QUESTION: Hector talks about a Yorkshire firm in the 19th century which swept up bones of the dead soldiers and ground them into fertilizer. What is the significance of the firm being from Yorkshire?
ANSWER: In Chris Hedges' War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, there is this anecdote from the post-Napoleonic period, drawn from the London Observer, November 18, 1822:
It is estimated that more than a million bushels of human and inhuman bones were imported last year from the continent of Europe into the port of Hull. The neighborhood of Leipzig, Austerlitz, Waterloo, and of all the places where, during the late bloody war, the principal battles were fought, have been swept alike of the bones of the hero and the horse which he rode. Thus collected from every quarter, they have been shipped to the port of Hull and thence forwarded to the Yorkshire bone grinders who have erected steam-engines and powerful machinery for the purpose of reducing them to a granularly state. In this condition they are sold to the farmers to manure their lands.
My interpretation is that Hector is disparaging Yorkshire as being populated by uncouth profit-hounds who have no honor in their search for money. This sentiment is in keeping with the perception of Yorkshire as a center of industry (ie. Industrial Revolution) and uncultured people. The best literary Yorkshire examples of this stereotype are Mr. and Mrs. Squeers in Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. Mr. Squeers is the definition of a rude, boarish Yorkshire man who beats little boys at his school and is only concerned with profit.
Hope this helps!
Kim
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