.

It is our present purpose to see whether such a fact can be paralleled by researches into the past or by a short survey of the manners and customs of existing savage life itself—adding such of the singular or instructive funeral ceremonies of the various people as will prove interesting.

Among the most ancient records are those of the Egyptians. The care of that extraordinary people for their dead, both as to actual preservation and that they should not become noxious to the living, has never been surpassed. This partly arose, it is true, from a superstitious reverence for the material part of man; but that superstition doubtless originated from the wise sanitary regulations of their early sages. The laws of Leviticus—many of them instituted to prevent disease and the depreciation of the species—formed, in like manner, a main part of the religion of the Jews.

The ancient Egyptians believed that the soul would return, after the lapse of ages, to inhabit, in this world, the same body from which it had been separated by death. In this belief commenced the process of embalming by which the bodies of that people have been preserved with wonderful integrity to the present day. To so extraordinary a point had the antiseptic art been brought that, as appears from Diodorus, there was a mode of preservation which ensured the retaining of the eyebrows, eyelashes, and the general external character of the person, who could be recognised by their form and features. ‘Whence,’ says Dr. Pocock, in his Travels through Egypt, ‘many of the Egyptians kept the bodies of their ancestors in houses [but never near their own residences] adorned at a very great expense, and had the pleasure to see their forefathers, who had been dead many years before they were born, and to observe all their features as well as if they were living.’ The painter’s art has in modern times superseded these curious picture galleries.

Another peculiarity could not have been due to superstition, but to a more rational care of the living than we at present evince, namely, the distance of their great burial-places from their chief cities. The Nile intervened; the Necropoli, including the range of stupendous pyramids, were formed on the western, while the most considerable towns were on the eastern bank of that river. Diodorus gives an interesting account of the ceremonies arising out of this wise arrangement.

‘Those who prepare to bury a relative, give notice of the day intended for the ceremony, to the Judges and all the friends of the deceased, informing them that the body will pass over the lake of that district, or that part of the Nile, to which the dead belonged; when, on the Judges assembling to the number of more than forty, and ranging themselves in a semicircle on the further side of the lake, the vessel provided for this purpose is set afloat. It is guided by a pilot called in the Egyptian language, _Charon_; and hence they say that Orpheus, travelling in old times into Egypt, and seeing this ceremony, formed the fable of the infernal regions, partly from what he saw, and partly from invention. The vessel being launched on the lake, before the coffin which contains the body is put on board, the law permits all who are so inclined, to bring forward an accusation against it. If any one steps forth, and proves that the deceased had led an evil life, the Judges pronounce sentence, and the body is precluded from burial; but if the accuser is convicted of injustice in his charge, he himself incurs a considerable penalty. When no accuser appears, or when the accusation is proved to be false, the relations present change their expressions of sorrow into praises of the dead.’ The author adds, that many kings had been judicially deprived of the honours of burial by the indignation of their people; and that the dread of such a fate had the most salutary influence on the lives of the Egyptian sovereigns.

Two singular coincidences will occur to the reader on perusing this passage:—A _postmortem_ trial, precisely similar to that described above, forms part of the Roman Catholic ritual of Canonising a Saint. Before the defunct can be inscribed in the Calendar, a person appears to set forth all the involuntary candidate’s sins and backslidings during life; and if these be of a venal character he is rejected. This officer is called ‘The Devil’s advocate.’ Secondly, the ancient Egyptian and excellent system of funereal water conveyance is, it would appear, to be revived. In the Report of the Board of Health, dated two thousand years later than that of Diodorus Siculus, the most extensive new burial-place recommended, is to be on the borders of the Thames; and one of the Board’s propositions runs thus:—

‘That, considering the river as a highway passing through the largest extent of densely-peopled districts, the facilities for establishing houses of reception on its banks, the conveniences arising from the shorter distances within the larger portion of the same area for the removal of the bodies to such houses of reception, the advantages of steam boat conveyance over that by railway in respect to tranquillity, and the avoidance of any large number of funerals at any one point, at any one time, and of any interference with common traffic and with the throng of streets; and, lastly, taking into account its great comparative cheapness, it is desirable that the chief metropolitan cemetery should be in some eligible situation accessible by water carriage.’

