The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-10-03
BURIAL CUSTOMS.

Men differ as much dead as alive.
AS various as the language of the
living are the methods of burying the
dead. The very abodes of death diff
fer among different people, and one
may find striking contrasts between
cemeteries of even the same countries.
Not far from this city there is
Moravian cemetery, in which the men
are buried on one sige of a central
walk and the women on the other.
Only fiat hagstones mark the graves.
In New Orleans cemetery bodies
are buried beneath mounds above the
ground because the water in the soil
is so near the surface.
In London until recently sections
were accustomed to bury one coffin
above another in grave, and then
heap on more earth to make the tiers
still higher. In Paris, even at the
present time, the poor are buried in
trenches, and crosses are placed at
their heads to mark their resting
places. At the end of five years,
however, unless money is forthcom-
ing from relatives, the cross is torn
up, FIVE more feet of earth are added
and another set of graves begun in a
higher stratum.
In Frankfort the body of the dead
is removed as soon as life is extinct
to "leichen hausen" or death houses,
where it rests until the first signs of
decomposition appear. Such death
house consists of warder's room,
with FIVE death chambers on each
hand. A ring on the finger of each
body is connected with a bell, and
should one rouse from a trance that
had been mistaken for death he could
summon the warder. Since Frank
fort has had death houses several
young girls have been rescued from
being buried alive. Munich has a
similar system.
In Russia many of the peasantry
still bury their dead in grottoes and
caves, just as their princes and noble
men were accustomed to do centuries
ago. In Constantinople, as in other
Turkish cities, bodies are placed in
the ground as soon as the last spark
of life has fed. The Musselman be-
lieves that as long as the body is un-
buried the spirit is in torment, and
that it is a crime akin to murder to
mo1est q grave. Accordingly the
cemeteries around many Oriental
cities far exceed in extent the abodes
of the living.
One of the cemeteries of Damascus
is believed to contain many members
of Mahomet' family. Like the other
graveyards of the city, it is near a
city gate. Like the rest, it is of
great area. These mounds are made
of brick and motor, and the head
stones denote the sex of the graves
occupant. If a woman, there is a
carved palm leaf if man, turban.
Those who were rich or distinguish
ed rest in stone vaults, rooted like
mosques.
Women throng the Moslem ceme-
terry on Friday, the Mahometan Sab
bath, and scream and PROSTATE them
selves over the graves of loved ones
till many fall exhausted on the
ground. The graves are kept scru-
pulously clean and wholly unguarded.
There is no fear of medical students
kl,o 1o.,1 &c Tc1ot11
But the graveyards of Damascus
and those of New York afford less
striking contrast than exists between
two cemeteries in Italy. In Genoa
the good Catholics ornament the mon
uments to their dead with elaborate
groups of statuary. They seek to
make the abodes of the dead even
more beautiful than the habitations
of the living. In Rome, on the con-
trary, there is a Catholic order which
believes that death should be por-
trayed as grim and grewsome as pos
sible. 1t not only digs up the bodies
of its members after time, but stands
their skeletons on inches, or decorates
walls and ceilings with their bones.
Visitors to Genoa always find the
guides anxious to lead them to the
Campo Santo, or sacred field. After
climbing part way up the hills which
surround the city like an amphithea-
tire, a guide will point to what ap-
pears an art gallery in the form of
long peristyle with central dome.
The main corridor is lined with sta
tuary, and every figure represents a
sorrow.
The Genoese monument maker
leaves nothing to the imagination.
A simple slab or shaft is not enough.
One monument, for example, depicts
a whole family mourning over the
grave of father. The wife stands
by the bed, gazing at the face of the
dead, and leaning, as if about to
swoon, on tie arm of devoted daugh-
ter. The aged mother sits with her
eyes raised to heaven as in prayer.
A son is consoling younger sister.
One is holding the sepulchral candle,