SMAD. An Organ of Student Opinion. 1932. Volume 3. Number 5.

Two Hundred Years Hence. — A Letter to the Editor of "Smad."

Two Hundred Years Hence.

A Letter to the Editor of "Smad."

Dear "Smad,"—

We in our sent of learning naturally take interest ill objects about us which are links with the past of historic value. We must not, however, confuse this laudable inclination with foolish sentimentality which leads us to perpetuate useless relics, keeping fresh in our minds memories of nocuous habits which have long since been replaced by more civilised customs.

The object of my letter, Sir, is that we may approach the City Authorities with a view to removing the Mount Street graveyard, whose strange monuments form such an irrelevant contrast to the stately towers of our University Building. Not only would the site be advantageously acquired by the funds of the Hurley Bequest (named after the famous Christian of the twentieth century) for the erection of a School of Pure and Applied Eugenics, but spectacle of the tombstones is a depressing reminder of the days when our sentimental ancestors buried their dead, i.e.. actually interred in. the earth the bodies of their departed friends—a custom so different from our present efficient methods of corpse utilisation.

These methods were originally established (after a heated conflict with the Church, it will be renumbered) to remedy the then acute shortage of hormones. Of course the supply is now almost entirely of synthetic products; still, many people prefer natural to synthetic hormones in controlling their emotions and adjusting their temperaments. The original cause of corpse utilisation having most disappeared, the practice still has been continued and supplies annually a valuable amount of blood especially Group A blood), nervous material including conditioned synapses) bone, sense organs, etc., besides hormones.

Of course,, in the old days disease was known, and this in any case would have rendered the process impossible. It was not till 1950 that contagious diseases were eliminated the last ailment of this kind to be conquered by Science was what was known as "the common cold." Before the end of the century disease was completely stamped out.

Then, again, we products of ectogenesis must not forget that in the twentieth century the earth's inhabitants often had a stronger bond of sentiment with their dead than we do; they actually had direct parents—just as the "sub-homo sapiens" species has to-day. In fact, it was not till near the end of the century that the first human was perfected by laboratory processes. It is interesting to recall that often even the intelligentsia spent quite a large part of their lives in the various aspects of parenthood. With this disproportionately large emotional interest, no wonder they failed to become the "rational animals" they so proudly dubbed themselves.

But these clogs to progress being now happily removed, is it not time likewise to remove their grotesque souvenirs and to erect in their place the proposed School, in accordance with our century old College motto: "Use and Beauty."

I am, etc.,

" A Sign of the Times."