Show 4 r i C J U UIn In In our passion passions Is So for antiquity letus let s Why England Indignant Us us at least spare the dead Over an Americans American's Shocking Lord Curzon to Find the Bones of 9 4 A I Ito hs Indian Ancestor the Famous Pocahontas J 93 a t tN N f 8 k Y Yaa Kr t aa ate a y 1 C y e L ba c a- a uA Yr ia x rb o-L o 4 2 4 A va tea teai i tt r p t rf t ail 7 j- j a t er y U ro x i w h tt d is iser a cX a t q ra U r t a Its P a o F tr 34 fr I t 4 S 3 c ci i r r f ti aw r j Nr t ww 4 A i f ri h JF b R d y tM tx s sy e y 4 3 er eF v wr d ai m a ai i Frt a Edward Page Gaston on the left and Dr W P measurinG skulls dug out of the Gravesend churchyard to see if any of them is isy y d of the size and shape Pocahontas is supposed to have had 1 o 11 e ep a p t Pocahontas the Indian princess princess as pictured in an old print OW WOULD you feel to see seo H HOW scientists digging up P one of A your our family's burial plots and scattering about the crumbling bones of your ancestors in m the tho effort to find tho remainS of some historical celebrity Would any discovery they might make reconcile you to this irreverent tumbling cf of the ashes of your dead from their last resting place The question of whether it is a wrong and wicked thing for science to disturb the gra grates graces es e's peace in its ceaseless search for more facts about the past is be- be becoming becoming be becoming coming a very serious and puzzling one Many thoughtful and conscientious persons felt that the late Lord Carnarvon e- e evon von van and his associates were ere not justified In their invasion of King ankh Tut Tutankhamen's ankh Tut-ankh-amen's amens amen's Tomb the Tomb the tomb which the old Egyptian Pharaoh and his friends had taken taLen such pains to have remain undISturbed undisturbed undisturbed as long as the world lasted But in this case there were historical prizes of the thi greatest importance at stake The priceless relies relics with which the outer tomb was filled have havo added il I l to the worlds world's store or of knowledge giving us a clearer idea than we ever eyer had before of life in Egypt thousands of years ago What is now happening over oer in the of Gravesend England is qUite a different matter There al ai a whole graveyard is being upturned and Il its grinning skulls and other bones heaped up like liLe so many bricks in the effort to find the remains of Pocahontas the American Indian Princess who IS thought to have been buried burled there But the finding of Pocahontas's re- re remains remains re remains mains will Mill clear up no perplexing his historical l mystery Not a fact of any im- im importance im importance w will l be bo added to the store pf human knowledge if the scientists are oro able to identify one of these skulls by its difference In size eize and shape shapo as that of an Indian woman No this ransacking of the graveyard which Is filling the people of Gravesend with horror honor and indignation and arous arous- arousIng arousing ing England a storm of protest all through Eng Eng- land is merely to satisfy the interest of Edward Ed Payson Gaston an American archeologist who happens to be a de de- de der de r of Pocahontas I Ever since Bince as a boy he heard the tho story Etory V VEver of his hia famous ancestress who saved the tho life of Captain John Smith in England days das and later went to Eng Eng- landas landa land a as the wife of John Rolfe he be has been Leen eager enger to find her remains and bring them back for burial in m her native America Early this sear ear he obtained permission from England's Secretary to begin his gruesome search It Sr like an easy matter matter for tradition said that when Pocahontas Po Po- Po f fr die died d i e d of o f smallpox she JF was f tS 3 1 t C V bUrIed m in the vaults I underneath the Gravesend church parish at tF Gravesend sr But the part of the vaults that was as supposed sup sup- supposed posed to hold v w the hn ashes a of Po Pa Pocohontas proved my m y s t e r empty and then the v the search was fry continued in m the thc h ii churchyard out out- outsIde outside outside w t r side Soon the ers ers of Graves e t tend end n d were w e r a shocked shocked to see seo I Ir r a large largo force of at r r men at work ork k with picks and shovels in the b burial u ri al place f where here EO so many t r of their ancestors ances ances- ancestors ancestors tors rested and whIch they have ha always held in such reverence reverence rev- rev Under the direction of Sir Mr Gaston and andIns Ills his English associates Dr W P pc craft Pic-craft craft assistant keeper of collections in the British Museum and Sir Arthur Keith of the Royal College Collego of Surgeons the laborers were bringing to the