Wisconsin tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1847-1854, 1853-10-06
From the New orleshs Crescent
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.

the SoIefflu uuSlc OF Iunerdl lloFcneS. In
the countenances of plodding passengers
were the lines of anxiety and grief, and
many door was festooned with black and
. white hangings, the voiceless witnesses of
wailing and sorrow On the one hand
slowly swept the long corteges of the
wealthy, nodding with plumes and drawn
by prancing horses: rejoicing in their fu-
neral vanities on another, the hearse of
the citizen soldier, preceded BY measured
music. enveloped in warlike panoply, and
followed by the noisy tread of men under
arms while there again the pauper was
trundled to his long home on ricketty
CART with a boy for a driver, who whistled
as he went and swore a careless oath as
he urged his mule or spawned horse to a
trot, making haste with another morsel
contributed to the grand banquet of death.
Now among the steeples was heard the
Ginning of the bells, as of Ghoules up
there, mingling their hoarse voice as in q
chorus of graduation over the ranks of
fallen mortality Anon from some lowly
tenement trilled the low vail of mother
for the child of her affections, while from
the corner opposite burst the song of some
low bacchanal, mingling ribaldry with SEN
tlment, or swearing prayer or two as the
humor moved him.
The skies wore delusive aspect. Above
was all cloudless sunshine, but little in
keeping with the black melancholy that
enveloped all below Out along the high
ways that lead to the cities of the dead,
and still the tramp of funeral crowds knew
no cessation. Up rolled the volumes of
dust from the busy roads, and the plumes
of the death carriages nodded in seeming
sympathy to the swaying expresses of the
swamp, enveloped in their dun appareling
of weeping moss-ft garniturc for such a
scene.
At the gathering points carriages accu-
mulated and vulgar teamsters. as they
ljosted each other in the press, mingled
the coarse jest with the ribald oath no
sound but of profane maledicton aud of
rlotous mirth, the clang of whip thongs
and the rattle of wheels. At the gates,
the wind brought intimation of the cor
ruption working within. Not puff but
was laden with the rank atmosphere from
rotting corpscs. Inside they were piled
by tifties, exposed to the heat of the sun,
swollen with corruption, bursting their
coffin lids, and sundering as if by physi-
cal effort the ligaments that bound their
hands and feet, and extending their rigid
limbs IN every Oatre attitude What
feast of horrors Inside, corpses piled in
pyramids, and without the gates, old and
withered crones and fat huxtcr women,
frettlng in their own grease, dispensing
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 inbalations from the green
and fostering corpses. Mammon at the
gates was making thrift outside by the
hands of his black and sweating minions,
that rendered sweet-meats and cooling
beverages to the throngs of mourners or
of idle spectators, who, inhaling the fumes
of rottng bodies, already 'heaved the
gorge" while within, the king of Ter
rors' held his Saturnalia, with crowd of
stolid laborers. who, as they tumbled the
dead into bitches, knocked them '-about
the mazard,' and swore dread oaths, in
termingled with the more dreadful sounds
of demoniac jollity.
Long bitches were dug across the great
human charnel Wide enough were they
to entomb legion. but only fourteen in
ches deep Coffins laid in them showed
their tops abore the surface of the earth
On these was piled dirt to the depth of a
foot or more. but so loosely, that the myr
lads of flies found entry between the loose
clods, down to the cracked seams of the
coffins, and buzzed and blew there their
oUaria, creating each hour their new hatch
ed swarms
But no sound was there of sorrow with
in that wide Gehenna. Men used TO the
scent of dissolution had forgotten all touch
of sympathy 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
a hideous oath, remove to another spot,
and 60 on digging as before Now and
then the mattock or the spade would dis
turb the bones Of some former tenant of
, the mould, forgotten there amid the ar
mics of the accumulated victims, and the
sturdy laborer with 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 sepulchre, with ghast-
illness staring out
8 From each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
without cliciting an "Alas, poor Yorick," :"
and with only an exclamation from the
digger. of s'room for your betters -
Economy OF space was the source
of cunning calculation in slowing away the
dead men Side By side were laid two of
, gigantic proportions, bloated By corrup-
tons to the size of Titans. The central
projections of their coffins. left spaces be-
{ tween them at their heads and heels
This was too much room to be filled with
earth How should the space be saved ?
, Opportunely the material is at hand. for
|, a cart comes numbering in, with the corps
es of a mother aad her two children
, Chuck the children in the spaces at the
heads aud heels of the Titans, and lay the
mother by herself out there alone A
, comrade for her will be found anon, and
herself and babes will sleep not the less
. soundly from the unwonted contact J