The Mysterious Fluid

by Paul Vibert

  The rapacity of competition had been forgotten, however, and a fourth syndicate—or, if you prefer, a second one of body-snatchers—was formed and resumed the operations of the first on its own account. The latter, I must say, behaved very correctly and loyally; they undertook to defend the target tombs themselves, by means of a guard on each one. These guard were killed, stabbed on the spot, and the petty but lucrative commerce of the necropolis-burglars continued apace.

  What could be done? This second stupor was of short duration.

  It was then that the truly supple, inventive and marvelous cleverness of those good Yankees burst forth. A fifth syndicate was immediately formed: that of the hirers and sellers of cadavers. It was very simple, and this is how the said syndicate worked: a billionaire dies; his family has him put in a triply-reinforced coffin of wood, lead, etc., and keeps him at home; at the same time, it hires by the month, like a simple carriage, or buys outright, the anonymous cadaver of some poor devil from one hospital or another, or from a poor family who has given it up it for twenty-five dollars. The syndicate puts it n the tomb, and the trick is worked. The cadaver-thieves don’t take it, because it’s a fake, and is worthless to them.

  There was no hesitation over calling this last syndicate a stroke of genius. On reflection, however, it has proved even more inconvenient. Although the necropolis-burglars have been thoroughly vanquished, residences need to be guarded by a numerous, reliable and faithful domestic staff.

  This sounds like a hoax, and yet it is an absolutely true page of history. One can also imagine a sixth syndicate, that of constructors of strong-boxes for coffins or cadavers, which would simplify many things and give great security to families.

  Then again, one wonders whether the law and the police will not end up intervening; whether the coffins, put in the cellar, might not end up ruining the fine wines; and finally, when the dead have been accumulated thus within the family, what a nuisance they will be when moving house….

  So, I have modestly proposed another solution by cablegram, which is simply to cremate the bodies; that way, there’s nothing more to fear from body-snatchers and other necropolis-burglars.

  Yes, but the Americans don’t like hat.

  What, then? If this goes on, this large question will threaten to impassion the United States as much as the Dreyfus affair did here, and that’s no understatement.

  Sleep peacefully; after the next sensational theft of this kind accomplished in a New World necropolis, I’ll keep you up to date with all the details. Most horrible!

  Author’s note: Still on the same subject, and to demonstrate how this poignant preoccupation threatens to enter definitively into Yankee custom, the Aurore of February 17, 1900 published the following item:

  “A few months ago, Mademoiselle Martel, the daughter of a rich American businessman, died in the Dominican convent at Sèvres. Her father had her buried in the town cemetery, and then left for America again. He came back last Tuesday, after having rendered his soul to God, with the following apparatus:

  “His body had been deposited in a series of coffins, the total weight of which was more than fifteen hundred kilos. The mortal remains of Monsieur Martel had first been surrounded by the regulation mixture, then placed in an oak coffin several centimeters thick. Then came an envelope of lead three millimeters thick, then another oak coffin five centimeters thick, the whole bolted and riveted together, alarmingly.

  “It required fifteen men to place this monument on the hearse, which buckled under the weight, and when it arrived at the cemetery, the burial had to be poisoned; the grave was too small!

  “Only the Americans have such ideas and coffins.”

  Finally, for its part, the earnest Gazette Maritime of July 15 of the same year published the following information:

  “A curious lawsuit has been brought against the Atlas Navigation Company by the family of the late A. J. Wormser, a rich New York merchant who recently died at sea aboard the steamship Allegheny of that line, forty-eight hours before arriving in Jamaica, coming from New York. His mortal remains were immediately immersed, on the captain’s orders, contrary to the opinion of the physician accompanying the defunct and who thought that the body could be suitably conserved until reaching port, given the quantity of ice and pharmaceutical products aboard. The malady was not contagious.

