The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1881-04-20

sion for depression. 1t is only mass of
phosphate of lime. and put in its proper
place would insure = good crop of wheat or
vegetables.
/ noticed that many of the skulls were
pierced with holes either about the forehead
or temples. I thought these might be bull
let pierced skulls, the mementoes of barri-
cades and street fights. Then il occurred
to me that the holes had been made by the
sharp pick-points while they were being dis
inferred, and all the battle romance was
taken away. Because the poorer French
man only holds his six feet two of earth for
q few years, when he is dug up to make
room for another to go through the decom-
posing process. It's sad thought, and q
sad sight, too, TO see these temporary resting
places of the dead. Over the remains of a
husband or child she may, for few years,
be seen Sunday after Sunday caring for the
few flowers she has planted. But the slen-
der purse may only afford a five years
grave, and that time expired the workman
tears away the slender, humble wooden
paling, filings aside the little wooden cross,
and roots up the flowers. The bones are
dug up and added to these nameless piles
before US, to become show and even Jest
for visitors. The grave receives another
occupant, and another mourner plants
flowers upon and hangs immortelles
over it. All about poverty's burying
grounds of Paris may be seen idly
tossed the little toys in plaster or
earthehware placed by mothers over the
bones Of those now exumed children. The
immortelles, swept away from graves whose
occupants are in the catacombs, lie in great
heaps on the borders of these cemeteries,
and the little plaster or china toy which
covered the grave ofinfancy, is tossed about
on every side, as well as the temporary
wooden crosses, with their humble inscrip-
tons, which could only be sacred to FIVE
years memory That is the scientific and
material side of the question. But it won't
work. A pile of skulls is no joke. Because
we cannot tell what they are made of does
not lessen the awe and mystery at all.
Somebody once did his thinking, and much
of him or her lived inside of that round,
rusty, cocoa-nut-looking AFFAIR, and the
worst of it is that same somebody seems now
grinning at us because we're travelling the
same deceitful. fruitless path, and coming
cut in the end-a skull.
The fronts of these bone piles are orna
mented with fancy work in bones. The de-
signs in skulls, leg. arm and thigh bones are
wired together. A gentleman in front of
me kept saying: allow tasty These French
people cannot repress their artistic instincts
anywhere" Well, each one to his taste. 1
couldn't admire it. FIligree work in skulls
and thigh bones is wierd, but not
in the strictest sense ornamental.
Cornices and freizes of human skulls, even
in a sculptor, suggest Dabomey and sort of
osseous, cannibalistic taste in the fine arts.
However, it does not hurt the bones, and
perhaps the coming man will be so hard
hearted by continuous applications Of sci
ence and reason that he will freize his par
Tor with the polished skulls of generations
of ancestors. We came to a spring in a
large vaulted space. The water was clear
and hmpid, but no one drank. There was
too much death and decay piled about in
stacks to develop taste for water. Had it
been brandy and soda it would have been
quaffed dry. l do not think that the sight
of so many bones conduces to total absti-
nence practice. Though the spirit mas fed
from the bones the desire for spirits does
not always fly from the living. l confess
this is CHASTITY joke. But it was born
there in the catacombs. By this time we
we were tired of bones and wished only to
reach the other end of the tombs. Bones
had ceased to be novelty. One heap was
as good as forty. The crazy, bowling young
German no longer aspired to get lost, and
issued bowls with less fervor. The dentists
pockets were, believe, half full of teeth,
and the skull Taper with the cane seemed
to have satisfied himself that they were all
empty. The awe and terror of the ladies
had partly given way to sense of vexation
as the blotches of white mud continued 10
break out on their gowns and its paste to
incumber their thin shoes.
In France it is supposed that fee must
come in somewhere during the course of a
free show. So as the long line of 800 in
single file nesred the other side of the csta-
combs and those at the head first saw the
glimmer of day struggling down the stair
way, they put their hands in their pockets
and ratified the sous there, expecting that
the inevitable official would appear some
where and hint at bis expected gratuity.
Those in the rear. hearing the rattle, guessed
at its meaning and dived down into their
pockets and likewise ratified, and thus this
thought and consequent rafting of
coppers went along from one to another
down the whole line of 800, until the very
last man fell before it just as the extreme
brick in the row is the last to fall when the
first is tipped over Strange to say, no fee
taker appeared. The bones were genuinely
gratuitious. All the pennies went back to
their pockets again. All expected of us
were our half, or rather qusrter-burned.
candles. These were flung in heap, and
became somebody's perquisites. Three hum
dred quarter-burned candles make a very
creditable sccumulations of tallows, and are
probably sold over again to the next visi-
tors. 1t was interesting when one had
emerged to see our companions as they came
ont of the dark hole. They blinked like
owls. As the light struck their eyes their
faces assumed dazed, imbecile sort of ex-
preston. After recovering vision their
next regards were fastened at the white mud
stains on their clothes. As the full extent
of tie damage dawned upon them, and on
turning their heads over their shoulders
they found their respective rears to be even
in a worse condition than the front, they
swore in various tongues.
Balls I'm Florence.