Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1853-09-15
From the New Orleans Crescent.
Down Among the Dead.

every street were long professions
tramping to the solemn music of funeral
marches. In the eountenances of plod.
ding passengers were the lines of ankle
! ty and grief, and many door was fes.
tooned with black and white hangings
the voiceless witnesses of wailing and oi
sorrow. On the one hand slowly swept
the long corteges of the wealthy, nod
ding with plumes, and drawn by pran-
cling horses, rejoicing in their funeral
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
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 steeples was heard the Ginning of
the bells, as of Ghouls up there, ming
ling their hoarse voices as in chorus of
graduation over the ranks of fallen NOR
tality. Anon from some lowly tenement
trilled the low wall of mother for the
child of her affections, whils from the
corner opposite burst the song of some
low bacchanal, mingling ribaldry with
sentiment, or swearing prayer or two,
as the humor moved him. rr. -.r.
The skies wore a delusive aspect
Above was all cloudless sunshine, but
little in keeping with the black melan-
choly that enveloped all below. Out
along the highways that lead to the cit
les of the dead. and still the tramp of fu-
neral crowds knew no cessation. Up
rolled the volumes of dust from the bu
sy roads, and the plumes of the death
carriages nodded with seeming sympa-
thy to the swaying expresses of the
swamp, enveloped in their dun apparel
ling of weeping moss-ft garniture for
such a scene. Simon .r-.-l
AT the gathering points carriages ac-
cumulated, and vul gar teamsters, as they
jostled each other in the press, mingled
the coarse Jest with the ribald oath; no
sound but of profane malediction and of
riotous mirth, the clang of whip-tbongs
and the rattle of wheels. AT the gates,
the winds brought intimation of the cor
ruption working within. Not puff but
was laden with the rank atmosphere
from rotting corpses. Inside they were
piled by fifties, exposed to the heat of
the sun, swollen with corruption, burst
ing their coffin lids, and sundering, as if
by physical effort, the ligaments that
bound their hands and feet, and extend
ing their rigid limbs in every outre atti-
tude. What a feast of horrorsl In
side, corpses piled in pyramids, and
without the gates, old and withered
crones and fat huxter-women, fretting in
their own grease, dispensing ice creams
and confections, and brushing away,
with brooms made of brushes, the green
bottle flies that hovered on their mer-
chandize, and that anon buzzed away to
drink dainty inhalations from the green
and fostering corpses. Mammon at the
gates was making thrift outside by the |
hands of his black and sweating min
ions, that rendered sweet meats and cool
ing beverages to the throngs of mourn-
ers or of idle spectators, who, inhaling
The fumes of rotting bodies, already |
'heaved the gorge;;" while within, the
''King of Terrors" 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, intermingled with
The more dreadful sounds of demoniac
iollity.
Long bitches were dug across the
great human chanel. Wide enough
we're they to entomb a legion, but only
fourteen inches deep. Coffins laid in
hem showed their tops above the sur
ace of the earth. On these was piled
lirt to the depth of foot or more, but
20 loosely, that the myriads of flies
ound entry between the loose clods,
Town to the cracked seams of the cof-
ins, and buzzed and blew there their
'varid, creating each hour their new
latched swarms.
But no sound was there of sorrow
within that wide Gehenna. Men, used
o the scent of dissolution, had forgotten
Ill touch of sympathy. Uncouth labor
srs, with their bare shock heads, stood
lnder the broiling heat of the sun, dig
ring in the earth, and, as anon they
would encounter an obstructing root or
stump, would swear hideous oath, re-
move to another spot, and go on digging
As before. Now and then the mattock
or the spade would disturb the bones of
some former tenant of the mould, for
gotten there amid the armies of the ac-
victims, and the sturdy labor
sr, with give, would hurl the broken
fragments on the sward, growl forth an
d-n, and chuckle in his excess
Of glee. Skull bones were dug up from
heir long sepulture, with ghastliness
staring out
"From each lacklustre, eyeless hole"
without eliciting an "Alasl poor Yor-
ck, and with only an exclamation from
the digger of Room for your bettersl''
Economy of space was the source of
cunning calculation in bestowing away
he dead men. Side by side were laid
.wo, of gigantic proportions, bloated by
corruption to the size of Titans. The