The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1854-01-05
How they Bury their Dead in Naples.


N. p. Willis, in an account of his visit
to Italy, speaks Of the burial vaults in Ma
Piles in the following manner:
An old man opened the iron door, and
we entered clean, spacious, and well
paved area, with long rows ofiron rings in
the heavy slabs of the pavement. With
out asking question, the old man walked
across to the farther corner, where stood
movable lever, and fastening the chain
into the fixture, raised the massive stone
cover ola pit. He requested US to stand
back for few minutes to give the effluvia
time to escape; and then, sheltering our
eyes with our hats, we looked in. You
have read, Of course, that there are three
hundred and sixty-f pits in this place,
one of which is opened every day for the
dead of the city. They are thrown in
without shroud or coffin, and the pitts seal
ed up at night for a year. They are thir
ty or forty feet deep, and each would con-
tain, perhaps, two hundred bodies. Lime
is thrown upon the daily heap, and it soon
melts into a mass of garbage, and by the
end Of the year the bottom of the pit is
covered with dry white bones.
1t was some Time before we could dis
tinguish any thing in the darkness of the
abyss. Fixing my eyes on one spot, how
ever, the outlines of a body became defn-
ed gradually, and in a few minutes, shell
tering my eyes completely from the sun
above, could see all the horrors of the
scene but too distinctly. Eight corpses,
all growing persons, lay in confused heap
together, as they had been thrown in one
after another in the course of the day
The last was powerfully made gray old
man, who had fallen flat on his back, with
his right hand lying across, and half COW
ering the face of woman. By his full
limbs and chest, and the darker color o.
his legs below the knee, he was probably
one of the lazzaroni, and had met with 6
sudden death.
His right heel lay on the forehead of I
young man emaciated to the last degree
his chest thrown up as he lay, and his ribs
showing like skeleton covered with skin
The close black curls of the latter as his
head rested on another body, were in sucf
strong relief that could have counted
them. Otto the right, qnite distinct from
the heap, lay in a beautiful attitude, a girl
as far as l could judge of not more thar
nineteen or twenty. She had fallen on th'
pile, and rolled or slid away. Her hal
was very long, and covered her left should
er and bosom; her arm was across he
body, and if her mother had laid her dow
to sleep, shesesald not have disposed he
limbs moresdecently. The head had fall
en- little way to the right, and the feet
which were small, even for lady, wer
pressed one againstthe other, as if she wa
about turning on her side. The sexto
said that young man had come with th
body and was very i'll for some time afte
it was thrown in. We asked him if re
spectacle people were brought up here
t EYES," he said, "many. None but tn
rich would go to the expense ola separat
grave for their relations. People were Of
ten brought in handsome grave clothes
but they were always stripped before the
were left. The shroud, whenever ther
) was one, was the perquisite of the under
J takers" And thus are flung into thi
: noisome pit, like beasts, the greater pal
i of the population of this vast city-tl1
young and the old, the vicious and th
rirtuous together, without the decenc
even of a rag to keep up the distinction {
life! Can human beings thus be throw
away? men like ourselves-wemen, Chi
y dren, like our sisters and brothers?
} never was so Inundated in my life as b
: this horrid spectacle. 1 did not think
. man-felon even, or leper-what you viii
that is guilty or debased-I did not thin
l. anything that had been human, could b
SO recklessly abandoned. Pah! Itmake
q one sick at heart! God grant may ne'
u er die at Naples!
l. TELEGRAPH WoNDERs.-It may not /
generally known that operators in mag
1t netic telegraph Offices become SO familis
e with the sound of the instrument throug