Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/273

Rh complexions, suggest the thoughts expressed above. Who is to judge which of these men were in the right? It is my opinion, that no more difficult problem will arise at the last judgment, than when these Mexican heroes shall put in their appearance for a final award.

In the cities the cemeteries are well cared for; marble busts and monuments mark the resting-places of famous dead, while tiers of sealed cells of masonry hold the remains of many more. But in the country it is different, and they fall into terrible neglect. In obedience to custom, that ordains that no grave can be held longer than for a certain term of years, the grave is opened, and room made for another occupant at the expiration of the time in the deed. Once dead, forgotten. After a few years their bones are dug up and thrown into a charnel pit in the corner of the cemetery, and their places occupied anew. A spectacle to move one to tears is this, of the last remains of man, of woman, and of youth treated as though but a portion of the meaner clay around them. I have seen grinning skulls, with eyeless sockets, and long tresses yet attached to them, which told that the spirit of gentle woman once resided there, cast out in the charnel pits, to become the sport of the elements and the scorn of beholders. These ghastly emblems of death are too often the ornaments of altars and niches in the churches, and they may be seen ranged in rows upon churchyard walls, and piled up at the bases of crosses and at the feet of shrines. But, little by little, Mexico is purging herself of these emblems of a moribund Church, and they will soon cease to offend the senses of the traveller in any part of the republic.

When horse-cars were first introduced into the city of Mexico, Señor E——, the manager of the lines, conceived the plan of purchasing all the hearses. Then he put funeral cars on the branch running to the cemetery, and the result was that everybody wishing to bury in consecrated ground was at his mercy. It soon, however, came to be the fashion to visit the graveyard in the horse-cars, and all except the very poorest people might avail themselves of this privilege. A funeral procession of this sort passed me one day in the Plaza, the car draped