The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1904-01-28
was called again, and yet again, the lat
ter always making the same demand

ed of dire eternal consequences; and
finally the poor, harrassed man seized
a revolver from under his pillow and
drove the priest from the room. Half
an hour later he was dead, and the
church refused to bury him. The fam
lily appealed to the mayor of the city,
who ordered his burial; the priest ap-
pealed to the Bishop OF Conception, who
declared that he should not be buried.
Here was pretty kettle of fish! No
body would ever think of being buried
in other than "consecrated ground"
and in those days all the cemeteries be-
longed to the church. Meanwhile as
time went on the cadavor became in
the condition of Lazarus of Bethany
as described by Martha when the Saw
ior visited his tomb-"Lord, by this
time he stinketh." The President of
the republic was finally appealed to,
and he overruled the Bishops ruling,
and ordered that the man be buried in
the cemetery. There was no gainsay-
ing this verdict, and the badly decom-
posed "bone" of contention was placed
under the 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 i'll everybody's mouth, the
newspapers teemed with its pros and
cons, and the adherents of both sides of
the question made it a test case of
''strike for your affairs and your fires,
strike for the green graves of your sires''
Or more properly speaking, for their
adobe inches in the pantheon walls. The
church hurled bitter anathemas at the
President, denouncing him as hereto
and corruptor of all that is coed, and
popular sentiment ran so high that rev.
olution was imminent. l think it was
in 1884 that President Domingo Santa
Marie settled the matter judicially by
inducing Congress to pass 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 immense revenue. Besides the
eight dollars tax on every cadavor
burial lots were sold at high price.
In the big cemetery at Santiago the
longest time for which a lot is sold
was thirty years. An average lot,
two yards long and one yard wide,
cost thirty dollars for a period of
thirty years; the same sized lot for one
year, three dollars. For the privilege
of erecting a family monument after
the lot is paid for, thirty dollars addi-
tional. A record was kept, and when
the stipulated time expired, the friends
of the deceased could continue in pos
session only by renewing the lease and
paying another thirty dollars. If the
family had removed to another part of
the country, or were all dead, or had
grown Indifferent, the lot was resold
when the lease expired, and the former
tenants evicted; but if they desired to
remove their dead to another place
thirty dollars was charged for permis-
sion to do SO. The church in Santiago
OWNS tirst-class hearse, which is used
only for great dignitaries, at the cost of
fifty dollars for conveying the corpse
on its last journey. 1t has also a
Second-class hearse for common peo-
pie" and the fee for using it is twelve
dollars; and a thiId-class for eight dol
lars. And SO on down the social gamut
to the sixth-class, composed of the
church's most devoted servants, who,
having no money to pay for any hearse,
carry their dead on stretcher, and lay
| them cotfinless in the roto's corner.
That great cemetery of Chili's capital,
with its more than four hundred thou
sand registered dead, is certainly the
most populous, if not popular, resort in
the country. And the population, still
constantly increasing, is permanent
one, disturbed by no May-day movings
Or revolutions or changing govern
iHCIUo. IL 10 ulf luCu lllUO i've
one for the dignitaries of the church,
one for wealthy and influential people,
another for common clay, and another
for rotos-'' ragged people"-who are
too poor to pay anything. Passing in
to that great City of Silence. through a
lofty arched gateway topped by tall
cross, one stands amazed at the multi
tude of bronze and marble monuments
and splendid statues, many of them
executed by the most famous sculptors
of Europe-a crowd of costly and ar
tistic shapes, far exceeding in number
those to be found at Greenwood or
Mount Auburn. Thousands of the
monuments are in the form of cruel
fixes, reminding the visitor of some
ones thought-"Let us hope they have
gained the crown, for behold the multi
tude of crosses they have left behind
Should you tarry to watch the sexton
digging grave, you would observe his
spade strikes something hard in the
sandy soil. 1t is only the fragments of