The evening world., 1890-06-23
seen ON BABIES GRAVES.
Peculiar Articles in a Washing
ton Cemetery for Colored People,
Toys, Bottles, States and Tin Basins
Some of the Ornaments.

neW-mbue grave NnN COulu De more
pathetic9 The tiny cups and dishes all
carefully arranged as IL for q make.be.
lieve party, with small teapot In the
middle. But the mite OF girl who
should play the hostess Mt the liliputian
feast is lying cold and stiff in wooden
box buried three feet beneath the mound
of fresh earth whereon, the tea set is ar
rayed, says the Washington Star.
The little grave is but one of Thousands
of such. huddled together in an old col
ored peoples cemetery out towards the
northwest, beyond the city limits, and
close by the bank of Rock Creek.
Acre upon acre of the Enclosure is SO
thickly occupied by the dead that the
graves adioin one another, row upon row,
without an inch of space between to set
the foot upon.
No verdure conceals beneat it's green
carpet the crowded hillocks of clay and
gravel, nor do costly monuments arise to
commemorate the virtues of the departed.
There are not even headstones. but usu-
ally slabs of wood instead, most of them
merely shingles and old scraps of board
stuck into the ground, and all this not be-
cause of any lack of love or reverence, but
simply for the reason that the builders of
this metropolis are poor.
On the piece of board at the head Of the
grave where the tea set Is spread out is
this inscription:
MedoRA Evell
INA SCOTT
n Sleep
in JEAS.
AGED yrs OLD.
This Is by no means the only grave on
which toys and such thing are to be seen
displayed. On the contrary nearly every
little mound of earth that covers q child's
coffin exhibits some relics of the sort.
Near by is shingle serving the purpose
of headstone, against which is tied with
twine dolls char with a china doll sit
ting in it. The dolls dress has had all the
color washed out of it by the rain. but il
still sits there patiently. as it has sat for
many month, waiting for its mistress to
pick it up when the day shall arrive and
carry 1t before tho judgment seat.
On grave not far off is q tin box full
of empty spools-once doubtless used for
playthinRs to beguile baby hours-and
mouth organ. Tied to another head
board is pair of little reins. and scat
tered over the mound are several dom
inoes. A grave that is marked simply
mo. 1"-may be the child had got no
uhLnb-Whb lueTtly with u STOP
pered nursing bottle.
The nursing bottles seemed to be Of all
things the most frequent decoration of
the grayes-certainly the most pitiful. As
a rule they were partly filed with mud
washed into them by the storms. But
they were not by any means the only
kind of bottles TO be noticed on the
plenty-enough, indeed. to supply an
apothecary's shop with glassware. AS
well as could be discovered, it was much
the fashion to place on u grave all the
medicine bottles emptied by the deceased
during the last and fatal illness.
Thus one was enabled to surmise at n
glance whether or not the sickness had
been very long or complicated. Some
graves would have only two or three bot
ties. while others would make q showing
of as many as fifteen. Many of the medi-
cine bottles on the other hand were
partly full.
Onehead board bore the epitaph:
Our babe stept away
Quietly to Bulah land
In the sweet by and by.
On the grave were n rubber doll, tin
fire engine. very much rusted, and a
little china cat.
A curious thing found on one of the
mounds was cast of q human foot in Or
dinary plaster of the sort that is used for
houses. Perhaps the father of the family
was in that business. Other casts of
angels and such things in the same rude
material were not infrequent.
The most conspicuous object in the
cemetery was a huge hobby horse placed
over n small boys grave. Many a day.
doubtless, he had ridden ON it to Banbury
Gross. A pathetic ornament. washed
down by the rain from q mound, was a
child's school slate. Sticking mp in the
mud by 1t was half-used slate pencil.
The slate itself was broken.
One thing that struck the observer in
the cemetery was that all the ornaments
aud articles of whatever description that
decorated the graves were. without ex-
ception, broken or deprived of their use.
fulness in other ways. If such had not
been the case they would be likely to be
carried away.
Even tin basin on one mound, red
with rust, was punched full of holes A
starch box on another grave was full of
fragments of china dolls, and even the
nursing bottles were cracked. The big
hobby horse had lost its rockers, and
every one of the statuettes was more or
less mutllated. Coffee pots, with their
nozzles knocked of In very many cases
served the use of pots for flowers, though
no flowers were III them, of course.