The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-23

the cemeteries belonged to the church. Meanwhile as time went on the cadavor became in the condition of Lazarus of Bethany as described by Martha when the Savior visited his tomb-''Lord, by this time he stinketh." The president of the republic was finally appealed to, and he oveIruled the bishops ruling, and ordered that the man be buried in the cemetery. There was no gain-say- ing this verdict, and the badly decom- posed Done of contention was placed under ground. But the matter did not end here. as one might suppose, for the whole nation became stirred up about it. For months the unsavory subject was in everybody's mouth, the newspa- pers teemed with pros and cons. and the adherents of both sides of the ques- ton made it a test case of strike for your altars and your fires. strike for the green graves of your sires"--or more properly speaking, for their adobe nitches in the pantheon walls. The church hurled bitter anathemas at the president, denouncing him as a herotic and a corruptor of all that is good. and popular sentiment ran so high that rev. olution was imminent. I think it was in 1884 that President Domingo Santa Marie settled the matter judicially by inducing congress to pass a law which
 threw all the public cemeteries open to people of every religious faith. or of no faith at all. Previous to that date they had been the exclusive property of the Romish church and had yielded an ira- mense revenue Besides the eight dol- lars tax on every cadavor, burial lots were sold at a high price. In the big cemetery at Santiago the longest time for which lot was sold was thirty years. An average lot, two yards long and one yard wide, cost thirty dollars for period of thirty years; the same size lot for one burial, one year, three dollars. For the privilege of erecting a family monument after the lot is paid | for, thirty dollars additional. A record
 was kept, and when the stipulated time expired the friends of the deceased could continue in possession only by re- newing the lease and paying another thirty dollars. If the family had re- moved to another part of the country, or were all dead. or had grown indif- ferent, the lot was resold when the lease expired, and the former tenants evicted; but if they desired to remove their dead 1 to another place thirty dollars was charged for permission to do so. The church in Santiago owns a first-class hearse, which is used only for great dignitaries, at the cost of fifty dollars I for conveying the corpse on it's last l journey. It has also secOnd-class hearse for common people" and the 1 fee for using it is twelve dollars; and a l third class for eight dollars. And so on down the social gamut to the sixth-class, composed of the chureh's most devoted servants, who. having no money to pay for any hearse, carry their dead on a stretcher, and lay them coffinless in the irotos corner. That great cemetery of FChili's capital, with it's more than four hundred thousand registered dead, is Icertainly the most populous, if not pop lular public resort in the country. And lthe population. still constantly increas- ling. is. a permanent one, disturbed by no May-day movings, or revolutions, or changing governments. It is divided into five parts-one for the dignitaries iof the church, one for wealthy and in- ! fiuential people, another for common clay, and another for rotos-" ragged 'people''-who are too poor to pay any thing. Passing into that great City of
 Silence, through lofty arched gate way topped by a tall cross, one stands
 amazed at the multitude of bronze and
 marble monuments and splendid stat
 ues, many of them executed by the most famous seulptors of Europe-a crowd of Icostly and artistic shapes, far exceeding lin number those to be found at Green wood or Mount Auburn. Thousands of | the monuments are in the form of cru lcifixes, reminding the visitor of some lone's thought-'Let us hope they have tgained the crown, for behold the mul- ltftude of crosses they have left be- hind. Should you tarry to watch the lsexton digging grave, you would ob- lserve his spade strikes something hard lin the sandy soil. It is only the frag- iments of some forgotten persons coffin
 which, with skull and marrow bones lare earelessly rattled out upon tht tground. o little deeper dowi he is lia
 Ible to come upon another, and yet an
 lother; four layers of them being abou
 the average.
 In Chilli, as in all other Catholic coun
 Itries, November 1 is All Saints day twhen surviving friends decorate tn
 graves of the dead and have prayer
 said for the repose of their souls, O1
 Ithat day in any Chilian city the roa,
 Heading to the pantheon is thronge,
 Iwith people attired in deepest mourning
 lon their way to the performance 0
 ithese rites. The burial place has previ
 Iously been put in apple-pie order for tn
 occasion--its unsightly pits filled UT
 |scattered bones and pieces of coffin
 lcleared away. Aisles of beggars stretcl
 lalong the road to the gate of the pan
 theon, where vendors of fruits, cakes
 lices, chieha and milk-punch offer thei
 lwares for sale; while soldier-police ru
 about to preserve order contributing t
 a scene of confusion more appropriat
 to the entrance of circus tent than t
 a silent city of the dead. Inside all tn
 tombs are covered with fresh flowers
 arranged in wreaths, festeons an
 Evaces. The most fashionable decoratio . fare black paper roses combined wit
 black and white beads. Groups of ped
 pie, chatting gaily, are seated upon tn
 Igraves, while at various point
 throughout the grounds stand priest iof different orders, repeating prayer for the dead. There are reverend fath CTS in long robes of black broadclotf