The Kalida venture. [volume] (Kalida, Ohio) 1841-1865, 1853-09-16
From the N. o. Crescent, Aug. IL.
THE PEsTILENCE AT NEW OR
LEANS.
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.

a
To verify the many horrible reports of
the doings among the dead, we the other
day visited the cemeteries. In every
street weIe long professions, tramping To
the solemn music OF funeral marches.
In the countenances of pIodding pOssen-
gers were The lines of anxiety and grief,
and many door was fesrooned with
BACK and white llangings, the voiceless
witnesses Of wailing and Of sorrow. On
the one hand slowly swept the tong cori.
eyes of the wealthy, nodding with plumes
and drawn by prancing horses, rejoicing
in lheir funeral vanties; on another, tbe
hearse of the citizen soldier preceded by
measured music, enveloped in waIlike
panopIy, and followefby the noisy tread
OF men under arms; while there again
the pauper was trundled 10 his long
home on ricketiy cart, with boy for
driver, who whistled as he went, and
sw0re a careless oath as lie Urged his
mule or spawned horse to a tro,, making
haste with another morsel contributed 10
the grand banquet Of death. Now among
the steeples was heard The Ginning Of
the bells, as OF Ghoules up there, ming.
ling their oarse voices as in chorus Of
graduation over the ranks of fallen mor-
tali,y. Anon from some lowly tenement
trilled the low wall of mother for the
child of her affections, while from The
corner opposite burst tho song OF some
low bacchanal, mingiing ribaldry with
sentiment, or swearing prayer or two,
as the humor moved him.
The, skies wore dclusivc aspect
Above was all cloudless sunshine, bnt
little i1 keeping with the black melan>
choly that enveloped all below. Out
along the highways that lead to the Giles
of tho dead, and still the tramp of funeral
crowds knew no cessation. Up rolled
the volumes OF dus, from the busy roads,
end the plumes of the death carriages
nodded in seeming sympathy TO the
swaying expresses of the swamp, envel-
oped in their dun appareliug of weeping
nuss-ft garnture for such scene.
AT the gathering points carriages ac~
cumulated, and vulgar teamsters, as they
ioslled each other in the press, mingled
the coarse jest with the ribald oath; no
sound but of proiane maledciion and of
riolous mirlh, the clang Of whip thongs
and the wheels. At the gates, the
winds brought intmation of the corrup>
ton working within. Not a puff but was
laden with the rank atmosphere from
rolling corpses Inside Trey were piled
by fiCties, exposed TO The heat of The sun,
swollen with corruption, bursting their
coffin lids, aud sundering, as if by physi-
cal effort, the ligamen's that bound their
hands and feet, and extending their rigid
limbs in every outre attitude. What a
reas, Of horrors! Inside, corpses piled
on pyramids, and without the gates, old
aud withered crones and ia, hux,er vo>
men, frettinG in their own grease, dis
pensing ice creams and confeclions, and
brushing away, with brooms made Of
bushes, the green boltle-hes that hover
ed ON their merchandise, and that anon
buzzed away TO drink dainty limitations
from the green and fostering corpses.
Mammon al the gRtes was making thrift
outside by the hands of the black and
sweating minions, that rendered sweet
meats and cooling beverages 10 the
, throngs of monrners or of idle spectators
, who, inhaling the fumes of rottng bodies
already "heaved the gorge:" while within
4 the "Kng Of Terrors" held his Sa'urnalia
with crowd of stoln loborers, who, as
,hey tuoibIed the dead into bitches,
knocked them "about the mazzard,' and
, swore dread oa,hs, interminged with the
most dreadful sounds of demoniac jolily.
Long bitches were dug across the
great human charne. Wide enough
we're they to enomb a legion, but only
fourteen inches deep. Coffins laid in
} them showed their tops above the surface
, of the earth. On these was piled dirt 20
lhe depth of foot or more, but so loose
tly, that the myriads of flies found entrr
between the loose clods, down to the
cracked seams of The cofins, and buzzed
and blew their oraria, creating each
hour their new 1atched swarms.
But no sound was there of sorrow
within that wide Gehenna. Men used to
the scent Of dissolution had forgotten all
touch of sympathy. Uncoulh laborers,
with their bare shock heads, stood under
the broiling heat OF the sun, digging in
the earth; and, as anon they would en-
counter an obstructing root or stump,
would swear a hideous oath, remove to
another spot, and go on digging as be-
fore. Now and then the maltock or the
spade would disturb the bones OF some
former tenant of the mould, forgotten
there amid the armies of the accumulated
victims, and the sturdy laborer with a
gibe. would hurl the broken fragments
on the sward, growl forth an energetic
d-n, and chuckle in his excess of glee.
Skull bones were dug up from their long
sepulnre, with ghas,lness staring out
"From each lack. lustre eyeless hole,n