  “The majority of the New York newspapers have begun discussing this affair passionately, and it is also preoccupying the American public greatly, for it raises a question of principle that worries many Americans, who desire a determination of the rights of a passenger to be transported to his destination alive or dead, once having paid for his ticket.

  “Some companies—the American Line among others—inform their passengers that their steamships always keep ad hoc barrels and the antiseptics necessary to conserve cadavers until they reach their destination. Other companies—including the large German company, the Hamburg-American Line—are even more obliging, and advise their clients that they can carry their coffins, as well as their baggage, without charge.

  “American law is mute on the matter, but the Treasury Minister recently decided that cadavers conserved in barrels must be admitted duty-free.

  “A law dating from 1882, moreover, which has never been repealed, obliges captains of ships or consigners to declare within forty-eight hours of arrival, and to notify the authorities of any death that has occurred in the course of a voyage—and to pay a fee of ten dollars for each one.”

  As can be seen, this concern to conserve one’s skin after death, protected from the physical voracity of fish and the moral—or, rather, immoral—voracity of burglars, has become a national obsession in the United States.

  III. What purpose cold may serve.

  The latest new form of execution.

  Painless execution. The Iced Club.

  I shall begin by posing a prejudicial question. Like my father, I have always strongly demanded the abolition of the death penalty; in consequence, I am not about to defend one form of execution over another—I find them all odious and vile—but simply intend, as a faithful historian of my era, to expose the latest thing.

  Needless to say, it is inevitably American.

  So, a handful of exceedingly rich American capitalists, with the Exposition in mind, have just built and equipped a colossal factory outside Paris, thirty or forty minutes from the fortifications, for the mass production of ice by the usual methods of chemical refrigeration. Naturally, I shall say no more, in order not to raise superfluous protests from these honest businessmen.

  In any case, I would find it difficult to say any more, for I have been refused entry at the factory gate; it appears that there are glacial secrets inside. One of my friends, however, more fortunate, has been able to visit it, and has even been allowed into a refrigeration chamber, in which he was enclosed while it was chilled, for a few moments. One reaches incredibly low temperatures by this means, and finds oneself going numb painlessly. One descends insensibly into Nirvana, as the Indians say, without suffering; it is evident that this is entirely ideal.

  “A few seconds more,” said my friend, “and, without being able to protest, without pain, very gently, I felt that I was going to croak.”

  “Just so,” said the American engineers, with that gross thick laughter that harmonizes so well with the length of their feet. “Precisely—but we were there to stop the thrust of the liberating piston in time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It all depends on how your mother-in-law treats you.”

  Immediately, my friend understood that these American had already been corrupted by the literature of our music halls. This rather frivolous conversation notwithstanding, as they were only too happy to have a Parisian journalist that they thought influential at their disposal, they vouchsafed the following curious revelations, between glasses of iced champagne, and as my friend was somewhat chilled by them himself, I hasten to transcribe here the aforementioned sensational revelatio
ns.

  “You see, Monsieur, we’ve come to spend a million dollars or two here, setting up an artificial ice factory, with the 1900 Exposition in mind. That’s what the public will see, but for us it’s a mere bagatelle, and our real, hidden, unknown goal is a higher one; it’s humanitarian. We’re citizens of free America, but we’re also gentlemen, all members of the celebrated Iced Club of Indianapolis.71

  “If we refused entry to our factory to your colleague, it’s because he supports the abolition of the death-penalty. It can’t be abolished, especially in the land of the immortal Lynch!”

  “Why not lynx?”

  “Because we’re respectful of orthography...but don’t interrupt. We’ll go on. Hanging is sometimes slow, if not licentious, and clubs have even been founded back home of those hanged by persuasion and for fun.

  “The garrotte is a cruel torture, only good for Spaniards; the guillotine is old-hat, and as for our electrocution, it only gives lamentable results, without even ensuring the death of the patient. O sweet euphemism!