surface great quantities of human bones The Tho skulls and other parts of skeletons were heaped up all over the tho cemetery for Mr Gaston and his bis fellow sCientists to sort over and measure What particularly shocked the people of Gravesend was as to see the excavators partaking of afternoon tea ten on a flat tombstone piled high at one end with bones Meanwhile the workmen with cIgarettes in their mouths were hauling up more and more of the cemetery's con con- contents contents con contents tents and photographers were busy mak mak- makIng mak- mak making making ing snapshots of the ghastly scene The Tho fact that the tho excavators have the tho decency to bury re-bury with proper religious ceremonies the bones they thoy found of no Interest to them has failed to check Gravesend's indignation The Tho blind re tor of the parish church is being bItterly denounced because he permitted the excavations and also because ho officiated at the re Interment interment re-interment of the bones The popular indignation soon bOiled over the limits of Gravesend and heated up all England Marquis Curzon the Foreign Secretary addressing a meeting of for forthe forthe the Protection of Ancient Buildings said Let us ua at least spare the dead lie denounced the destruction of works of art in the pat past pa t and asserted that rev rev- reverence rev reverence for ancient buildings was an ads ad admirable mirable sentiment lie ire said that it was indeed almost a religious cult and added Below Ex Wm A Clarks Clark's mausoleum What will the scientists of years yeats from wA xa now be doing to this t s i r r re e f i I ii rh aY i 1 S1 t rl 1 tit it 1 KJ Y i r tip d But there is one form this cult takes which seems to me to be antiquarIanIsm run the mad mad the modern craze for taking talon up the remains of the dead Lord Curzon mentioned several in- in instances instances in instances stances in point including the excavation at Tut ankh tomb King Referring to Pocahontas he ho said he had just read of a lot of ghouls gath gath- gathered gath- gath gathered gathered ered around the site of her Interment where they are finding a heap of skulls and bones while men of science are actually silting by to discover whether among this pile of debris they can find finda finda a skull with some black hair on it In our passion for antiquity the Foreign Secretary said Let us at least spate e the dead Leading English English ne newspapers vigor rigor rigorously vigorously endorsed Lord Curzon's protest against the ruthless disturbing of the peace of the graves at Gravesend It is difficult to see with what Justice so many bones should have been ups up- upturned up upturned turned said The Manchester Guard Guard- Guardian Guardian ian There are arc many distinguished buried overseas and poster poster- posterity posterity ity does not conceive it to be a 11 patriotic duty to ransack foreign cemeteries die dis disturbing the many in rn quest of the one The excavations at Gravesend con con- constitute con constitute an offence against good taste said The Daily Dally Mail It is difficult to understand why the Home Homo Office should have permitted them In defense of his undertaking Mr Gaston says saya that his sole desire is to reclaim the e body of one who played such sucha n a romantic and human part in the early Colonial life of America and re-inter re It ItIn itin itin In a II fitting national mausoleum at Wash Vash ington Washington where it will form an abiding memorial to one of the moat most gallant epi- epi epi j nodes by a n woman In American history He claims that he and his liis associates associate are not working on sacred and carefully marked graves but on nothing moro more than a sort of charnel house of mixed up bones of people and animals that were thrown hastily there two centuries ago after the Gravesend Parish Church was overrun o by fir fire Mr Gaston says that the bones of Gravesend's ancestors were mixed up wIth the remains of cats pigs and horses and that he is really doing the villages village s 1 great service by separating them care care- carefully carefully carefully fully and then in tho the most dignified manner man man- manner manner ner re interring the human remains wIth witha a solemn religious service The fact that I secured written permission from all the descendants of the tho Princess both in America and Great Britain and had the approval of the British Home Office to exhume the re- re remains re remains mains mams will absolve me from any charges charges of private or mercenary designs says Mr Gaston The enterprise has cost me many years of effort and much money and I intend to see it through In spite of misguided and unreasoning protests These explanations have bave not