The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1918-12-20
WHERE ARE
THE CASKETS?
Barre City Hall More or Less
Agog with Excitement
Over Mystery
REPORTER SENT
HITLER AND YON
But He Came Back to the
Same Old Mystery, Where
Are the Collins?

City hall, ever the seat Of outrageous
rumor and the temple of queer doings,
has new mystery.
1t shrouds the whereabouts of a con
signment Of baskets, the vested title OF
which is municipal property The title
reposes securely in the public archives,
but no man processes to know where the
Baskets are Collins is the word, for the
misuse Of the word casket improperly
drafted by elite space writer's and obit-
uary poets, doesn't 90 with the purists at
city hall. 1t has been long time since
carpenters, in reyamping a section of the
building, came upon room unbroken by
doors or window and there exhumed the
powdered remains Of human frame, but
in the years intervening nothing has
caused more mystifieation among the mu'
nicipal attaches than the so-called dis
appearance of the municipal collins.
Curiosity gives birth to most enigmas,
but the mystery of the missing collins
developed by evolution Years ago the
city, in forward looking movement,
acquired possession of a cargo Of burial
cases Most of them were of antique de-
sign, known TO the trade as knock downs
But they came in all sizes and at the
time it was the purpose of the council to
provide in its own way for pauper bur
ials. In the chronology Of the affair
there is something missing, for no one in
authority to-day is able to explain why
the natural recurrence Of city funerals
never seemed to exhaust the stock OF
burial supplies, Never, SO far as anyone
recalls, was the stock renewed, and in
only few cases were the collins used
Two or three, according TO retired
sexton interviewed yesterday, are known
TO have been committed to that lonely
metropolis on upper Merchant street
known as the potter's field. But after
that the eitys stock of collins ceased di-
minishing in the natural way and began
to disappear. Older employees at the city
building have a vague recollection of a
funebrial pile of long and shallow boxes
in the emergency room. Old timers
among the police recall the peculiar shape
of the burial cases. One who was ques-
toned remembers that coffin with a
peaked end and receding lines, such as
re reproduced in old wood cuts, seemed
pical of the collection he recalls. He is
not sure that they were piled in the
emergency room, but thinks they were in
another OF the eatacombs scattered
throughout the capacious basement.
Yet another denizen Of the peoples
house sent the investigator on a trail
leading to barn many yards distant
from the zimmerman darkness of the base
ment In tones that sounded sepulchral
he let it be known that collins in number
naad IN. ha aA in fho rov, httprr sfrr
ture known as the Bolster barn, near the
west end of Glenwood avenue in the
south end. Thare is reason to believe
that the clue was given in good faith. for
the adult population Of the neighborhood
confded almost forgotten visits to the
barn, visits which left them with shrink
ing impressions that collins intended for
little children were careessly strewn
about the floors of the musty old ark.
All sorts of furniture, it turned out, are
stored in the great barn, but the collins
are gone.
There is a measure of practical inter
est in the mystery, for collins, even the
cheaper grades, call for the long price
nowadays Every once in awhile some
one without kith or kin passes on and
the city must bury the unfortunate So
the sombrous task Of hunting collins in
the darkling corners of the city building
will not be abandoned at once, nor will it
eventually, unless there is someone who
will confess to having made of the
peaked burial boxes one urid and final
pyre that the last vestige of what many
believe to have been an unwise municipal
investment might be removed.