The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-19

! tafns about one hundred and fifty pa- tlents. There seems to be no fear in | spired by either the locality or the suf- ! ferers; San Lazaro street has no disa- | greeable reputation, the sidewalk upon ] which open the windows of the hospital | is always crowded and people stand and
 converse with the inmates through the bars just as they do all over Havana 1 Visitors are permitted on certain days ! to go to the hospital, and the Sisters of l Charity who nurse the inmates take l great pride in showing you how clean | the terrible sores are kept, and how wholly without danger of infection is the disease. This may be true, but the sight of face half gone nose dropped off. a
 hole in the leg, where square inches of
 the barred bone can be seen, is not con-
 ducive to comfort nor inviting to pro
 longed stay Next to the San Lazaro is the Asilo
 San Jose, reformatory for boys, and a
 clean, pleasant looking place. Leaving
 the Asio, and following for some hun-
 dred feet the high wall which shuts it's
 courtyard off from the street. we come
 to an arched gateway covered with
 trailing vines, and so obscured by the
 foliage that one must peer through the
 barred gates to see what can be within.
 The sight is one of the strangest in Ha-
 vana, A great square amphitheater
 about the size of a polo field presents it.
 self to view, with weird looking walls
 surrounding it on every side. Made in
 the walls are four tiers of tombs, some
 open, some sealed, and each large
 enough for a single coffin.
 Opposite the entrance, near the back wall. is a small mortuary chapel with a portico, and over the pediment a heavy stone cross. You step back to see what information the outside of this strange place furnishes as to it's interior, but all you find is an inscription in small bronze letters over the arch, which tells that in the year 1S05 when Juan de Espada was | bishop, this place was dedicated to reli | zion and the public health. It Is the | Espada cemetery and one might ride | every day past that long stretch of gray wall without suspecting the weird con- tents of the interior. Upon entering, the place seems really vast, an effect en- hanced by the silence and desoatien but it's whole extent is not perceived un- til you reach an archway in the left wall, which is seen to be gallery, from which open perpendicularly seven other galleries, looking like great, dark blocks of honeycomb. The walls of some of these are in ruins; many of the tombs are choked with fallen fragments; others have been unsealed and the bodies re- moved: a few are kept with a little care Here and there a statue or bunch of palms punctuates the empti- ness. It seems a forgotten burying- ground You ask people in Havana about it, and it takes an effort of memo " for them to think where it is, and what it is like, or when it was ever used. Yet the inscriptions show that people were buried here as late as 1870. Doubtless Bishop Juan de Espada's pi- ous intentions had been accomplished, and the cemetery filled by that year, and the place was closed to sepulture; bury ing, even deep in the ground. seems ul1- healthy enough in Havana, and certain ly burying above ground, in that moist, air, is not to be recom- mended And so the Cemeterio de Es- pada has grown to be a place which even the omnipresent buzzard flies over without pausing.-Collier's Weekly.