allayed In the slightest the tho Indignation of the people of Gravesend They resent Mr Gastons Gaston's allegation that the tho part of the churchyard into which his men are digging is only a II charnel house where the bones of human beings and anImals are lire indiscriminately mixed The fact that In the primitive days of two ho centuries ago the tha dead were not al AI always ways ays burled buried with the nice care shown day day to-day is no reason why their last resting rest rest- restIng resting ing place should be disturbed in this i fashion ghoulish they say Lh 1 Serving afternoon tea on a flat tombstone one end of which is littered with human bon bones s waiting for or Mr r Gaston and his fellow I sCientists I J I k a 8 i 1 y rbt e xA xAi i rk a qi S itt w wr Iii r q r Tr Sip r t i w It h rv Jg Z v Entrance to the tomb where old King Tutankhamen amen ankh Tut-ankh amen doubtless expect expect- expected ed his mummy would rest in peace forever But up to the time these lines lines were written the Home Office had done noth- noth nothing nothing ing to o retract Its permission to Mr Gas ton to go as far as he likes In hl his search for the remains of his Indian ancestor Tb The bringing up of great bucketfuls of the bones continues The scientists patiently apply their measuring instruments instruments ments to all the skulls and cast into the discard those that show no resemblance to the bony piece head of the And when tea time comes the meal is often served on a tombstone littered with the ghastly relics the churchyard lies has been made to disgorge The resentment the people o Grans end are showing sho against what they think ross rocs diM d to their dead ancestors ancestor IS an expression of a feeling that is com corn common mon Ilion to all mankind Even savage pee pea plea pIes jealously guard th the graves of their dead and insist that the hey be left un undisturbed disturbed If science is to be allo allowed ed to ransack die he worlds world's graves graces and Cat scatter tel their thelt ashes about whenever it pleases all OUt our Ideas regarding the treatment of at the tho d dead nd must be bo revised Costly manse mausoleums mausoleums tombs of granite caskets enclosed in walls alls of steel all steel all these will ba b of no mail avail a in keeping the human buman rem remnants nants they contain forever inviolate Out in California Senator ex-Senator William Wilham WilliamA A k has built a magnificent mausoleum to hold the ashes of himself and the members of his family No pains or expense pense has been spared to make mako this II d a place as secure against Invasion as the ancient Egyptians thought the carefully hidden and guarded tombs of their Pharaohs But if curiosity or thirst for know knowl knowledge knowledge edge impels them will Ill the th scientists of two hundred years from now have any scruples about disturbing disturbing the peace of this million half half dollar n tomb as ruth ruth- ruthless ruthlessly lessl less lessly as Ml Mi Gaston and ald his associates associate are that graveyard in Gras es- es end end Shall we abandon all cur old ages ages Ideas of the graves grave's sanctity sanctity- and allow scientists to invade it as they please That is the question Mr Gastons Gaston's upturning of the church church- churchyard church yard at has brought to light three skulls which seem to be those of Indians Indiana But further study will be necessary before anyone any one of them can be iden identified as the probable piece of bone that held the tha brain of Pots Poca Pocahontas hontas Many enthusiastic students of Arne Amei history arc are hoping that Mr Gastol Gasto spill succeed in duplicating the exploit of Gene Genial al al Horace Porter in discover discover- discovering discovering ing the body of John Paul Jones in Paris in is 1399 1999 This like the tie remains of Pocahonta Pocahontas had been lost though it was known to lie somewhere here in a Pro Pro- Protestant Protestant cemetery cc covered vered with houses It is considered particularly fitting that Pocahontas's bones should be reo re- recovered re recovered covered and brought back to America because she is the ancestor of so many distinguished Americans Her blood runs in the veins of many of Virginias Virginia's most aristocratic families Among her descendants is one of the nations nation's most picturesque sta esmen John Randolph I and one mistress of the White House Houe Mrs Woodrow Wilson But is this sufficient reason for invading v u rag ing the graves of scores of other men mc and women omen scattering their bones bodes about abou and wounding the tho feelings of n it a community of their heir descendants t j The people of Gravesend and many many others in England think not |