The case of the Jews is stronger than that of the Egyptians, as showing saner modes of burial than we have so long persisted in. They had no especial regard for the mere body, except as the temple of the soul; hence, a burial-place was, with them, _the house of the living_; an expression finely implying that death is the parent of immortal life. Their cemeteries were always in sequestered spots. In the 23rd chap. of Genesis we find that Abraham, when his wife Sarah died, desired a family burying-ground from the tribe among whom he lived:—

‘And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying,

‘I am a stranger and a sojourner with you; give me possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead _out of my sight_.’

A ready consent was given, and he was offered the choice of their sepulchres. But this did not satisfy him: he wished to obtain the Cave of Machpelah, and the field in which it lay, from Ephron, the son of Zohar. The generous proprietor offered it as a gift, but the Patriarch purchased it. Thus the first transference on record of real property was the acquisition, in perpetuity, by the patriarch Abraham, of a family burying-ground especially selected for its seclusion.

Nor was the classic heathen of a more western clime less mindful of public health in his modes of disposing of the dead. The Romans, being largely indebted to the Greeks for their science, literature, arts, and habits of life, of course adopted their funeral ceremonies; and one general description may suffice for those of both. By law of the Twelve Tables, burial was prohibited within the city of Rome, and therefore cemeteries were provided without the walls.[D]

[D] ‘_Hominem Mortuum in urbe ne sepelito neve urito._’

Immediately after the death, the body was washed, anointed with aromatic unguents, and sometimes embalmed. It was shrouded in fine linen; white with the Greeks and black with the Romans. If the departed was a person of rank, he was clothed in his garments of ceremony, kept for seven days during the preparations for the funeral, and lay in state in the vestibule of his house, at the door of which were placed branches of pine or cypress, together with the hair of the deceased, which had been consecrated to the infernal deities. In Rome, between death and burial seven days elapsed. The funeral was attended by the friends and relatives of the deceased, who were bidden by a herald, pronouncing the invitation:—‘It is time for whoever wishes, to go to the funeral of N. son of N.; who is now to be borne from home.’[E]

The remains of persons who had done service to the state were honoured by the attendance of public officers, and sometimes the procession was followed by large bodies of the people. According to one of the laws of Solon, the Athenians carried out the bodies of the dead before sunrise, especially the young, in order that the orb of day might not throw his light on so sad a spectacle, or by his heat induce decomposition prematurely. The body was laid on a bier, crowned with flowers, and having the face exposed. The bier was followed by the funeral procession, among whom, at Roman funerals, there was often a _mime_, or buffoon, wearing the dress of the deceased, and giving satirical imitations of his bearing and manners. At the funeral of the Emperor Vespasian, the lustre of whose many virtues was tarnished by love of money, a celebrated buffoon (as Suetonius tells us) acted the part of the emperor,—mimicking, as was customary, the deportment and language of the deceased. Having asked the managers of the funeral what would be the amount of its expense, and being answered that it would cost a sum equivalent to eighty-thousand pounds, he replied, that if they would give him eight hundred, he would throw himself into the Tiber—for drowning was thought so revolting a death, that bodies rejected by the waves were denied sepulture. The bust of the deceased, his warlike trophies, or decorations of honour, were conspicuously exhibited in the procession. His family followed the bier, walking bareheaded and barefooted, with dishevelled hair, and mourning dresses of black; and after them came bands of hired mourners, male and female, who rent the air with cries and lamentations. Thus the body was conveyed to the place of sepulture.

[E] ‘_Exequîas N., N. filii, quibus est commodus ire, tempus est: ollus (ille) ex ædibus effertur._’

The claims to antiquity vaunted by the Chinese next force upon attention their provisions against allowing the dead to interfere with the well-being of the living. As they believe themselves _perfect_, to alter any one custom is sacrilege punishable with death; hence they observe the same ceremonies now, that their ancestors did several thousand years ago. ‘Their tombs and sepulchres,’ says Mr. Sirr, ‘are always built outside the city walls, and usually upon a hill, which is planted with cypress and pine trees.’ In China nothing is so offensive to good breeding as the remotest allusion to death. A number of amusing periphrases are therefore resorted to when a hint of the subject is unavoidable; a funeral is called from the kind of mourning used: ‘A white affair.’