  “That’s why we’ve come to Paris with a superior humanitarian goal.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s quite simple, though. We, the members of the Iced Club of Indianapolis, will ask the President of the Republic, and the French parliament, if necessary, for the exclusive monopoly on all capital punishments in France, by rapid painless freezing.”

  “But then, just now, when you shut me in your freezing chamber…”

  “Exactly—it was to have, in case of need, your deposition of satisfaction at the enquiry as to the commodo vel incommodo.72

  “That’s horrible!”

  “No, practical! You’re not unaware that we Americans are the finest dentists in the world?”

  “Yes indeed.”

  “Well, just as we extract teeth painlessly, by means of cold, we want to extract life in the same way, by means of cold, without any pain for the wretches condemned to death. We’re benefactors of humankind; we remember Lafayette and, out of gratitude, for love of France, we want to endow her, in the name of humanity, with this process of frigorifico-execution.”

  “It’s genius!”

  “No, it’s good, it’s kind, it’s humane, it’s proper and it’s practical. The cadaver, emerging from the cold chamber after a few minutes, as stiff as an iron bar, is very easy to bury. As a method, it’s obvious that, from all points of view—sentimental and practical—it’s far superior to electrocution, which has given us so much trouble.”

  Then they set about swilling champagne in honor of Lafayette, the Iced Club, frigorifico-execution, and the 1900 Exposition—and the next morning, the American engineers and my poor friend were as drunk as skunks.

  That’s why he was only able to confide these astonishing revelations to me a few days later. He’d eaten too much salmon, as the Americans say.

  Pointed Insurance

  The flashguard.

  From the Prussian helmet to the Colonial helmet.

  A surprising new invention.

  My old and excellent colleague de Parville offered the following curious statistics in the Débats the other day, regarding people killed every year by thunder and lightning—by heavenly fire, as our forefathers used to say:

  “Between 1835 and 1895, lightning killed 6198 people in France! And that is a minimum. It is only since 1863 that the statistic of victims of heavenly fire has been calculated by the Ministry of Justice; it is the gendarmes who are responsible for enquiries and the courts of appeal that centralize the results. In general, lightning kills between 80 and 150 people a year on French territory. The figure is very variable from year to year: only 51 in 1860, 156 in 1868, 94 in 1876, 106 in 1877. The maximum years were 1892 (187), 1874 (178), 1884 (174), 1868 (156) and 1893 (155); they correspond to hot, dry summers.

  “The distribution of lightning-strikes is far from being regular; there are lightning-rich areas just as there are regions prone to hail. In some countries, it almost never thunders; in others, it thunders constantly. Mountainous regions are the worst afflicted. In the département of the Seine, one in 92,000 inhabitants is struck by lightning; in the Channel region, one in 29,414; in Morbihan, one in 18,600; in Lozère, one in 1362; in the lower Alps, one in 1454, etc. The victims of lightning are classified in the following order: under trees; in open country while holding metallic objects, carts, scythes or animals; in isolated houses, farm buildings or sheep-folds; in churches, especially while ringing bells during a storm; in railway buildings; in cities.”

  Confronted by such figures, a man with a heart cannot remain indifferent, so, when my initial emotion had calmed down somewhat, I immediately thought of seeking a means to avoid such an accumulation of celestial—but nevertheless sad—murders in the future. That’s what I’ve come up with, and am submitting very humbly to my readers. Without losing a minute, I got busy, and I’ve already taken out patents in the Republic of San Marino, Andorra, Monaco and chez Mélénick. This is what’s involved.

  I thought—quite rightly, I believe—that as soon as houses and public buildings had lightning-conductors, there was no reason why humans, natural individuals, shouldn’t also have them. I’ve even been astonished that until now, there have been none at all—like lightning-conductors elsewhere. For stormy weather, therefore, I’ve invented a portable lightning-conductor, which I call a flashguard, and which screws on to the top of a hat.

  “But then one would resemble a Prussian helmet-wearer, or a colonist wearing a colonial helmet.”

