Glasgow weekly times. (Glasgow, Mo.) 1848-1861, 1853-09-01
Down Among the Dead Men.


day visited the cemeteries. In every street
were long professions, tramping to the &c
solemn music of funeral marches. In the O
countenances of plodding passengers were b
the lines OF anxiety and grief, and many n
door was festooned with black and white c
hangings, the witnesses of wailing and of Il
sorrow. On the one hand slowly swept the 5
long corteges of the wealthy, nodding with :
plumes and drawn by prancing horses, re-
ioicng 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 pau
per was trunded to his long home on a
ricketty 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,
mingling 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 q mother for the
child Of her affections, while from the COR
ner opposite burst the song of some low
bacchanal,, mingling ribaldry with senti-
ment, or swearing prayer or two as the
humor moved him.
The skies wore deusive aspect. Above
was all cloudless sunshine, but little in
keeping with the black melancholy that en-
veloped 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
l.. ., g Al
death carriages noddedin seeming sympathy
to the swaying expresses of the swamp, en-
veloped 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 JOS
tied each other in the press, emingled the
coarse Jest with the ribald oath; no sound
but of profane malediction and of rotous
mirth, the cang of whip thongs and the
rattle of wheels. At the gates, the winds
brought intimation Of the corruption work
ing Within. Not puff but was laden with
the rank atmosphere from rottng corpes.-
Inside they were piled by fifties, exposed tc
the heat OF the sun, swollen with corruption
bursting their coffin lids, and sundering, as
if by physical effort, the ligaments that
bound their hands and feet, extending THEN
limos IN every 'oluFe allltuuc.
What feast of horrors! Inside, corpses
piled in pyramids, and without the gates
old and wlthered orones and fat huXter wo-
men, fretting in their own grease, dispens.
ing ice creams and CONNECTIONS, and brush.
ing away, with brooms made of bushes, the
green bottle-fes that lowered on their
J. merchandise, and that anon buzzel away tc
drink dainty limitations from the green and
fostering corpses. Mammon at the gates
= was making thrift outside by the hands o
his black and sweating minions, that ten
dered swe at-meats and cooling beverages Il
the throngs Of mourners or Of idle specta
tors who inhaling the fumes of rotting bodies
already "hea, ed the gorge;" while within
the king of Terrors" held his Saturnalia
with crowd of stolid laborers, who, a
they tumbed the dead into bitches, knocke
them ''about the mazzard, d" and swore drea,
oaths, intermingled with the more dreadful
sounds of demoniac iollity.
Long bitches were dug across the grea
human charnel. Wide bitches were the
to entomb legion, but only fourteen inche
deep. Collins laid in them showed thei
tops above .he surface of the earth. o
these was piled dirt to the depth of foe
or more, but so loosely that the myriads
flies found entry between the loose clods
down to the cracked seams Of the coffin.
and buzzed and blew there their oraTio
creating each hour their new hatche
sWarms.
But no sound was there of sorrow with
that wide Gehenna. Men used to the seer
of dissolution had forgotten all touch
sympathy. Uucouth laborers. with the
bare shock heads, stood under the broilin
heat of the sun, digging in the earth; and {
anon they would encounter an obstructir
root or stump, would swear hideous oatl
remove to another spot, and go OIL diggin
as before.
Economy of space was the source
cunning calculation in bestowing away II
dead men. Side by side were laid two,
gigantic proportions, bloated by corruptio
TO the size of Titans. The central proieC
tons of their collins, left spaces betwee
them at their heads and heels. This wa
too much room to be filled with EARTH
How should the space be saved? Oppoi
timely the material is at hand, for ca
comes numbering in, with the corpses of
mother and her two little children: chuck Il
children in the spaces at the heads and hee
of the Ttans, and lay the mother by he
self, out there alone! A comrade for h,
will be found anon, and herself and bab
will sleep not the less soundly from the Ill
wonted contact.
The fumes rise up in deathly exhalatiol
from the accumulating hecat ombs of ia
coming corpes. Men wear at their nos
bags of campher and odorous spices-fc
there are crowds there who have no bus
ness but to look and contemplate the va
congregation of the dead. They don't cal
if they die hemselves-they have becon
used to the reek of corruption. They eve
laugh at the riotings of the skeleton Deaf
and crack jokes in the horrid atmosphe
where scarcely thy can draw breath for u
terance.