In Persia intramural burials are also forbidden. ‘The place of sepulture,’ says a Persian sage, ‘must be far from dwellings: near it must be no cultivation; nor the business necessarily attending the existence of dwellings; no habitation nor population must be near it.’ This is another ancient injunction in remarkable accordance with one of the recommendations of our modern sages, the Board of Health.

The Mahommedans again show much better taste than Christians in their Mausoleums and burial-places—they never bury in their temples or within the walls of a town.

Among the funeral customs of the other inhabitants of the East, that of burning the dead is of very great antiquity. The Jews adopted it only in emergencies. When Saul fell on the fatal field of Gilboa, and his body was left exposed by the enemy, it was burnt by his faithful followers (1 Samuel, chap, xxxi., v. 11–13). From a passage in the book of Amos (chap. vi., v. 10), it appears that the bodies of the dead were burnt in times of pestilence, no doubt on sanitary grounds. For the same reason, incineration has been habitually perpetuated in tropical climates, but has been accompanied unhappily with the most horrible superstitions, particularly in Hindustan, where it is associated with the self-sacrifice of the widow on the funeral pile of her dead husband. The origin of this last custom, as a religious rite, has been the subject of much investigation and discussion among learned Orientalists; but Colebrooke, in his paper on the ‘Duties of a Faithful Hindoo Widow,’ in the fourth volume of the _Asiatic Researches_, has shown that this, among other duties of a faithful widow, is prescribed by the ancient Sanscrit books of the Bramins. Bernier, the French traveller, who visited India at the time when this practice of self-immolation was very general, gives striking descriptions of several scenes of this kind which he witnessed. The heroine of one of them was a woman who had been engaged in some love intrigues with a young Mahommedan, her neighbour, who was a tailor, and could play finely on the tabor. This woman, in the hopes of marrying her paramour, poisoned her husband, and then told the tailor that it was time for them to elope together, as they had projected, as, otherwise, she should be obliged to burn herself. The young man, fearing lest he might be entangled in a dangerous affair, flatly refused. The woman, expressing no surprise, went to her relations and informed them of the sudden death of her husband, protesting that she would not survive him, but would burn herself along with him. Her kindred, well satisfied with so generous a resolution and the great honour thereby done to the whole family, presently had a pit made and filled with wood, exposing the corpse upon it, and kindling the fire. All being prepared, the woman went to embrace and take farewell of all her kindred and friends who surrounded the pit, among whom was the tailor, who had been invited to play upon the tabor along with a number of other minstrels, as was usual on such occasions. The woman, having come to the place where the young man stood, made a sign as if she would bid him farewell with the rest; but, instead of gently embracing him, she seized him by the collar with both hands, dragged him with all her strength to the pit, into which she threw herself and him together, and both instantly perished in the flames.

It was not till a comparatively recent period that the British Government made any attempt to abolish or check this barbarous custom: being unwilling, it would seem, to interfere with the religious rites and usages of the natives. The tardy intervention of the British Government has at length effectually put an end to the practice; and the natives themselves, instead of resenting this measure as a violation of their religion, have (as might have been expected) universally hailed it as a deliverance from a horrible oppression under which they groaned, but from which they were unable to emancipate themselves.

Throughout the greatest part of the wide region comprehended under the general name of India, this practice of burning the dead prevails, except among those who profess Mahommedanism. In the kingdom of Siam, it is regarded as the most honourable funeral; the bodies of criminals, and of persons disgraced, being buried. In the Birman empire, burning is the established practice.

In colder climates where the necessity for the rapid disposal of mortality is not so great, cremation has not been prevalent. Among the Greeks and Romans, it was confined to the wealthier classes, because of its expensiveness. When the Romans burnt the bodies of the dead, the ashes were gathered and enclosed in a vase or urn, which was sometimes deposited in the burial-place of the family, and sometimes preserved by them in their house. Among the remains of antiquity which have been found in Britain, and which belong to the period when a large portion of this country was a Roman province, there are many sepulchral urns which must have been deposited in the ground, either by the Roman population of this island, or by the British who adopted the Roman usages. Some of these urns are described by Sir Thomas Browne, and later discoveries of a similar kind have been made at different times. They have been found to contain, not only ashes mixed with half-burnt human bones, but the remains of combs, beads, and other articles of dress, and coins, both Roman and British.