  Momentarily, yes, but where’d the harm in that? I shall continue my demonstration: the weather looks threatening; I have my apparatus on me; I take it out of its case; I fix the point on my hat and I let about two meters of conducive wire trail be behind me, which is attached to it in such a manner as to conduct the lightning to the ground whenever it falls upon the little pointed rod that I have put on my pate.

  Now, for elegant ladies who don’t want to drag two meters of wire behind them, there’s another arrangement. The wire plunges into a bottle full of water, which they have hidden in their pocket. When the lighting falls upon the little point that they have fixed above the sinciput, pop!—the electricity is lost in the water in the bottle, and, by the same token, when they get home, they have an excellent electrified water, cleansed of microbes, and it also saves buying a bottle of soda-water.

  I think that my invention, thus contrived, is simple, cheap and easy to use, especially when traveling. And there’s scarcely any need to add that I would be only too happy if, as a new benefactor of humankind, I were able to abolish deaths caused by lightning, as if by waving a magic wand, just as the immortal Pasteur—with all due respect to Raspail, his great forerunner73—abolished death from rabies…well, nearly.

  In the spring of 1899, I think, in a series of lectures at La Bodinière on “The Theater of Nature” I revealed to amazed Parisians that in New York, in summer, to avoid sunburn, straw hats are put on the heads of all the horses, piercing two holes to let the ears through. I am glad to see that my campaign of popularization has borne fruit, for now all the horses of launderers, milkmen, butchers, cesspool-emptiers, etc., wear traditional straw hats on their heads, thanks to the sage and kindly intervention of the Society for the Protection of Animals.

  In view of that, I have similarly applied my flashguard to the heads of horses and horned animals during the recent big storms, except that, as I had not taken into account the fact that quadrupeds as horizontal rather than perpendicular—which distinguishes them from bipeds, except for the horizontal ones—and the flashguard only protects a circumference double its radius or its height, as you please, it followed that when lightning fell on a cow equipped with my apparatus, the cow was well-protected, but its tail was burned.

  One cannot think of everything at first. So, either quadrupeds require points that are much longer, or it is necessary to teach them, like wise dogs, to sit on their rear feet in stormy weather, in order to obtain temporarily-perpendicula
r quadrupeds akin to humans.

  In any case, that is my invention, and I declare that I am proud of it. From one on, I shall put flashguards at the disposal of my readers at a price of ten francs, twelve francs thirty-five if nickeled, two francs more for quadrupeds because of the length of the stem, as I have explained above.

  Finally, I also have flashguards for poultry, at the modest price of one franc eighty-five. I do not sell them for ducks, which are always in the water, the best of preservatives.

  Now, as they say, let the band play on!

  Embalmers

  I. Mummies.

  An unusual industrial crisis in the land of the pharaohs.

  Proposed solutions.

  The Journal des Artistes, which used to be a conscientious and beautiful art review in the time of Arsène Houssaye, and was founded in Prairial of year III—hats off—has just published, in a technical work on colors intended for painters, the following excessively brief note on the color mummy:

  “If the Egyptian government continues not only the export of mummies but that of the debris of mummies, it is probable that within a few years, the supplies of conscientious manufacturers will be completely exhausted, and it will be necessary to think of either synthesizing the color in question, as is already practiced on a large scale, or of doing without it. And as it is necessary to choose the lesser of two evils, I deem that latter eventuality is still the best solution, for mummy will not leave a great void in the painter’s palette. Indeed, the color derived from the crushing of Egyptian mummies steeped in various sorts of resin and bitumen produces a brown tint reminiscent of, but less beautiful than, Judean bitumen, and possesses the same faults in both oils and water-colors.

  “The crushing of mummies must be very difficult to perfect, for, whatever care is invested in its purification, tiny pieces of fabric, bone, flesh, hair, etc., are inevitably left behind, which pass under the muller or the pestle without breaking up completely.”