New Britain herald., 1917-12-11
400 DEAD CHINESE
TO Be SENT HOME
Will Be Sealed in Metal Boxes and
Buried in China

New York, Dec 11.-A little group
of Cinnamon may be seen almost any
weekday morning getting off an ele-
waited train near the entrance to
Cypress Hills cemetery. Brooklyn.
and then leading workmen armed
with picks and shovels to the Chinese
burial reservation near the rear Of the
cemetery.
There the workmen, following direc-
tons which the committee of China
men, after careful scrutiny Of various
papers having an "off1cial' look, give
to the labor1ng men,. begin to ply the
pick and shovel at spots Indicated by
the Orientals. One by one the Amer
lean laborers exhume what remains of
caskets, and from these they take
forth bones of the deceased and pack
them away in painstaking fashion in
metal containers, which are then i'm
mediately sealed Theoretically by a
tinsmith who accompanies the China
men to the graves.
The appearance Of the Orientals
caused an inquisitive passerby yester-
day to stop and ask one Of the China
men the reason for the daily trip to
the Chinese burial plot It was learned
then that for some weeks past the
Chinese Six Companies have been
financing and directing the removal of
the remains of about 400 Chinese
buried hereabout in the past thirteen
years or more with a view to sending
the bones back to China so that the
dead may rest in the soil of their an
ceStors.
The Six Companies, made up of
benevolent societies, whose functions
are a useful, almost vital. contribu-
ton to the We1lbeing Of the Chinese
in foreign lands, hope to be able to
start the metal containers across
country by express about Christmas
Day. From a. Pacific port the re-
mains will be shipped to China for re-
interment.
The Six Companies, which consist of
the Sam Yup, representing the three
districts in and adjoining the city of
Canton; the Kong Chow, Neng Young,
Hop Wo, Young Wo and Shing Heng,
have a threefold reason for sending
their brothers bones home religious,
patriotic and fraternal. All the ex-
penses Of exhuming, shipping and re-
interring the remains, estimated at
about $50 for each body, or a total
expense Of $4,000 for the 400 dead,
will be borne by the Six Companies,
no part of the cost falling upon the
relatives of the dead here Or in China.
The money for the work was all
contributed by Cinnamon belonging to
branches Of the Six Companies who
reside within a radius of fifty miles of
Manhattan's City hall.
The extreme care which is taken
i,, oh
Of the work to make the identifi-
cation of the bodies accurate is indi-
Gated by their constant reference to
three sets of official records of deaths
and burials-the city's own official rec
ords, those OF the cemetery manage
ment and records kept by the Six Com
panies in their archives-before the
bones and glossy cues, which in many
cases seem to be in a perfect state
of preservation, are packed away in
metal boxes measuring ten by twelve
by twenty-six inches.
From the Pacific port the 400 boxes
will be taken in one shipment to Can
ton chief city of a province, Kwang
Tung, from which came large pro-
portion of all the Chinese, or their
ancestors, now in the United States.
The care and reverence with which
the work is being done caused the
passerby to ask the Orientals yeSter-
day whether the same efforts would be
made on the European fighting fronts
after the war to renter in China the
bodies of Cochin China natives, all
born within the French colonial
sphere of influence, who die along or
near the battle lines in France or
Flanders.
The Ch1naman answered that the
Six Companies some day would try to
reclaim such bodies, but admitted that
the problem Of locating them after
| the war doubtless would offer diff
culties which might prove insur-
| mountable.