Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1884-10-09
The NIisericordia.

Those who have been in Florence
have often seen, crossing the narrow
streets at night. q long funeral process
sion moving slowly toward the Porta
Pinta; and no one can have seen it
without feeling akin TO awe. The
dickering torches with their lurid light
are borne by men shrouded in black
from head TO foot. Their faces are
concealed under black masks. and they
carry on their shoulders coffin, COW
cred with black pail. The idlers in
I the street make way respectfully and
murmur: ut is the Misericordia.
That measured tread, those ghastly
masks, those shroud-like dresses, the
strange. uncertain light of the torches,
the fantastic procession-all powerful
aly impress the mind of the passer-by
\ WHO sees that solemn show for tie first
time. and he involuntarily asks:
What does all this mean? Why are
\ all those men so closely masked? Why
I do the people make way SO respectful
sly?"
Sometimes one meets the same pro.
cession in the daytime, but now the
coffin is replaced by litter, the black
i cloth of which is lifted up ON one side.
Here again the bearers are the Miseri-
cordia, carrying some invalid from his
home to the hospital.
In deep silence the men carry their
suffering burden with q pace so steady
and hand SO firm. that scarce any
motion OF the litter is perceptible.
I Long practice and careful training
; have made them adopts in the art of
nursing; and there are no better or
ganzers or executants of ambulance
Service than they.
After having successfully struggled
against the greatest scourge of human.
( ity-plague-the Misericordia under
stook the treatment of that new foe that
presented itself in the nineteenth CEN
&tury-that was almost as deadly-chol-
ern.
When this m alady first appeared in
| Florence, it found all the brothers
at their posts ready for the
Fearful battle. Other towns of
Italy prove to us that not every one
considered it his duty to lay down his
/ life for his neighbor. But such are tho
sforce of habit and tradition that, while
our cities lost heart and were distract
led, the brothers of the Misericordia
calmly went on in the way traced out
\ for them by those six preceding CEN
turtles of patient and enduring self alb
snegation. In the beginning the habit
/ al signal-bell was used for sembling
the members, but, as cases of sudden
! death became daily more frequent, and
as the lugubrious sound contributed to
the general feeling of uneasiness, it
was decided TO put an end TO it. I'M
happily lack of work was never felt
Sometimes seventy-seven litters were
lin use at one time, without speaking of
eases of ordinary illness, which aver
Jagged seventeen daily. The brothers
were always found 10 be in sufficient
Plumbers: four TO carry the litter,
while four others followed TO relieve
them. Now in rich palaces, but more
often in miserable novels, the brothers
went up three or four stories of dirty
stairs, entered the infectious room of
the dylng-dyiug. not on bed or on Il
mattress, but on foul heap of straw;
with their tender and well-trained
hands, they lifted up the sick man, and
putting him upon their shoulders, in
sill his repulsiye hidcousness, they went
down those often dangerous stairs.
through dark, narrow passages. and
then gently deposited their charge on
the litter that awaited them below.
During the intense heats, when the
thermometer marked ninety degrees in
the shade, and every Florentino shell
tered himself behind the thick walls of
his palace against the scorching rays
of the sun. the charitable procession,
crossing the deserted streets, might be
seen at the hottest hours of the day
.Ada BdkOHRiHe. i1 the Manhattan.