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Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1866 > September > Extracted from the Colonial Progress of Mauritius – Spiritist Communication
Extracted from the Colonial Progress of Mauritius – Spiritist Communication
It is not only in our country that the newspapers, we wouldn’t say sympathize yet, but are humanized with Spiritism to which they begin to acknowledge the right of citizenship. The Progrès Colonial, a journal of Port Louis, Mauritius Island, on June 15th, 1866 reads:
“Every day we receive two or three of these Spiritist communications, but if we have abstained from reproducing them up until now, it is for the fact that we are not yet prepared to dedicate a space to this extraordinary thing called Spiritism. May our naturally curious readers have a little bit of patience, for they will not wait long. If we publish this small text signed Lazarus, it is for the fact that it is about this poor Georges, so miserably deceased and buried.
Sir,
Today I read a correspondence inserted in your journal, signed “A eyewitness”, reporting how the body of the miserable G. Lemeure was buried. For a long time, Sir, I new that if misery is not a vice, it is at least one of the greatest misfortunes that there is in the world. However, what I did not want to admit was that men were worships of the golden calf, to the point of not respecting anymore everything that is most solemn, great, and most sacred to us: death!... Thus, poor George, of a calm, honest and modest character, condemned to live in the greatest poverty, enduring the trials of this world with courage and even with joviality, always ready serve his neighbor, you had to die like that, isolated, far from the ones that loved you and that may perhaps be sorry for you; and to humiliate your shadow, it is still necessary that men dig a hole for you in the earth, alone, alone with nothingness! As if your poverty had made you unworthy of sharing a sacred land with your fellow citizens. Besides, you were not even given the charity of a four-piece plank coffin! Despite all that, you are very happy, thinks this good humanity, for resting on the cold and damp earth, forgotten by all! Moreover, what does it matter to them that your body rotten there, without a single friend shedding a tear there, or laying a flower or bringing a memory? I stop here, because I am still outraged that one has not even followed the formalities established in similar circumstances with the most unfortunate ones. In every civilized country, they give twenty-four hours for the relatives of a dead person, found by the authorities, to come to recognize and claim him. If nobody has come at the end of that interval, the person is then buried in a sacred land, always observing the respect that is due to death. But here, one abstains from such formalities, and if you cannot pay for the expenses of the coffin, one is content to throw you to any corner, like a beast, covering you with two or three handfuls of dust.
I repeat, Sir, misery is a great scourge.
Lazarus”
“Every day we receive two or three of these Spiritist communications, but if we have abstained from reproducing them up until now, it is for the fact that we are not yet prepared to dedicate a space to this extraordinary thing called Spiritism. May our naturally curious readers have a little bit of patience, for they will not wait long. If we publish this small text signed Lazarus, it is for the fact that it is about this poor Georges, so miserably deceased and buried.
Sir,
Today I read a correspondence inserted in your journal, signed “A eyewitness”, reporting how the body of the miserable G. Lemeure was buried. For a long time, Sir, I new that if misery is not a vice, it is at least one of the greatest misfortunes that there is in the world. However, what I did not want to admit was that men were worships of the golden calf, to the point of not respecting anymore everything that is most solemn, great, and most sacred to us: death!... Thus, poor George, of a calm, honest and modest character, condemned to live in the greatest poverty, enduring the trials of this world with courage and even with joviality, always ready serve his neighbor, you had to die like that, isolated, far from the ones that loved you and that may perhaps be sorry for you; and to humiliate your shadow, it is still necessary that men dig a hole for you in the earth, alone, alone with nothingness! As if your poverty had made you unworthy of sharing a sacred land with your fellow citizens. Besides, you were not even given the charity of a four-piece plank coffin! Despite all that, you are very happy, thinks this good humanity, for resting on the cold and damp earth, forgotten by all! Moreover, what does it matter to them that your body rotten there, without a single friend shedding a tear there, or laying a flower or bringing a memory? I stop here, because I am still outraged that one has not even followed the formalities established in similar circumstances with the most unfortunate ones. In every civilized country, they give twenty-four hours for the relatives of a dead person, found by the authorities, to come to recognize and claim him. If nobody has come at the end of that interval, the person is then buried in a sacred land, always observing the respect that is due to death. But here, one abstains from such formalities, and if you cannot pay for the expenses of the coffin, one is content to throw you to any corner, like a beast, covering you with two or three handfuls of dust.
I repeat, Sir, misery is a great scourge.
Lazarus”