Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 May 1895 — A CRIME OF CIVILIZATION [ARTICLE]

A CRIME OF CIVILIZATION

There are laws upon the statute books of every State, and probably >f every civilized country, of the most stringent character against the crime of grave robbing and grave desecration. No offense is so repugnant to every sense of affection or decency. The graves of our loved ones, or of those for whom we have entertained sentiments of ad-

miration and respect, are held as saered spots, to be jealously guarded and cared for. No,disgrace is more dreaded than a. nameless gravgUn the Potters’ Field. Every sentiment of civilized men center about the last resting place wherein they hope to rest in peace until the judgment day, and the majority of men deem ffo expense or care too great wherewith to adorn the goal to which Tall men are swiftly running. In view of these incontrovertible truths, it docs seem.strange.that civilized countries will countenance and permit the wholesale grave robbery and needless desecration of ancient tombs that has been going on in Egypt for many years; l- Even the mausoleums of the Pharaohs of old have been robbed, not only of their treasures of jewels and precious stones, but the piteous and sacred remains have been torn from the place these mighty monarchs prepared with an assurance that their mummies would rest in safety until the resurrection, in which they had an implicit faith. Not only this, but whole shiploads of human bones have been at different times shipped from the laud of the lotus-eater's dreams—to—our hard, prosaic shores, to be ground up into fertilizers! Outrage unspeakable! Can we for an instant suppose that the descendants of that once, mighty people are to-day destitute of all ht man feeling simply because they are subjects of a despot’s whim? The contrary was demonstrated to be the case when the celebrated Cleopatra’s Needle was loaded on an American ship at Alexandria for shipment to New York as a gracious gift from the Khedive to the Western World." A mob of savage.natives very nearly - massacred the American crew. Few fair-minded men will deny that it would have been essential justice had they succeeded. They claimed it was an outrage to rob their country of the evidences of ancient greatness, as it certainly’was. Yet this robbery of ancient graves and dese (•ration of ancient arehitectura treasures is going on constantly anc -the mummy of a Pharaoh in all its piteous, gruesome hideousness is. deemed a lit subject for witty paragraphs in the metropolitan press when some erratic showman chances to exhibit a specimen of well attested and authen tic origin. Common humanity would seemjjo be a sufficient reason for preventing a further repe tition of these outrages upon th* feelings of a down-trodden race as well as upon our own Sensibilities which, in the nattir~c~df things, must become hardened by such exhibitions of greed and heartless irreverence