What a glorious sight it would be to have, in such a parish, a
beautiful cemetery, filled with flowers and trees and neatly trimmed
grass-plots, and on some summer morning to assemble the parson,
and the doctor and the undertaker and all the inhabitants to have a
real good time ! After a repast of perfectly wholesome and delicious
food, which the doctor should certify could do no harm to the liver
and cause the digestive organs no uneasiness, accompanied with such
refreshing beverages as should " cheer but not inebriate " or bring
any headache, the sexton should be called upon to report the state
of the cemetery. If he could only say, " Ladies and gentlemen,
citizens and taxpayers of Healthytown, everything I have planted in
this cemetery is doing well, growing up, budding, blossoming, and
looking finely. The grass is tender and green because of the fine
soil; the flowers and trees are all beautiful from the same cause;
the calm you see around you is not the silence of death, but the
tranquillity of life. The cemetery of Healthytown has no corpses
in it."
Then the good old parson would tell his story. " I have preached
for fifty years in yonder church that all flesh is grass and that grass
withers and fades, but as the grass in this cemetery is still green, so
the people of Healthytown have perpetual health, and even the oldest
inhabitants, like myself, enjoy a green old age. I have not written a
funeral sermon since I prepared one for the funeral of Farmer Fresh-
twig, and he disappointed me by getting well — for it was a very fine
sermon and a pity not to use it. If it were not that this cemetery
looks so pretty as it is and that the marble slabs with no inscriptions
look better than with them, I should almost suggest that it is about
time for some of us to die."
THE PHYSICIAN IN THE HOME.
179
Then the doctor would step forward and say, that when he first
came to Heahhytown he found many children with the measles, and
many old folks with the colic, and many middle-aged people suffering
from headaches and chills and fever and indigestion. But since the
sausage factory had been removed, and the sewage and drainage
altered, and the pump water was no longer drunk, and garbage and
refuse were no longer thrown in the street, he rejoiced to say that
everybody was feeling well, and that he felt much greater pleasure
in giving this certificate of life than a certificate of death.
Lastly, the undertaker would tell them that he had added cabinet
making to coffins, as the demand for the latter was not brisk enough
to suit him, and that instead of putting silver mountings for the boxes
of the dead, he should be very happy to supply elegant chests of
drawers and work-boxes to the living.
This beautiful world, which disease and death have changed from
a paradise into "the place of a skull," might be changed again into
a universal Healthytown if people would only attend to the laws of
nature for the preservation of health.
Page 112
Presented as published in 1883. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
What a glorious sight it would be to have, in such a parish, a beautiful cemetery, filled with flowers and trees and neatly trimmed grass-plots, and on some summer morning to assemble the parson, and the doctor and the undertaker and all the inhabitants to have a real good time ! After a repast of perfectly wholesome and delicious food, which the doctor should certify could do no harm to the liver and cause the digestive organs no uneasiness, accompanied with such refreshing beverages as should " cheer but not inebriate " or bring any headache, the sexton should be called upon to report the state of the cemetery. If he could only say, " Ladies and gentlemen, citizens and taxpayers of Healthytown, everything I have planted in this cemetery is doing well, growing up, budding, blossoming, and looking finely. The grass is tender and green because of the fine soil; the flowers and trees are all beautiful from the same cause; the calm you see around you is not the silence of death, but the tranquillity of life. The cemetery of Healthytown has no corpses in it."
Then the good old parson would tell his story. " I have preached for fifty years in yonder church that all flesh is grass and that grass withers and fades, but as the grass in this cemetery is still green, so the people of Healthytown have perpetual health, and even the oldest inhabitants, like myself, enjoy a green old age. I have not written a funeral sermon since I prepared one for the funeral of Farmer Freshtwig, and he disappointed me by getting well — for it was a very fine sermon and a pity not to use it. If it were not that this cemetery looks so pretty as it is and that the marble slabs with no inscriptions look better than with them, I should almost suggest that it is about time for some of us to die."
Then the doctor would step forward and say, that when he first came to Healthytown he found many children with the measles, and many old folks with the colic, and many middle-aged people suffering from headaches and chills and fever and indigestion. But since the sausage factory had been removed, and the sewage and drainage altered, and the pump water was no longer drunk, and garbage and refuse were no longer thrown in the street, he rejoiced to say that everybody was feeling well, and that he felt much greater pleasure in giving this certificate of life than a certificate of death.
Lastly, the undertaker would tell them that he had added cabinet making to coffins, as the demand for the latter was not brisk enough to suit him, and that instead of putting silver mountings for the boxes of the dead, he should be very happy to supply elegant chests of drawers and work-boxes to the living.
This beautiful world, which disease and death have changed from a paradise into "the place of a skull," might be changed again into a universal Healthytown if people would only attend to the laws of nature for the preservation of health.