The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-10-30
THE CAPUCITIN CATACOMBS.
EXTRAORDINARY SCENES IN A BUR
1AL CHAMBER.
A IhaStIy Drying Process Galleries
OF Nurnmics-HEOV tho Dead are
Cared for Mt Palermo.


Cared for Mt Palermo.
The soil upon which the Capuchin
monastery at Palermo, Italy, is built,
possesses to such a degree the singular
property of fastening the decomposition
OF corpse, that in one year nothing re.
mlins upon the bones except few
patches of black, witbered skin, and per
haps some of the hair Of the beard and
checks. The collins are placed in small
lateral vaults, each of which contains
about eight or ten dead; and, after a
year passes, the coffin is opened and the
corpse taken out, a frightful mummy,
that is then suspended in one of the
main galleries, where the members of the
family come to visit it. Those who wish
to be preserved by this drying process
make their wills accordingly; and they
will be filed away under those black
vaults So long as their relatives pay a
certain annual stipend. When this is
no longer paid, the remains are taken
away and buried in the ordinary man
| ner.
TO enter, we pass through chapel and
slowly descend broad stairway OF stone.
Before us is an immense gallery, to whose
! walls are suspended a whole nation of
skeletons clad in the most oddly gro
tesque costumes. Some hang in the air
side by side. A line of dead stands erect
upon the ground. Some heads are
| gnawed by hideous negotiations, which
, deform even still more the jaws and the
! bones of the face; some still preserve
their hair, others fragments of mustachc;
others a long bit OF beard
/ And they are all dressed, these dead
these wretchcd, hideous and ridiculous
dead-ail dressed by their relatives who
have taken them out of their collins in
order to make them take part in this
awful assembly. Almost all are clad in
sort of long black robe, with cowl
which is generally drawn over the head.
But there are Others whose friends desire
to attire more sumptuous V, and the mis-.
cradle skeleton, wearing an embroidered
Greek cap and envelOped in a rich mans
dressing gown, seems, as it lies upon its
back, to sleep night marish slecp-a
sleep at once ludCrous and terrific. A
plaCard like a blind mans begging card,
bearing the name and the date of death.
Is hung to the neck of each CORPSE
Those dates make a cold SILVER pass
through the very marrow of ones bones
Here are the women, even more bar
lesque tnan the men, for they have been
cOquctt silly attircd and bedecked. Their
heads stare at you from within bonncts
decorated with ribbons and with lace,
making snow white fringe around each
black face, all petritied, all gnawed by
the strange chemistry of the earth.
Their hands protrudc, like the severed
roots of trees, from the sleeves of new
dresses, and the stockings that contain
the bones OF the legs look empty. Some
times the dead wear only pair of shoes,
too large for the poor dried up feet.
But now we enter gallery full of lit
tie glass collins; this is the children's
burial chamber The bones of the little
creatures, still soft, could not resist the
work OF decomposition And YOU can
not tell exactly what you are looking at,
the miserable' little things are so de-
formed, so crushed, so frightfully shape
less. But tears come to your eyes when
you observe that the mothers have
dressed them all in the same little
dresses they wore when alive. And
they come here to look at them some
times.
Often you see beside the corpse a pho
tograph showing the living person as he
was, and nothing is more startling, more
terrifying than this contrast.
we pass through another gallery,
lower anu darker, which seems 10 have
been reserved for the poor. In one black
recess there are some twenty Of them,
suspended all together under an opening
In the roof, which lets in the outer air
upon them IN strong and sudden winds.
They arc clad in sort of black canvas,
fastened about the neck and feet, and as
they lean one over the other, YOU mag
inc they were shivering, seeking to es-
cape, screaming for help. They look
like the drowned crew of some ship.
Here il the chamber of the priests-a
vast gallery of horror! At the first
glance they seem more terrible than the
others, robed in their sacred vcstmcnts
black, red and violet. But as you cx-
anime them one after the other, YOU be-
pray. The faces of all have been Uftod