The Belmont chronicle, and farmers, mechanics and manufacturers advocate. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1848-1855, 1853-09-02
From the New orleans Crescent,
Down among the Dead Men.

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doings among the dead, we the other day
visited the cemeteries. In every street we're
long professions, trampling to the solemn
music Of funeral marches. In the countenan-
ces of podding passengers were the lines OF
anxiety and grief, and many door was fes-
tooneu with black and white hangings, the
yoiceless witness Of wailing and sorrow.
On the ore hand slowly swept the long cor
teges of the wealthy, nodding with plumes g.
drawn by prancing horses, rejoicing in their
funeral vanities; on another, the hearse OF
the citizcn-soldier, preceded by measured
music, enveloped in warlike panoply, aud
followed by the noisy tread Of men under
arms; while there again, the pauper was
trundled to his long home on rickety cart,
with boy for driver, who whistled as he
went, and swore a careless oath as he urged ,
his mule or spawned horse to trot, making
haste with another morsel contributed to the
grand banquet of death. Now among the !,
steepes was heard the Ginning Of the bells,
as of Ghoues up there, mingng their hoarse
voices as in a chorus of graduation over the
ranks of fallen mortality. Anon IRON some
lowly tenement trilled the low wall Of a
mother for the child Of her affections, while
from the corner opposite bursts the song OF
some low bacchanal mingling rlbaldry with
sentiment, or swearing prayer 'or two as
the humor moved him.
The skies wore de'usivc aspect. Above
was all cloudlcss sunshine, but little in keep
ing with the black melancholy that enveop-
ed all below. Out along the highways that
lead to .he cities of the dead, and still the
tramp of funeral crowds knew on cessation.
Up rolled the volumes of dust from the bu-
sy roads, and the plumes Of the death carri-
ages nodded in seeming sympathy to the
swayiDg Expresses of the swamp, enveloped
in their dun apparelng Of weeping moss
fit garniture for such a scene.
At the gathering point carriages accumu-
lated and vulgar teamstcrs, as they jos'led
each other in the press, mingled the coarse
Jest with the iibald oath; no sound but ol
proiane malediction and of rotous mirth, the
clang of whpthongs and the rattle of wheels
At the gates, the winds brought intimation Of
the corruption working within Not puff
but was laden with the rank atmosphere from
rottng corpses. Inside they were piled by
inios, exposed to the heat of the sun, swol-
len with the corruption, bursting their coffin
lids, and sudering, as if by physical effort, the
lgaments that bound their hands and feet, g.
extending their rigid limbs in every 'outre'
attitude. What feast Of horrors! Inside,
corpses piled in pyramids, and without the
gates, old aud withered crones and fat huxter-
women, frct,ing in their own grease, dispens-
ing ice creams and confections, and brushing
away with brooms made of bushes, the green
bottle flies that lowered on their merchandise,
and that anon buzzed away to drink dainty
inhalations from the green and fostering
corpscs.
Nammon n, the gates was making thrift
outside by the hands of his black and sweat
ing mnions, that rendered sweatmeats and
cooling beverages to the throngs of mourners
or idle spectators, who, inhaling the fumes
of rotting bodies, already 'heaved the gorgc'
while within, the king of Terrors' held his
Saturnaa with crowd stolid laborers, who,
ns they tumbled the dead luto bitches, knock
ed them about the mazzard,' and swore dread
oaths, interminglcd with the more dreadful
sounds of Gemonac jolity.
Long bitches were dug across the great hu
man charnal. Wide enough were they to
cntomb legion but only fourteen inches
deep. Cofiins laid in them showed their tops
above the surface of the earth. On these
were piled dirt to the depth of foot or MORE
but 80 loosely, that the myriads of flies found
cutry between the loose clods down to the
cracked seams of the coflins, aud blew there
their 'ova7a' creating each hour, their new
Matched swarms.
But no sound was there of sorrow within
TINT wild Gahcnna. Men used to the scent
of dissolution had forgotten all touch of sym
pnthy. Uncouth laborers, with their bare
shock heads, stood under the brOiling heat of
the sun, digging in the earth; and as anon
they would encounter an obstructing root or
stump, would swear hideous oath, remove
TO another spot, and go on digging as before.
Now and then the mattock or the spade
would disturb the bones of some former ten
ant of the mould, forgotten there amid the
armies of the accumulated victims, and the
sturdy aborer, with gibc, would hurl the
broken fragments on the sward, growl forth
nn energetic d-n, and chuckle in his excess
of glee. Skull-bones were dug up from their
long sepulture, with ghastlieuss staring out
"from each lack lu,,rc, eyeless hole"
without ecting an 'Alas, poor Yorck,' and
WIN hH ilOW OF
'room for your bettersr
Economy Of space was the source of cum
ming calculation in slowing away the DEAD |
men. Side by side were laid two, gigantic !
proportions bloated by corruption to the size
of Titans. The central projections Of their
coiins, left spaces between them at their
heads and heels. This was to much room to
be filled with earth. How should the space
be saved' OPportunely the material is at
hand, for cart comes numbering in with
corpses Of mother aud her two little child
ren. Chuck the children in the spaces at the
heads aud heels of the Titans, aud lay the
mother by herself, out there alone! A eomrade
will be found for her anon, and herself and
babes will sleep not the less soundly from the
unwunted contact!
The fumes rise up in deatlly exhalations
from the accumlnting hecatombs of fastcom.
ing corpses. Men wear at their noses bags