Six Feet of Ground. soil. It is no longer property, except as so much soil. Hence it follows that where a grave has been rifled, in the civil courts the remedy is by an action for breaking and en tering the close. It is a trespass, for which the owner of the close may recover damages. One court has gone so far as to say that the fact that the soil has particular significance and value so as to make a trespass there upon peculiarly harrowing would be an ele ment in estimating the damages. It has been also held that an executor, or other person, who supplied the shroud and coffin, may have an action for damages against any one who takes them away or unlawfully in terferes with them. To recover the shroud and coffin without the corpse would be like listening to the play of "Hamlet," with the vacillating Dane left out. These cases suggest the possibility of com plicated conditions. Suppose Jones goes to Egypt and purchases a mummy for specula tive or other purposes. The tomb of some Rameses is rifled to furnish the mummy but Egypt has sunk to such depths that its de cency is not shocked thereby. Jones reaches this country with his mummy and keeps out of Indiana. He has no property in it though he has paid for his mummy, because the law declares that there can be no property in a corpse. The corpse is the owner of the mummy even though he has been dead a few thousand years. Suppose a thief steals the mummy from Jones, what remedy will the law give Jones? He has no property in the corpse. He who owns the cadaver has been dead too long to intervene in the contro versy; besides, it would likely make little difference to the mummy whether he is in the hands of one thief or another. It is no larceny to steal a corpse. No sepulchre is rifled in the stealing; and is it possible that the statutory offense covers the case? Will the courts say that there is an exception to the rule that there is no property in a corpse, when, instead of the remains being earth to earth, they are in the form of tanned leather? What, indeed, is Jones's remedy?
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Really, I do /iot know the answer to the riddle, for neither the Sphinx nor the courts have yet spoken. I might venture to add that the next time Jones has a mummy stolen from him he had better arrange to have the shroud or a few ornaments taken along, so that there may be something in the case to carry the costs against the de fendant. Primarily the law imposes upon the exec utor or administrator of a deceased person the duty of burying the corpse decently in a proper place, and in a manner suitable to his estate. This duty must, however, be exercised with proper regard for the wishes of those who were nearest and dearest to the deceased in life and in accordance with the directions of the will, if any have been given. In absence of any testamentary pro vision, the duty devolves upon the next of kin. A stranger—a good Samaritan—may be obliged to perform this duty, if the de ceased has died under his roof, and if no other provision exists for its performance. It is undoubtedly the duty of the husband to bury the deceased wife, and of the wife to bury the deceased husband. The duty carries with it the right to determine the place of sepulture. The same duty applies to the relation of parent and child. This duty may, however, be controlled by other considerations. The husband and wife may have separated, or a child may have been adopted with the consent of the parents. It is safe to say, in such contingencies, that equity would not recognize the duty of the husband and natural father as against the wishes of the wife's relatives or adopted parents of the child. While such is the law of the land as to who is originally entitled to bury a human body, yet there is a vast difference between that question and the question of the re moval of that body subsequently to some other place of sepulture after it has been committed to the earth in the presence of sorrowing relatives and friends. After that the repose of the dead is to be protected and
