Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/343

Rh E M E T E R Y 331 formed in the living rock, a soft sandstone ; the ground below is planted with trees, amongst which stand hundreds of gravestones. The main approach on the north side is through a tunnel, above which, on a projecting rock, stands the cemetery chapel, built in the form of a small Doric temple with tetrastyle porticoes. Its situation, though very picturesque, is an objectionable one, for no cemetery should ever be constructed in a deep hollow. Many of the cities of America possess very fine cemeteries. One of the largest is that of Mount Auburn near Boston, which occupies upwards of 110 acres of undulating ground on the bank of the Charles River. It is formed out of an old and well-wooded estate, and consequently, unlike most modern cemeteries, its plantations consist of large well- grown trees. The chief cemetery of Paris is that of Pere la Chaise, the prototype of the garden cemeteries of Western Europe. It takes its name from the celebrated confessor of Louis XIV., to whom as rector of the Jesuits of Paris it once belonged. It was laid out as a cemetery in 1804. It has an area of about 200 acres, and contains 16,000 monuments, including those of all the great men of France of the present century marshals, generals, ministers, poets, painters, men of science and letters, actors, and musicians. Twice the cemetery and the adjacent heights have been the scene of a desperate struggle; in 1814 they were stormed by a Russian column during the attack on Paris by the allies, and in 1871 the Communists made their last stand among the tombs of Pere la Chaise; 900 of them fell in the defence of the cemetery or were shot there after its capture, and 200 of them were buried in quicklime in one huge grave, and 700 in another. There are other cemeteries at Mont Parnasse and Montmartre, besides the minor burying- grounds at Auteuil, Batignolles, Passy, La Villette, &c. In consequence of all these cemeteries being more or less crowded, a great cemetery was laid out in 1874 on the plateau of Mery sur Oise, 16 miles to the north of Paris, with which it is connected by a railway line. It includes within its circuit fully two square miles of ground. The French cemetery system differs in many respects from the English. Every city and town is required by law to provide a burial-ground beyond its barriers, properly laid out and planted, and situated if possible on a rising ground. Each interment must take place in a separate grave. This, however, does not apply to Paris, where the dead are buried, forty or fifty at a time, in the fosses communes, the poor being interred gratuitously, and a charge of 20 francs being made in all other cases. The fosse is filled and left undisturbed for five years, then all crosses and other memorials are removed, the level of the ground is raised 4 or 5 feet by fresh earth and interments begin again. For a fee of 50 francs a concession temporaire for ten years can be obtained, but where it is desired to erect a permanent monument the ground must be bought by the executors of the deceased. In Paris the undertakers trade is the mono poly of a company, the Societe des pompes fimebres, which in return for its privileges is required to give a free burial to the poor. The Leichenhauser, or dead-houses, of Frankfort and Munich form a remarkable feature of the cemeteries of these cities. The object of their founders was twofold, (1) to ob viate even the remotest danger of premature interment, and (2) to offer a respectable place for the reception of the dead, in order to remove the corpse from the confined dwellings of the survivors. At Frankfort the dead-house (fig. 2) occu pies one of the wings of the propylaeum, which forms the main entrance to the cemetery. It consists of the warder s room B, where an attendant is always on duty, on each side of which there are five rooms A, A, well ventilated, kept at an even temperature, and each provided with a bier on which a corpse can be laid. On one of the fingers is placed a ring connected by a light cord with a bell which hangs outside SECTION FIG. 2. Deadhouse, Frankfort Cemetery. in the warder s room. The use of the dead-house is voluntary. The bodies deposited there are inspected at regular intervals by a medical officer, and the warder is always on the watch for the ringing of the warning bell One revival, that of a child, has taken place at Frankfort. The Leichenhaus of Munich is situated in the southern cemetery outside the Sendling Gate. At one end of the cemetery there is a semi-circular building with an open colonnade in front and a projection behind, which contains three large rooms for the reception of the dead. At both Frankfort and Munich great care is taken that the attend ants receive the dead confided to them with respect, and no interment is permitted until the first signs of decom position appear ; the relatives then assemble in one of the halls adjoining the Leichenhaus, and the funeral takes place. In any case there is, with ordinary care, little fear of premature interment, but in another way such places of deposit for the dead are of great use in large towns, as they prevent the evil effects which result from the prolonged retention of the dead among the living. Mortuaries foi this purpose are now established in many places in England. Of the cemeteries still in use in Southern Europe the catacombs of Sicily are the most curious. There is one of these under the old Capuchin monastery of Ziza near Palermo, where in four large airy subterranean corridors 2000 corpses are ranged in niches in the wall, many of them shrunk up into the most grotesque attitudes, or hanging with pendent limbs and head from their places. As a preparation for the niche, the body is desiccated in a kind of oven, and then dressed as in life and raised into its place in the wall. At the end of the principal corridor at Ziza there is an altar strangely ornamented with a kind of mosaic of human skulls and bones. Cemeteries have been in use among many Eastern nations from time immemorial. In China, the high grounds near Canton and Macao are crowded with tombs, many of them being in the form of small tumuli, with a low encircling wall, forcibly recalling the ringed barrows of Western Europe. But the most picturesque cemeteries in the world are those of the Turks. From them it was, perhaps, that the first idea of the modern cemetery, with its ornamental plantations, was derived. Around Constantinople the cemeteries form vast tracts of cypress woods, under whose branches stand thousands of tombstones. A grave is