The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-08-22
SOME CURIOUS VAULTS.

just four miles from where | am
writing, under the gray-blue northern
sky, in the ancient city of Ath -Cliath,
or Dublin. rises the hoary pile of ST.
Michan's Church. In it stands an old
organ additionally called "Handel's."
Around it lie graves Of men renowned in
history for many hundreds of years.
Under it are the far-famed antiseptic
vaults that preserve their dead intact.
1t is grewsome thing to descend the
nine steps and find ourselves in city of
the dead. Yet those vaults are quite
unlike any preconceived ideas we had
on the subject.
The air is quite warm and dry, the
smell something like mustard the lime
stone walls showing no trace Of damp.
Collins have burst and remains are ex-
posed to view. Dry and brown and
leathery lie those atoms of humanity.
We touch four of the weird, wonderful
things. Abdominal walls are elastic on
pressure, joints of fingers are quite piia-
BILE, but no hair remains on any head.
Across one face is tied a piece of Grape,
now red from age. Evidently male
factor, this, executed in old Newgate.
The old prison stood in this parish of
st. Michan's, and accounts for the burial
of the Brothers Sheares (rebels of and
hung in 1889 within this vault. A cast
of their skulls adorns the vestry above.
No trace of fat is to be seen on the
corpses in ST. Michans. at least to non
professional eyes. Thus they differ in
toto to adipocere remains found in peaty
soils. Like thick leather felt the fe-
murs and toes and skulls of two nuns,
whose bodies I touched in another
vault. In one chamber all the collins
are velvet-covered. The velvet. some of
it 200 years old. hangs in crisp strips
from the wood, quite unmildewed.
1t is impossible to account for the
phenomena which exist in this strange
environment Of Handel's organ. We
enlightened Englishmen discard pop
ular Celtic notion that the sanctity of
those deceased has been the cause of
their preservation. Besides, here are
iumbled together bishops and malefac.
tor, patriot" and traitor. Orangemen lin
the chancel vault is the body of "a gin.
tleman wild an orange SASH" as the sex
ton told US. We did not see him) and
Fenian. All could not be saints fit for
canonization. Yet all-modern corpees
included-are preserved in a like man
ner. In order to arrest decomposition,
two requisites are absolutely called for:
First, complete exclusion from atmos.
pheric influences; second, a temperature
sufficiently high rapidly to absorb all
exhalation.
Some say the tannin in the vaults
preserves from damp. In support of
this theory it is argued that st. Mi.
chan's is built over the remains of an
old oak forest. Such huge deposit of
timber was in this Ostmontowne Wood
that William Rufus got from it ratters
and beams for the roof of old West
minister Hall, pulled down in 1897. A
fourth expert promulgates the opinion
that moisture is absorbed by the yellow
magnesium limestone of which the walls
are partially built.
1t is certainly curious freak of ma.
ture-or art. There is nothing like it
elsewhere. In Rome the Capuchin
Church of Santa Maria Della Concezi.
one is surrounded by four mortuary
chapels filled with the CHASTITY remains
OF four thousand friars. In Palermo
remains are to be seen in much the
same condition as those of st. Michan's.
and are visited by relations daily. Bre-
men Cathedral also has an overground
cell with the like properties. So has
the Grotto Of Calypso in Malta. But
in all these cases the bodies undergo a
process" before being put In their last
resting-place. Therefore they are not
worthy of comparison with st. Ma.
chan's.-Good Words.