SIR,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE REPUBLICAN.

Ir the following is a worthy and proper subject for your " Republican," by inserting it in a corner, you will oblige an admirer of your disinterested conduct, and a regular reader.

ON BURYING.

S.

In the first place, what is the meaning of the words, “to bury?” To inter-to put under the earth to hide-to conceal, &c. : and in the second place, what is or was the origin and intention of burying? As to its origin, that is hid in fable; but we may be allowed to suppose the intention, and, in my humble opinion, that was- -that an object once dear to them might be hid from their eyes whilst undergoing the putrefactive process or corruption, which, from its very constituent principles, it cannot avoid, and which takes place soon after life is extinct, especially in warm countries, which history informs us were first peopled. Some tribes of the North American Indians have large sheds erected at a good distance from their huts, or little townships; there they deposit the remains of their relatives, and visit them but on particular occasions. Here Nature prompts them wisely" and they know it not:" her intention is that they may not be incommoded by the smell:-nay, their very lives may be sacrificed. We follow another natural instinct (is it instinct or reason? I think the former) and bury them. It is the gas escaping from the body while undergoing the putrefactive fermentation that renders the neighbourhood of churchyards not only disagreeable but unwholesome but by being deeply deposited in the earth can counteract in a great measure the danger, by not allowing the gases a free escape, but by acting as a valve. Quere. May not the gases combine with the earth? But why all this fuss and humbug about burials-the quieter, I think, it is gone about the better-it is but the removal of a nuisance: it is hard to make us confess so much. Those who were once near and dear to us a nuisance! Yes, only visit a dissecting room, and be convinced you will say the smell is rather disagreeable, but it can be proved by chemistry that it is unwholesome. But would you apply the same to our relatives as you would to a dissecting room? Yes: only in a less degree. They are all subject to the same laws. If I had a piece of land I would set apart a small piece of it as a burying-ground; have no service read, a plain white box-call it a coffin or what you please-and none of those expensive galas which we see now-a-days. What unconsecrated ground-no service-a white coffin-not so much as a few friends!!! Oh! dear!!! Nay, if I was of any use for dissection,

they (the Doctors) should have me. I have got over a few of these scruples-I have seen life in all its forms. High and low; rich and poor; young and old; grave and gay; bond and free. I have seen the rich long for what the poor possessed-health! The young wishing to be older; the grave attempting gaiety; the bond praying for freedom. I have seen young children born, and I have seen old men die. I have seen them buried, and I have seen them raised again. I have seen all kinds of operations, and I have seen all the different parts of the body dissected, and pray where is the fault-if the dead are of any use to the living let them be used. We all believe after the soul has quitted the body it is a piece of clay. Well, what harm is there in dissecting a piece of clay if it is to be of any use to the living. I have heard it urged-aye, and seriously, if the body be dissected one part thrown here, another there, a third burnt, trampled under foot, or destroyed, and all cut and mangled with the knife of the dissector, what will become of it at the general resurrection? Just what will become of those who have lost an arm or a leg abroad, or not buried with the body? I answer, if ever such an event take place as a general resurrection of the self-same body, an omnipotent hand who could frame it, could as easily bring the several parts together again, how much soever they may be scattered, though we left a part in every quarter of the world. Besides, granting we had a good, comfortable, quiet, and respectable burial, there is a part of us devoured as food by insects, and digested; one part of the creation is prey and nourishment for another, and why should we wish to exempt ourselves more than any other from a law of nature? And if we are eaten by insects, it is a question what becomes of us, where the insect may deposit us, we must be turned into dust, thus fulfilling part of the Mosaic law," Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return;" or that insect may be devoured by another, and part of us with it-that other by a third-the, third by a fourth, and so on. For my own part, I think it quite as agreeable to be dissected as eaten by a worm. If this fuss about resurrectioning and dissecting continue, in a few years we shall know no more about the human body than our ancestors did five hundred years ago. My opinion is, that there is too much noise made about burials; in the first instance, they ought in consistency with nature to be conducted quietly, soberly, and with no show. I shall make no remarks about the Church burial-service, let it speak for itself; but in the article of coffins we are shamefully extrava

Let us take a copy from the Jews-just plain white wood; and so it ought, it serves only a temporary purpose, merely to cover the dead from the gazing eye of the living. I could wish those who provide such dashing and fashionable, aye, patent coffins for their relatives, only saw how unceremoniously they are treated by the Resurrectionists, it would cure them of their extra

vagance, They think, forsooth, it is paying a respect to the dead; use them respectfully when living-treat the dead only as a piece of clay.

TO THE EDITOR OF “THE REPUBLICAN."

SIR, Nottingham, Aug. 10, 1826. As we seldom put our pen to paper except to deliver ourselves of a fit of the spleen, or drive away a legion of blue devils, it rather puts us out of the way to call our talents into requisition, when we are in a good humour. As we write to please ourselves more than the public, we shall not libel them by telling them that they are what they are not,

It is a pity but that mankind had more sense, it is lamentable that they have no more feeling, than to oppress the widow and the fatherless; it is shameful that they should oppress and abuse those who differ from them in matters of opinion. The town of Nottingham is in an uproar, the Saints are in a sweat, and all the bigots and blackguards are in a ferment-and for what? Because a woman is exposing Paine's "Age of Reason" and Palmer's Principles of Nature" for public sale. The ire of the Christians is dreadful. The door has been broken open at midnight, and every annoyance that a few illiterate knaves are capable of planning has been put into execution. Infidel publications have hitherto been sold in this town in a private way, and a public exhibition of these works has given an impetus to the mind of the multitude which will not speedily be forgotten.

