Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-05-12

passes
through the street. The whole population
are hard at work pounding and hammering
with all their might. 1t doesn't signify
what kind Of utensils are used for the pur-
pose just so you hammer, and hammer
loud, you are doing the proper thing. This
Is supposed to be the expression OF your
grief. 1t rs certainly a noisy expression,
and that's the most that can be said for it.
Toward evening, or shortly after nightfall.
comes procession, which in:the United
States would secure each and every partiei-
pant night in the lookup if not six months
at Claremont. 1t can only be expressed in
one word, and that is sacrilege!
Preceding the eortege is a boy carrying q
, box which contains big stones. These he
rattles as vigorously as his muscles will per-
NIT. Plate follows with cock feather in
his hat and sword dangling at his side.
He Is impersonated by the biggest, bIackest,
ugliest negro that can be found. Judas
comes next, with fendisa sneer on his
painted face ard box containing the 30
pieces of silver rattling from the top of a
red and yellow painted barber pole. This
parsonage is remarkable tor his walk, the
stride being somewhat after the style of
Lawrence BsFrett's, when he struts down to
the footlights prior to demolishing his army
of 50-cents-a-aight-super
bearers who carry the bier containing the
covered figure to represent Christ. a Street
band, line of devotees wailing and chant
Ing the service iossthe dead, tErones Of the
faithful mingling with fhrongs of the rab-
Bile, and armies Of beggars and thieves close
the pageant.
A person may live in Cuba pretty much
as he likes, but he must die as the ch urch
decrees or not die at all, unless he chooses
to die like heather, which he never does.
A corpse is only kept few hours. Many
are put into the tomb still warm. The
hearse which bears the dead to their last
resting place is enough to cause the occu-
pant to rise up and decry it. 1t is a
hideous, riekety, wornout old catafalque,
which lumbers joltingly along and
creaks and groans like some monstrous
animal to whom movement Of any kind was
obnoxions. Paid mourners attend the
funeral-it is their business to weep, but
they don't. They smoke instead, and this
seems 70 give as much satisfaction. If they
like they can earn a couple of dollars extra
by returning to the church and saying some
prayers for the departed soul. This is an
excellent way of turning an honest penny
and many mourners avail themselves of it.
A TOUCHING PICTURE.
Some of the large churches OF Havana
are very beautiful. / saw a splendidly i'm
imposing sight in one of them-a picture of
real religious exaltation which fingers in
my memory even yet. It was late in the |
afternoon and the blue haze which preeedes
nightfall, had erept through the painted |
dome of one of the smaller chapels and |
fallen upon the ife-sized carved wood |
figure of the Christ nailed to rough cross
which stood npon an altar and reached |
almost to the ceiling. Upon the head was |
pressed the crown of thorns and through the |
poor bleeding hands the cruel spikes. |
Seen through the hazy blue gray
mist the figure had the appearance of being
in cloud. On the marble floor, where yel- |
low ray of sunlight still fingered, knelt a |
huge, stalwart negro, black as a piece of |
ebony, and naked but for the piece of linen |
which girded his massive loins. His muscu-
lar arms hung listlessly to his sides, his
woody head was upturned in rapt alteration
Of the suffering Savior, whose bruised body
stood out dark and awful against the cloudy
mist. The startling reality of the cross; the |
life-like appearance of the form, had flscin-
zted, appalled,, half terrorized the ignorant
negro whose great searching eyes started |
from their sockets, and whose thick lips
4ulvered and trembled as though he were
really kneeling on that skull-shaped hill
called Calvary, watching the sufferings of
the Martyr who died that we might live!
LILLIAN SPENCER.