Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/114

 Six Feet, of Ground. old man of the sea upon his shoulders. It is the point where lie doth fade like a flower, where he will soon be cut down like the grass. A point where he realizes that he brought nothing into the world and can take nothing out of it. Realizing this, with a grim humor he writes his will, so that those he leaves behind may have as much fun in getting that which he must abandon as he is having in not being able to take it along. Lastly, and in conclusion, man drops off satisfied that he is beyond the pale of the law, that he is at the end of its tether. To the man so dying death is a delusion and a snare, for the law will follow him into his tomb and sepulchre. The six feet of earth man hath esteemed as his in fee simple and inalienable, becomes the last stamping ground for law, where the nature and char acter of the rights of the corpse to its grave may be declared. It has been judicially said that the law re gards with favor the repose of the dead. Evidently the law takes no stock in ghosts, and would discourage the business. Ac cording to law, when you are dead it would be following the laws of nature and man to remain dead. This stalking about of the dead in their graveclothes has always been an unseemly exhibition, and it is a relief to feel that the law disapproves of these spec-tral performances. Let all spooks, sprites, mahatmas, banshees and the like take notice that any other condition than one of repose will meet with disfavor in the eyes of the law. It has further been declared that the law will protect the repose of the dead in the place to which their mortal remains have been consigned, and will not permit their disturbance. It may. be that the repose of the dead and the disturbance of the repose is only spoken of figuratively by courts, yet the language is suggestive. If courts are to protect the repose of the dead in every emer gency, if they are -to take equity jurisdiction in all cases wherein that repose is threatened to be disturbed, if the arm of the law is to be

89

thrown around the dead to keep them dead, what can be presaged of the time when Gabriel will arrive. May it not happen that, when he places his trumpet to his lips, he will be served with a bill asking for a pre liminary injunction to restrain him from blowing a blast that will disturb the repose of the dead? And if such injunction be made perpetual, may not the dead be a long time dead? At all events, the first legal proposition that the corpse in its six feet of ground can assure itself of is that the law favors the repose of the dead and will protect that re pose from disturbance. The next consolation for the dead is that there can be no property in a corpse. The body with the breath of life in it was a free man, lie was no slave. Xo one owned him. He was master of his goings and coming. The breath of life having escaped, the resi due is no stuff that can be bartered and sold in the markets of the world. The corpse still owns himself or herself, is still master, and no one else has any property in it. The corpse, being the owner of itself be fore it became a dead body, possesses cer tain rights over the remains when it has become a corpse. The first of these rights is the power to direct what shall be done with the remains. He may make a gift of his cadaver either orally, before reaching that state, or in writing. He may consign himself to the grave, a retort in a crematory, to the sea, or to some hospital for scientific pur poses. As judicially declared, a person by will can determine absolutely what disposi tion shall be made of his remains, A testa mentary request is only evidence of the wishes of the decedent. It has no higher im port than the evidence of witnesses who have heard them expressed, and it follows that an adult has a legal right to dispose orally of his or her remains. The element of uncertainty about this right of disposition of the body is that the corpse will not be able to see to it that his desires are carried out. He may have been