The interest which is excited is immense; at night crowds are collected round the door and window, to see this novel show. Discussion of all kinds is going on in the street. Women do not fail to pour out a malediction on Mrs. Wright, as they pass by, and some animals in the shape of men follow their example. Every blockhead is condemning books he never read-every bigot feels himself scandalized by the show-every fanatic is enraged at the exhibition-every blackguard is prating about public tranquillity-and every monster of iniquity is prosing upon the demoralizing effects of infidelity.

Gunpowder has been declared the proper remedy for this nuisance by some, and the interference of the law by others There are but few Christians that are humble and mild enough to allow the woman to proceed on her own way without interference.

This morning, a lawyer of the name of Hopkinson, has threatened her with a prosecution; but we fancy it is mere vapour. This

fellow is nicknamed Brassy, from his impudence and the hardness of his face.

"His life is one continued scene
Of all that's infamous and mean."

Priestcraft is the bane of society-it is the upas tree that poisons our happiness, and blights our fairest prospects. It has spread its pestilential influence over the globe, and man falls prostrate before it. It robs him of the produce of his industry, and yet he clings to it. Alas! he is ignorant of the cause of his misery-he groans beneath his burden; but knows not what it is that oppresses him. Its poison stultifies his senses, and blunts his perceptions, and, like the drunkard and the opium-eater, he clings to it for relief and it destroys him.

We remain yours, &c.

SMITH and LARUS.

RICHARD CARLILE versus THE SHERIFF OF LONDON.

I HAD begun to fear, that I should not again see Mr. Parkins, the late Sheriff, who has for some time taken up his abode in France, and that, consequently, I should be defeated in my purposed action against him, or the office of Sheriff, for the treatment which I have received in the seizure and detention of my stock of 1819. But, luckily, I met him in Chancery Lane, about a fortnight ago, and immediately instructed an attorney to prepare to proceed. On Wednesday last the attorney succeeded in serving Mr. P. with a writ of trespass, which binds his appearance to the action. My present case has many more aggravated features than it had in 1822, when the last action was tried. I have since that time suffered all the consequences of the seizure and misapplication of the property. I have, owing to that seizure and misapplication, suffered an imprisonment of three years. A part of the property has been sold which might as well have been sold three years earlier. Another part has been returned to me, a large portion of which was in a damaged state, from the various removals and knockings about which it has sustained through six years. Some articles are not accounted for, either by sale or re So that, under all these circumstances, under all these evident and admitted illegalities, I shall be much surprised, if another jury be found to say on their oaths, that I have sustained but one shilling damage in all the wrong done.

turn.

I have another important object in view, in bringing this action, which I intend to conduct in person, and that is, to shew

the gross abuses which are practised in the city of London, in the name of the Sheriff, by a set of subordinate officers, who are not of his appointment. I can do Mr. Parkins the justice to say, that I verily believe, he had no act or part, beyond the use that was made of his name, in the treatment which I have received. certain persons used his name to do me an injury; I must use his name in the pursuit of compensation from those persons.

As

I have not relinquished the idea of an action against the Dorsetshire Sheriffs and Magistrates, for the treatment which I received from them. I am collecting evidence of their conduct towards me beyond the walls of the Gaol, in refusing admission to many respectable persons, and in various other outrages; and I hope to be ready to proceed as soon as I have done with the Sheriffs of London.

R. C.

MR. BEARD AND MR. WARD.

I AM informed, that each of these gentlemen cries victory in his correspondence with me. Placards, announcing that of the former, I am told, decorate the Unitarian chapels throughout the country; and the bills of Mr. Ward have been profusely stuck about the walls of London. This cannot fail to do good, as it will excite many timid Christians to examine the subject. I rejoice in the triumphs of Messrs. Beard and Ward, I will rejoice wherever I see truth developed and error removed.

But what have they done? They undertake to prove that such a person as Jesus Christ existed and died according to the descriptions of the four Gospels of the New Testament. Have they done this? I cannot see that they have done it. Minutely and acutely as Mr. Beard treats the subject, I cannot perceive that he has carried the existence of Christianity one point beyond the letter of Pliny. The letter of Pliny says, that Christians had existed in and about Bithynia for some years, grant twenty years, but it does not say that they came from Judea. It says, that the Christians of Bithynia sang hymus to a god called Christ; but it does not say that Christ was a god, crucified and put to death in Judea. He describes the Christians as far as he appears to have obtained information of them; but he describes them no further than as a sect that has originated in the neighbourhood from which he writes. He speaks of hymns; the Pagans had hymns; but he says nothing of Revelations, Epistles, or Gospels. He says their assemblies were nocturnal, and describes them as a sort of Masonic or secret society, bound by an oath to certain observances. These were not the Christians of the Gospels.