Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-01-07

sci as big around a half bushel measure.
The roof was upheld by four black Ethi
oplans made of carved ebony, and the
magnificent coffin, which rested a plat
form beneath was covered with flowers.
Upon the front sat a coachman all in
black, and on the back was a footman in
the same somber livery. Every one of the
coaches following the hearse was drawn
by black horses and driven by coachmen in
mourning. The mOurners We're dressed in
black, all wearing tall hats and black
gloves. 1t Vas indeed very parade Of
grief.
Funeral Advertisements.
An important part of the advertising in
the Argentine newspapers relates to
funerals. The family always inserts a
statement Of a death and an invitation 10
its friends to be present at the funeral
They announce the r.asses, which are
given from year to year on the anniyar-
saries of the funera al thereafter, and al
friends of the deceased and his family
supposed to attend such masses or to leave
their cards at the door. Here is u sample
funeral notice:
Nicholas Imera Cara. @. E. P. D. Died
June -. 1892.
The family invites the persons Of their
friendship to attend the masses. which, for
the eternal rest of his soul, will be cele-
brated in the Church of San Miguel We'd
nesday, the 22d Of June, 1898, from to 10
am. The family will assist at the mass at
10 o'clock"
In response to this notice all the friends
and relatives of that family were expected
to attend this mass. There were servants
at the church to receive their cards as
they went in, and those who could not go
in person sent cards. AS soon as the fam
lily got back from the mass they probably
looked over the cards, and the person who
had sighted the corpse, now dead six
gears, undoubtedly received the resent
ment of the family. Every Argentine
watches the newspapers that he may keep
4 hi. Il
friends and the deceased friends of his
friends that still live. The Argentines re-
spect funerals. Every one takes his hat
off and stands reverenty still as the
hearse passes. and 1t is etiquette to bare
your head when passing a house that has
crepe on the door.
Cities of the Dead.
There are fine cemeteries in all of the
Argentine cities. Buenos Ayres has 80
acres OF them, not large area as COM
pared with some of our cemeteries, but big
enough when it is considered how South
American cemeteries are built. The South
American cities of the dead are genuine
cities, in which the deceased are as closely
packed and crowded as the living in a New
York fiat. The cemeteries have their paved
streets, their narrow courts and even their
tenement houses or vaults, where the poor
er dead are laid away to rest for so much
per year for season. | saw such ceme-
tcrIes in Peru, Chile and Bolivia, and |
have found them also in the Argentine. 1
have as yet, however, seen no cemetery so
crowded as the ReCOleta, the fashionable
graveyard Of HuerOs Ayres. Ii covers thir-
teen acres and it contains l am told, 100000
Inhabitants. There are enough corpses in
il to cover the ground two deep without
Crowding, and there is high stone wall
about il strong enough | hope to keep their
ghosts in. Inside this wall there is CEN
trail street or avenue, paved with marble
cutting the city in halves. As you walk up
at 10 n nj -yyb
eight other streets branch off at angles
All of these streets are paved with marble
or mosaics. and they are cut by smaller
streets dividing the cemetery into q great
number of blocks.
In looking over this beautiful city of the
dead you notice that the houses resemble
those of city of the living. They are of
all sizes and conditions, small and big
costly and mean; the palaces of the rich
and the tencments of the poor. Each house
is Il vault. and each contains from one to
hundreds OF inmates. Some of the houses
are in blocks, marble structures from eight
to fifteen feet high and eight to ten feet
wide. each the property of one family
Some stand alone with only a crack be-
tween their walls and those of the vaults
next door. All have but one room that can
be seen, and this room is in all cases the
same shape, although furnished in different
degrees of maSniicence and taste. 1t might
be called the chapel of the dead
1t is four feet square or more and five
feet high. being entered by door at the
level of the street. In the back of 1t there
Is marble slab or table set into the wall
and upon this sometimes rests coffin.
The slab Is covered with q lambreuuin of
fine lace, and in its center stands a cruelty
with the dying Christ upon it, or perhaps
waxen image of Mary, the Mother of
God Upon some such affairs are silver
candle sticks and above many of them
lamps burn incense from one years end to
the other. On the marble floor there are
flowers, sometimes real, In the shape of
growing plants, sometimes bouquets placed