The menace. [volume] (Aurora, Mo.) 1911-1920, 1918-06-15

IRy are UeltNeT mum UOT IVOUtuH,
They are neither brute nor human,
They are ghouLs. Edgar Allen Poe.
TTlE wonder what Poe would
IMs think of some of these papal
HOI undertakers who happen to
@ be right on the spot around
hospitals where papists are en-
ployed or in control and cart the
yet warm bodies of Protestant dead
to their papal quarters and have
priests to say the funeral ceremony,
all for thirty pieces of silver, when
as a matter of fact every indication
is that the relatives of the dead, if
they knew about it, would not con-
sent to such procedure?
The sworn affidavit of Mrs.
Josephine Wilson of Ithaca, New
York, charges just such maneuvers
as are set forth in the above. This
case deals with the handling of her
husbands body who recently died in
the city hospital at that place.
The transaction involves facts Of
more serious import than appear in
the affidavit. The wife, grief-striken
and practically in a state of nervous
collapse, was led from the hospital
while her husband was breathing his
last. While on her way from the
hospital, a papal undertaken, located
a full half-mile away, was, ghoul-like,
on his way for the body from which
the breath of life had, in all prob
ability, hardly flown. At any rate
the body could not have yet been
cold for within thirty minutes after
she had left the hospital Mrs. Wilson
swears she was informed that this
papal undertaken had gone for the
body and taken it to his undertaking
parlors.
The clerk and bookkeeper of the
city hospital is Roman Catholic and
a sister of one Pete McAllister whom
the papists Of Ithaca manage to keep
on the Board of Education of the
Ithaca High School.
A bank and check book were among.
the decedent's effects. The check
book shows reckoning in a feminine
hand-not the widow's-whereby
Withdrawals and deposits might have
been compared, as if to make sure
Mr.. Shea would not embark in an
improbable enterprise.
The widow lost her mother about
a week before. Her remains were
buried by a Protestant funeral di-
rector who had previously buried the
remains of her father and resided in
her own town as neighbor. Natural
ly she would call him; but this Ro-
man Catholic undertaken got in at
the death and not only took the body
from the ho' pital for burial without
consulting the widow, but also COM
pletely ignored religious affiliations
of her dead husband, herself and
friends, by calling in a Catholic priest
to pronounce his mummeries over her
helpless dead.
The undertaken placed, the remains
in a vault and then presented a bill
$100 for his services already per-
formed; $25 to remove the remains
from the vault in the future, and $5
for this priest.
All the money Mr.. Wilson left was
$216.50. Rome was after over half
of it.
When the widow recovered some
what from her grief, she questioned
Mr.. Shea's acts and the charges in
his bill. His reply was, that she
would have to pay the whole bill.
THE. MENACE and other patriotic
papers, heretofore, have pointed out
the method of these priests and Jesu-
its, who succeed in filling our hos
pitals and charitable institutions with
Roman Catholic attendants and
nurses. A convenient situation is
thus produced for, when patient
with some means dies Catholic un-
dertaker can readily be reached by
telephone. But the evil which might
arise should not be overlooked. For,
rather than disappoint a Catholic un-
dertaker, it is but short step to
overfeed or neglect a patient whom
they decide will soon die even under
the best of care.
That may sound like a far-fetched
assertion but wait moment. There
Is a case on record at Springfield,
Mo-, where a woman from Oklahoma /
was given formaldehyde from a
Pluto Water bottle. Her heart was
picked in less than five minutes. She
would have recovered but for this
earalassness. As 1t was the body