The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-12-22
THE POTTER'S FIELD.
THE CEMETERY ON HARRIS ISLAND
WHERE PAUPER'S REST.

and IN OrdeE-The Horrors All In
tered with the Poor BOnes-Nearly
FIfty-Two Thousand Graves.
Much sentimental nonsense has been
written about the horrors Of the Potter's
Field As a matter of fact there is moth
ing horrible about it-nothing, at least be
yond the horror which the mind can con-
ture up, II it Is foolish enough to do 80, in
connection with death and decay in any
form The burial Of the poor man or the
unknown is q matter of business-Hke des-
patch, as it must needs be In q great city
where men, women and babes drop by the
way in such vast numbers, but there Is
nothing revolving or insulting about 1t.
Thanks to the system Of the admirably
conducted department Of charities and
correction, it is done with all due decency
and care, and, while there is nat
by book and bell, with priest and
plumes, weeping friends and a big
granite shaft concentrating the virtues
of the departed, the poor clay can not sleep
any easier or more securely on the high
priced slopes Of Greenwood than it does
beside the purling waters of the East
river, under the exquisitely green turf of
Harris island. 1t is a mistake to suppose
that identity is lost in the POtter's Field.
served-by name, If the name is known;
by photograph in the case of the
unclaimed dead; and it is a fact that
bodies are frequently claimed and removed
to more pretentious burying grounds years
after they have first partaken of the free
hospitality of the much-maligned city
cemetery.
Hart's island is really in Long Island
sound, though in a narrow portion of 1t.
L. T,ff hi &c Of roll n
which the city owns, and which
strung along the necklace of the
East river, are beautiful enough to
make the, virtuous, solvent, sane and
free men of the city envy the surround
inGs of the pauper and criminal classes.
The island comprises about seventy-five
acres OF land, and when the new cribbing
is filed In there will be twenty-five acres
more, all Of which is needed by the over
crowded department. Only third of the
Island Is set apart for the Potter's Field.
FROM HOSPITAL OR TENEMENT.
The dead wagon is busy vehicle, and
the two kept in the service of the city often
md themselves some hours behind the
calls, for Old Mortality waits for no man
Each wagon has an assortment of rough
pine collins, turned out by the city con-
victs, with larger percentage of chill
dren's size than adult. The bodies gath
ton or wharf are placed in q prOper-stzed
coffin and trundled away to the mOrgue or
the dead-house, as the case may be. There
the routine is fixed one The unknown
are photographed and fully described in
proper book, the clothing seached, rec
orded and stored, and the body placed on
the marble slabs for Identification. Every
thug possible is done to find the friends
IL there are any to be found. In due time
H. I, se, H.
.recof1ned, and a gang of coDYicts, spe-
Icially detailed to this duty, bear them on
board the department steamer Fidelity.
When all the collins have been placed
upon the deck tarpaulin is placed over
them and the boat starts up tia river, not
on the way to horrors certainly. The hOr-
rors have been left behind-the horrors of
poverty and suffering, the horrors of the
crowded tenement, of making shirts at 80
cents dozen, of seeking work where none
is to be found; the horrors of drunkenness
and vice, the horrors Of the hospital and
the dissscting-room, the horrors of all the
varied forms of death. These are all be-
hind. There Is nothing now but a quiet
sail up beautiful stream and q narrow
resting place beneath the greenest of sod.
The city hearse on Harris island is not
handsome vehicle, but it Is clean and COM
modioug The workhouse people stow the
collins away in it without any particular
show of reference and off it trundles to the
big cemetery. Numbers are cut in each
coffin corresponding to those in the
records, and then side by side they go, &C
cording to number, into the big trenches.
All is as systematic as regiment equaliz-
ing its companies. Each trench is fifteen
by fOrty-five feet square and eight feet
deep, and the collins are ranged in double
file, feet to feet, and slanting slightly
downward from the heads. A thin layer
Of earth covers each layer of collins, for
space is precious and their must be three
tiers. Then the earth is graded up on top
and the grass Is sown which will soon
cover up all suggestion Of the tales of mis-
cry wrapped up in the dust below. Small
stones at each corner Of the trenches form
sort of miIestones to the steady en-
croacbments of the bodies upon the space
in the cemetery. The Potters' Field is as
level as tennis court. 1t is covered with
trees and shrubs and traversed by well
kept wRlks.-New York World