# Travels in Philadelphia/The Ronaldson Cemetery

| “ | A slab of Veranda's bread dipped in that kidney gravy atones for three speeches by Senator Sherman! And then when Rosa brings on the tall pot of marmalade, which another devotee and I keep there for dessert, and we light up our cigarettes and watch the restaurant cat sprawling in Oriental luxury by the steam pipes—then we come somewhere near the throne of human felicity mentioned by Doctor Johnson. | ” |
THE RONALDSON CEMETERY
Whenever I feel weary of life, liberty and the pursuit of some one else's happiness, whenever some one tells me that the League of Nations is sure to be a failure, or reminds me that the American Press Humorists are going to hold their convention here next June and we shall all have to flog our lethargic brains into competition with all the twenty-one-karat drolls of this hemisphere—whenever, in short, life is wholly gray and oblique, I resort to Veranda's for lunch.
The Placid By-Way of Clinton Street
Veranda's is an outpost of Little Italy, which does not really begin until you get south of Lombard. And the other day, after lowering the level of the marmalade by several inches, it occurred to me to renew my acquaintance with Little Italy proper.
Ninth street is the best channel of approach to Philadelphia's Mediterranean colony. There is a good deal to distract attention before you cross the Alps of South street. If you have a taste for alleys you will be likely to take a side tour of a few versts in the quaint section of stables and little brick houses that lies just below Locust street and between Ninth and Tenth. Just now you will find that region liberally placarded with small neat notices announcing the loss (on January 8) of a large yellow and white Angora cat, having white face, breast and feet and answering to the name of Taffy. This struck at my heart, for I once owned a yellow Angora of the same name, which I smuggled home from Boston one Christmas Eve in a Pullman sleeper, against all railway rules, and I hope and trust that by this time Taffy has ​returned to his home at 260 South Ninth street, and to Mrs. Walter M. James, his bereaved mistress.
The little notice about the recreant Master Taffy was strangely appropriate for this queer little district of Hutchinson, Delhi, Irving and Manning streets, for it is just what in London would be known as a "mews." It is a strange huddle of old brick houses, full of stables and carpenters' workshops, with agreeable vistas of chimneys, attic windows, and every now and then a gentleman of color leisurely bestraddling a horse and clumping along the quiet pavements. Small brown dogs of miscellaneous heritage sit sunning themselves on doorsteps; on Hutchinson street a large cart was receiving steaming forkloads of stable straw. In the leisurely brightness of mid-afternoon, with occasional old clo' men chanting their litany down the devious alleyways, it seems almost village-like in its repose. A great place to lead a fat detective a chase! The next time George Gibbs or John Mclntyre writes a tale of mystery and sleuthing, I hope he will use the local color of Delhi street. Why do our native authors love to lay the scenes of their yarns in Venice, Madrid, Brooklyn or almost anywhere except Philadelphia?
On Ninth street below Pine one comes upon a poem in a window which interested me because the author, Mr. Otis Gans Fletcher, has evidently had difficulty with those baffling words "Ye" and "Thou," which have puzzled even greater ​poets—such as Don Marquis. The poem is called "Welcome to Our Heroes," and begins:
Welcome! home, Great Heroes,
Nobly! hath thou fought
and continues,
We know the price, the sacrifice
That ye each paid to learn,
and by and by concludes:
Welcome! thrice!!! welcome, Great Heroes, Defenders of Humanity;
The world now lives, on what thou didst give, For the great spirit, De-moc-ra-cy.
After putting Lombard street behind the voyager becomes immediately aware of the Italian atmosphere. Brightly colored cans of olive oil wanton in the windows; the Tripoli Barber Supply Company, whose window shines with all manner of lotions and shampoos, offers the Vesuvius Quinine Tonic, which is said to supply "unrivaled neutrement" for the hair. Little shops appear displaying that curious kind of painting which seems to be executed on some metallic surface and is made more vivid by the insertion of small wafers of mother-of-pearl where the artist wants to throw in a note of high emotion. These paintings generally portray Gothic chapels brooding by lakes of ultramarine splendor; their only popular competitor is a scene of a white terrier with an expression of fixed nobility watching over the bedside of a ​young female innocent who lies, clad in a blue dress, beneath a scarlet coverlet, her golden locks spread over a white pillow. The faithfulness of the animal and the secure repose of the child may be profitably studied in the length of time necessary to light a pipe. I feel sure that no kind-hearted footpad's home is complete without this picture.
The Ronaldson Cemetery, laid out in 1827 at Ninth and Bainbridge streets, comes as a distinct shock to a sentimental wayfarer already unmanned by the above appeal to the emotions. Mrs. Meredith, the kindly caretaker, admitted me through the massive iron gates, surprised and pleased to find a devotee of cemeteries. In the damp chill of a February afternoon the old graveyard is not the cheeriest of spots, but I was restored to optimism by this inscription:
Passing stranger think this not
A place of fear and gloom:
We love to linger near this spot,
It is our parents' tomb.
This, however, was carved some fifty years ago. I fear there is little lingering done in Ronaldson's Cemetery nowadays, for the stones are in ill repair, many of them fallen. According to Scharf and Westcott's history, it was once considered the finest cemetery in the country and "a popular place of burial." Just within the gateway are two little houses, in at least one of which a merry little family of children is growing up undepressed by ​the strange surroundings. One of these houses, according to Ronaldson's cautious plan, was "to have a room provided with a stove, couch, etc., into which persons dying suddenly might be laid and the string of a bell put into their hand, so that if there should be any motion of returning life the alarm bell might be rung, the keeper roused and medical help procured."
James Ronaldson was a Scotchman, as I had already surmised from an obelisk erected, "Sacred to the memory of Scottish Strangers," and possibly his cautiousness in the matter of burying people alive may have suggested this favorite theme to Edgar Allan Poe, who was living in Philadelphia at the time when the magnificent new cemetery must have been the talk of the town. Scotchmen have always been interested in cemeteries, and as I walked those desolate paths among the graves I could not help thinking of Stevenson's love of the old Grayfriars and Calton Hill burying grounds in Edinburgh. A man was busy digging a grave near the front gate, and a new oak casket lay at the door of the keeper's house. It was strange to see the children playing round happily in such scenes.